The USA is practically empty; during my trips there, even what Americans call cities looked to me like a vast emptiness, a long series of large and quite empty parking lots. America is so empty, that Americans consider China a densely populated country. That is true along China’s coast; but take a railway trip from Shanghai to Kashgar—across the country—and most of the time only a vast desert would be seen from the windows. Israel and Palestine are populated beyond Western comprehension; I won’t cite density numbers here because that would imply recognizing Israel’s borders. The point is that there is no space left; it is so crowded, that certain cemeteries bury the dead in multi-level graves.

The Mediterranean Eastern coast from Gaza to Lebanon is home to almost ten million people, many military bases and countless, bulky civilian infrastructures. The main installations are within the Iron Triangle (“Meshulash HaBarzel” in Hebrew), a mocking reference to the area between the HaKirya, Tel Hashomer and Tzrifin IDF bases in the Tel Aviv area. These bases contain the army’s main administrative units. It is called Iron Triangle because it is jokingly said that once a soldier is posted there he—or she—is unlikely to leave it, for his eternal joy. Other prominent structures include the massive Hedera Power Station, the complex of intelligence bases which include the Mossad Headquarters at the Glilot Junction, the Ben Gurion International Airport, and at least one local airport. Desperate to create living space at its economic heart, Israel is trying to move all these facilities elsewhere.

The efforts to clear the center are not new. On June 2010, I reported in IDF on the Run, how the IDF is moving much of its intelligence and training infrastructure to the Negev. The Intelligence Corps would move to the Likit Area, east of Beer Sheva, and west of the Shoket Junction. The Military Intelligence School would be moved to the Negev Junction. Technological intelligence units (mainly the Sigint 8200 base at Glilot) would be relocated near the town of Omer. The last step includes the move of Mamram—the IDF computing unit—to a location adjacent to the Negev University in Beer Sheva. All these would be transferred by 2017. The massive complex of military bases at Tzrifin—a military area dating back to the British Mandate—would be moved to the new City of Training Bases being built south of Beersheba until 2014. Even after this radical change in the IDF deployment, there would be a lot of space controlled by the army within Israel’s largest metropolitan area.

This clog was predicted many years ago. In the early 1990s an artificial island project was proposed. It included three large islands in front of Tel Aviv—each one a kilometer long—which would double as wave-breakers and exclusive residential areas. The project was dropped due to its environmental consequences. The fact that it was civilian doomed its fate; in order for a project to succeed in Israel, it must belong to the militaristic-expansionistic type. Accordingly, in June 2012, the Cabinet—the Israeli government senior ministers’ committee—approved a feasibility study on the construction of several artificial islands in front of Israel. In contrast to the original project, these islands would contain airports, large industrial facilities, power stations, and military bases. Unsurprisingly, they would ease Israeli military control of the gas fields disputed between this country and Lebanon. It is safe to assume the islands would also be the preferred location for the inevitable desalination plants that Israel will need in the near future. With such a preamble, there is little doubt this project will move forward, changing the shape of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Marganit Building – Ministry of Defense
Built by the Dutch