Greater Israel—From the Euphrates to the Nile (Part 3)

The New Agenda of Zionism 2.0 (Part 3 of 3)

The Jewish world has been terribly shaken by the events of October 7th, 2023 and the subsequent eruption of hatred and hysterical vituperation against Israel. There are clearly mortally dangerous forces at work and the situation is serious but the Jewish people need not be overly worried. A more integrated and cohesive Israel will emerge from the current and closely approaching wars. The current war in Gaza and the entirely anticipated follow-on conflicts will unify Israel and strengthen the cooperative basis of Israel’s society and high-technology-driven economy. The wars will boost Israel’s productivity and lead to the adoption of many labor-saving innovations. Jewish entrepreneurs are already repatriating projects, ventures, and significant capital stocks to Israel that will change the growth dynamics of the future economy. Intel’s just announced commitment of $25 billion dollars to a new semiconductor FAB complex in Israel is indicative of the continuing industrial attractiveness of the country even during war. There will be no attritional losses or abandonment of her industry, but rather instead a very large inflow of capital accompanied by the immigration of some of the most talented  and enterprising people in the world. 

At the same time Israel’s military power and deterrent capacity will be greatly increased by the events of the 7th of October. Sustaining and organizing an integrated army of 500,000 soldiers is exceedingly complex, requiring the mobilization of extraordinary resources and capacities; these very same capacities will improve the efficiency and functioning of the Israeli State, and assist with a range of national Zionism 2.0 projects once the hostilities recede. October 7th will not weaken Israel; it will rather bolster the country’s cohesiveness and unity. A month of real war is equivalent to an army exercising and training for a year, increasing the country’s military preparedness and posing a formidable challenge to Israel’s enemies. The army will refresh its troops and reconfigure its tactics and strategies more optimally based on actual warfare rather than convenient scenarios, military exercises and war games. 

The larger question being essayed in this entry is how do we define the quest for Greater Israel within the framework, plans, and ambitions of Zionism 2.0 and the industrial, technological and social-intellectual agenda that is being advanced as an integral part of this program? Is thinking in territorial terms about a Greater Israel that stretches from the Euphrates to the Nile River, or some other comparable geographical configuration, a meaningful line of political and strategic thought? Does Israel require a larger geographical footprint for its security and foreseeable economic and demographic growth? Is territorial expansion a viable option in the post-WW2 security and political framework? Do modern states want land and the inconvenient often indigent ‘native’ people that inhabit this land? Is a larger national landmass meaningful when one has the limitless frontiers of outer space beckoning and now within technological reach? And what about the unparalleled opportunities afforded by ‘colonizing’ the uncrowded and vast realms of the micro and nano scale. World-making and imperial empire building has to no small extent become a ‘computational’ science. 

Furthermore, how could Israel realistically acquire lands to her north or east or reconquer the Sinai Desert when facing an international framework that works within the inviolable terms of the United Nations’ rules-based world order, a world order that revolves around the sanctity of the sovereign state concept? This concept has at its core the illegality of trespassing or waging any kind of war of conquest against another state, and just as critically provides the cudgel which is being used to bash Israel day in day out; namely the binding and war-limiting clutch of inalienable human rights laws that all countries must abide. This all-important framework provided the solid, irrefutable basis for Israel’s recognition and founding in 1948. One cannot repudiate or even challenge, reciprocal justice would dictate, the very order that gave rise to Israel and its place amongst the nations in the first place.   

The reply to these arguments and points is that the uniqueness and exigency of Israel’s immediate geopolitical situation, and the threats and wars she is facing on all sides, makes the concept of a Greater Israel, an entirely functional and viable strategic and political possibility nonetheless. In fact, I would say that the events of October 7, 2023, have reignited and re-enlivened the Greater Israel concept and set Israel back (or forwards) on this track. Israel’s defensibility and border protection has been found woefully wanting. Israel requires much greater strategic depth. This depth is necessary to provide “error correction,” “fault tolerance,” and “redundancy”, to use a number of information economy appropriate metaphors, in the lethal new digital/physical battle spaces. Nation states cannot simply afford to have “one life” in the cybersphere of modern war. 

Zionism 2.0 is being conceptualized within a world system that is becoming increasingly complex. This world system will see the global population reach  a staggering 10.4 billion people by 2100 up from just 1 billion in 1800! In the ‘real’ world, numbers matter.  Demography is indeed destiny.

