The 1937 Peel Commission partition plan was accepted by Ben-Gurion as a "first step," while he privately wrote: "After we become a strong force, we will abolish partition and expand into the whole Land of Israel." from a July 1937 letter to his son, Amos. The full passage, in its original Hebrew, is longer and has several translations, but a widely accepted English paraphrase from historian Benny Morris in Righteous Victims (1999), p. 138, includes: > "A Jewish state in part of Palestine is not the end but the beginning… I am certain we will not be prevented from settling in the other parts of the country and the region... We shall expand to the whole country in the course of time… The state will only be a stage in the realization of Zionism and its task is to prepare the ground for our expansion into the whole of Palestine." Ben-Gurion also said (in a 1937 Mapai party meeting, per Morris): > "We accept the partition in principle, but the boundaries must be drawn by us... Partition will not be the end, but the beginning."
How Group Narcissism Can Become Genocidal 1. Inflated sense of historic grievance – "We have suffered more than others." – "The world owes us safety, respect, even deference." 2. Victimhood turned inward and outward – Inward: trauma mythologized into identity. – Outward: any opposition becomes existential threat. 3. Boundary obsession – Others are a contamination. – Purity, legacy, or divine mission must be protected—even if violently. 4. Ends-justify-means thinking – "We’ve survived this long—we must do what it takes." – "They would destroy us if they could, so better we do it first." 5. A historical 'mandate' – Whether divine (chosenness, dharma) or civilizational (we're the last bulwark), this gives a moral green light to horrific acts. Examples Across History Nazi Germany: Aryan group narcissism fueled by humiliation post-WWI; Jews became the contamination threatening national renewal. Modern Zionist: Jewish trauma and survival turned into an absolutist claim to land, with Palestinian presence reframed as existential danger. Serbian nationalism in the 1990s: Orthodox Christian victimhood myth used to justify ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Croats. Rwandan genocide: Hutu propaganda stoked fear of Tutsi dominance by invoking past injuries. The irony (for narcissists that's a lot like tinny but heavier). The very mechanisms that help groups endure under persecution, myth, grievance, boundary maintenance, can become the fuel for committing the same atrocities they once suffered.
A friend told me about a talk she went to in London and I just found it by chance. I find interesting mentioning something backed by my experience meeting and having long chats with at least three Israelis in the early 2000s who were on their 30s. They expressed a sentiment that they didn't hang around with the younger, post military service, groups saying to the effect they "were raised under a different system".