Hitler called it "Lebensraum"

Israel is the only nation on Earth who can take land from its neighbor when it gets the urge to expand. No one else is allowed.

President Obama sees this, and on a world stage in Cairo, said to Israel: “No more settlements.” But already, the forces of irrationality are gathering against him. Friends of Israel in the U.S. House and Senate are saying, “The president has gone too far. He is asking too much of Israel.” One Israeli organization, Yesha Council, a settler lobby group, accuses the Obama administration of “political terrorism”. Others in Israel accuse Obama of seeking to overthrow the Netanyahu government. Are they all mad?

Nothing is so important to a man as his land—nothing except his family, itself, which without land, has no future. In the wild, animals stake out territory. Without territory, they know they cannot survive. When others intrude into that territory, they fight. It is a fight for survival.

So, how irrational is it to tell the Palestinians to, “be nice” while the Israelis steadily and systemically chip away at their small parcel of land? They are forbidden to fight back—which they must—and when they do, they are called “militants” and “Islamic extremists.”

Each one of us in America knows that if his neighbor decided that his yard was not big enough for his growing family and so began to extend his property into the neighbor’s yard, that neighbor would fight. That is the “nuts and bolts” of the settlement issue: Men taking the land of other men.

During Hitler’s rise to power, he called the German need to expand “Lebensraum” or living space. The Israelis call it “natural growth,” which is the exact same thing.