The Middle East is set to become one of the most populous areas in the world. At the same time, the area’s resources will be amongst the most stressed and threatened, particularly with regard to life-giving fresh water resources, agricultural food output and access to energy supplies. The constraints on food and water will create an existential threat for the region’s peoples and countries. Egypt’s population will reach a staggering 205 million by 2100, which will be larger than the combined populations of Iran and Turkey. Egypt’s population will, in fact, exceed the population of either Russia or Japan by 2050. Egypt is essentially adding almost the population of Gaza every year to its total. The current rate of Egypt’s growth could very well lead to a malthusian catastrophe,  massive strife and social and economic collapse. Huge waves of immigrants could flood into Israel, neighboring countries and Europe in the event of a crisis. 

Jordan’s population is expected to reach 18 million by 2100, and Iraq is expected to have a population of 74 million, exceeding that of Iran, whose population is predicted to decline. Both countries, Jordan and Iraq will, as demographic pressures mount, become increasingly unstable; these two countries may very well fuse into a single political entity with a population of 100 million people; individually or jointly, Iraq and Jordan will pose an unparalleled danger to Israel’s vulnerable and weak eastern flank. This weakness will require an entirely rethought security and defensive architecture. Yemen is also expected to add greatly to its population, reaching 74 million in 2100, as will Saudi Arabia whose population is expected to reach a more manageable 45 million. 

An Israeli -Saudi alliance, if it can be achieved, could pave the way towards establishing a formidable and a large shared trade and economic structure.  Syria’s population is expected at the same time to increase from the war-reduced figure of 22 million currently, to as much as 43 million in the same 2100 hundred timeframe. Areas within Syria, particularly the areas to the immediate north of the Golan, could very well end up after a series of foreseeable wars being surrendered to a ‘greater’ Israel.  Many factors seemingly point in this direction. Lebanon is the only country, apart from Iran, whose population is expected to decline. Her population is currently 5.2 million with some projections suggesting that it might fall to as low as 2 million in 2050. This is an astonishing drop in a region that has exploding populations. Given Lebanon’s current bond default, banking crisis, and other serious economic and political issues,  Lebanese state collapse is not only not impossible but increasingly likely. It is not an unreasonable assumption, that a bankrupt Lebanon. after the coming War (or Wars) between Israel and Hezbollah, could be entirely captured by Israel economically and even politically. The Lebanese coast between Tripoli and Ashdod could very well become by 2075 one enormously wealthy single integrated conurbation under some kind of quasi autonomous Israeli dominated  political structure. Iran, long one of Israel’s most formidable foes, is expected to face a declining and aging population, with some estimates seeing its population decrease to 40 million in 2100 from a predicted 80 million in 2050. This Iranian demographic decline augurs well for Israel’s long-term strategic situation with regard to her most formidable foe. It is crucial, with demography and other factors working in Israel’s favor that Iran’s atomic program, in the very near future, is entirely destroyed and rendered inoperable and unrecoverable through whatever and all means necessary. The window here, as everyone knows, is short and absolutely crucial and on which Israel’s very survival depends.  With the atomic curtain pulled away, it is quite likely that the mullahs will be exposed for what they are and that a regime less hostile, and possibly well disposed and congenial to Israel may arise. 

Israel’s relationship vis-a-vis the Sinai Desert is another very important piece of the Greater Israel puzzle that needs to be considered in light of these projections and other salient factors. The Sinai is absolutely crucial to Israel’s future, in every conceivable sense. It is far too valuable, vital and strategic to Israel’s future to be left dormant and undeveloped.

Located at the centre of three continents, and forming a land bridge between Africa and Euro-Asia, the Sinai has always mediated a crucial evolutionary role. Our very origins as a species may have begun in the Sinai. It is not coincidental that Moses delivered the decalogue on Mount Sinai.  And it may be that the Sinai is fated to play an equally significant role in the next stage of our planetary evolution and in the future development of our Civilization. To Israel the value of the Sinai is incomparable: defensively, economically, materially, and historically. The Sinai could be said in some sense to be the keystone or the capstone of the world’s entire terrestrial continental land mass. It is certainly one of the most clearly visible and iconic land masses that every astronaut can identify from outer space  and that astronauts look down on in wonder; it is almost as if the Sinai is waiting for some grand purpose to occupy its largely desolate vastness.  Indeed, I believe that the Sinai is crucial for humankind’s next crucial steps, and for a Zionism 2.0 project of great grandeur and breath.

