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Note the longevity of the vision regarding Lebanon. ➡️ As early as 1918, Ben-Gurion had set the northern border of the future Jewish state at the Litani. In 1937, he declared in Zurich that a Maronite Lebanon would be a natural ally of Israel from the very first day of its establishment. The 1948 passage is therefore not a spur-of-the-moment thought: it is the reactivation of a doctrine thirty years old. ➡️ Partial realization in 1982. This project was operationalized by Begin and Sharon during the Lebanon invasion, with Bachir Gemayel as the figurehead of the allied Christian state. The failure of this alignment (Gemayel's assassination, Sabra and Chatila massacres) must not obscure the fact that the intellectual matrix traced back to Ben-Gurion himself. ➡️ The Litani as a strategic resource. The border was not chosen at random: the Litani is Lebanon's main river, whose waters represent a major hydraulic stake. Setting the southern border of a client state at this river amounts to placing these resources within Israel's sphere of influence. The final sentence reveals the conspiratorial ideological plan in the eschatological and biblical register: "We will end the war and settle our forefathers' accounts with Egypt, Assyria, and Aram." 🎯 Egypt as the enslaving power (Exodus) 🎯 Assyria as the empire that deported the ten northern tribes (722 B.C.) 🎯 Aram as the recurring enemy of the kingdom of Israel in the Books of Kings. Timeless biblical vengeance: nations are collective entities that carry the memory of millennia, and the 1948 war is read as the opportunity to settle accounts three millennia old. This is a worldview that abolishes the distinction between founding myth and concrete politics. This primary archival document invalidates several common defensive theses: 🎯 "Israel only reacted to Arab aggressions": offensive planning predates the entry of Arab armies. 🎯 "The current borders were the only ones targeted": the 1947 UN partition plan is at no point the limit of ambition. 🎯 "Expansionism is a later deviation": it is structural, documented in personal journals from the foundation itself. Ben-Gurion did not execute the entirety of this plan in 1948. But the value of the document lies precisely there: it provides access to the mental structure of the state's founder, beyond public discourse. And as shown by the events of 1967, 1978, and 1982, several of these objectives were pursued continuously by his successors. #Zichronot1948 #1948War #Nakba #Litani #MaroniteLebanon #BenGurionArchives #Pappe #MiddleEastGeopolitics #IsraelHistory #BiblicalExodus #Assyria #1982LebanonInvasion