The project envisioned for the Sinai involves building the world’s largest global space and staging facility. This space centre would be conjoined with an additional project of unprecedented scale and engineering complexity, namely the construction of a space elevator. The space elevator, which we have dubbed ‘Heaven’s Lift’ would be able to transport people and cargo to a geostationary space complex at a fraction of the existing cost and with much greater reliability and safety. The technology to build such an elevator is within reach.  Building such a “space elevator’ would represent one of the most daunting engineering projects ever undertaken- a 21st century “Suez Canal”. The ‘space elevator’, would need to be positioned equatorially, potentially in  Somalia or Kenya. Such a facility would open up the entire solar system for ‘business’, utterly altering the World’s economic parameters. The project could act not only as a unifying project for the Middle East and her multitudinous populations but for the entire planet and our global civilization. This is an important Zionism 2.0 proposal that will be considered and explored across a number of upcoming blog posts.  We are also planning a conference that will bring interested parties together to examine its many aspects.

Amidst these exploding populations, Israel’s population is expected to reach approximately 15 million people by 2048, marking Israel’s 100th year anniversary. Israel’s population will reach 20 million by 2075 and 25 million by 2100 if current predictions hold true. We predict, and it is a working premise of Zionism 2.0, that Israel by 2048 will be one of the world’s most advanced technological states, with a GNP of $1.5 to $2 trillion dollars. These population figures are based on maintaining the current rate of demographic increase, and an optimistic but achievable rate of economic growth of 4-6% compounded annually, resulting in a doubling factor of between twelve to eighteen years. We expect that by 2048, Israel will have one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. Zionism 2.0 is about establishing the foundation for a new emerging civilization centered and based in Israel, propelled by Israel’s culture, language and gifted people. This civilizational transformation will require a revolution in the use of materials, tools, energy, agriculture, money, transportation, education, and our overall relationship to nature and the larger world and solar system around us. I see this emerging civilization giving rise to a new social, cultural, literary and religious efflorescence which will enrich the whole world. 

Zionism 2.0 seeks to alter and transform the existing material and economic basis of the world, and through these efforts give rise to a new global structure or civilization if you may. How will this new civilization be developed? It will be done by developing one of the most ambitious technological and scientifically driven research and development programs in human history. It will be done perforce by the seeding, launching, and promoting of millions of high-technology startups and firms around the world. It will be accomplished by developing new atomic and molecular materials, new manufacturing technologies based on three dimensional and volumetric fabrication, and new decentralized financial modalities and monetary regimes that will allow one’s work and savings to be safeguarded and held proof to all forms of subversion and governmental expropriation and depreciation. It will require new forms of inexpensive energy based on photovoltaics and clean nuclear fusion processes; and the development of new medicines and pharmaceuticals and by pioneering life-altering regenerative organ construction and replacement. It will be accomplished by developing breakthrough means for extending the human lifespan and thereby vastly increasing the world’s reservoir of ‘human capital’ and creative potential. It will also entail developing entirely new engineering disciplines that will leverage Moore’s Law into the realm of materials. Finally, it will be accomplished by developing world-scale, global projects in the areas of space exploration, the aforementioned “space elevator” ,medicine and health, and intensive agriculture deploying all the powers of genetic engineering, thereby sparking a new green revolution. It will be accomplished, importantly, by making the ancient Hebrew language the ‘Lingua Franca of Medicine’ (see relevant earlier posts), and it will demand nothing less than the building of a new generation of global economic and social institutions.

The aim of Zionism 2.0 involves nothing less than catapulting Israel to the front ranks of the world’s nations, par none. Israel will accomplish this vaunted and ambitious goal by galvanizing the world’s populations and by recognizing that the world’s greatest wealth lies in the talents and abilities of its billions of people, who all desire the same goods: security, food, income and physical and spiritual sustenance.

Tremendously complex problems will have to be solved to allow humankind to transition through the vast discovery and survival ‘canyons’ that we face. Israel, with the assistance of the ingathering of her exiles and children, will solve these problems and in so doing carry much of the local region and the world on her back with resolution, determination and unflagging energy. 

Greater Israel–from the River to the River. 

“If you will it,
It is not a dream”

Theodore Herzl

*This posting is dedicated to the memory of Shani Nicole Louk who was dancing innocently in the zodiacal morning light of October 7th, 2023 at the Supernova Festival when she was kidnapped and had her life cruelly stolen. May she not be forgotten and let her memory be a blessing. Rest peacefully in the arms of the Almighty.