But Mr Bennett's discourse has won over thousands of right-wing voters who believe in a "greater Israel".
Settler leaders and hardline members of Mr Netanyahu's coalition say this would be the beginning of the end of their dream of Greater Israel.
ECONOMIST: A few glimmers of hope amid the bickering and point-scoring
Some of the Israeli hardliners who cannot reconcile themselves to ceding tracts of Greater Israel take a fairly pragmatic view of the Golan Heights.
Members of the Greater Israel ginger group in the Knesset demonstratively took a helicopter trip over the areas they intend to deter the prime minister from ceding.
At the same time, non-Jewish citizens would make up a powerful swing vote if other Israelis were divided and would ultimately constitute an outright majority in the new Greater Israel.
An old-style democrat, he is also a hardliner who argues for a Greater Israel that would embrace the whole of Palestine, with the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza given full citizenship of Israel.
Mr. Sharon was determined to break the deadlock, withdraw from Gaza, remove settlements -- and confront his former allies on Israel's right by abandoning the "Greater Israel" position to endorse Palestinian statehood and limits on settlement growth.
And Benny Begin, also once a minister under Mr Netanyahu, has proclaimed a new party of the right, loyal to the Likud's now-compromised belief in Greater Israel, with himself as its leader and candidate for prime minister.
The danger for the Palestinians is that the Gaza pull-out and the vague talk of a land swap turn out to be a cover for Mr Sharon to concentrate on what they suspect is his longer-term strategy: to use the barrier wall to incorporate big chunks of the West Bank into a Greater Israel.
Quitting Gaza, the Palestinians fear, will simply give him diplomatic cover, and free resources he can concentrate on his longer-term strategy, which they claim is to use the security wall to carve out a Greater Israel on large chunks of the West Bank, the bit of occupied territory Israel really cares about and where there are settlers in their hundreds of thousands, not just thousands.
Access to venture capital is, per capita, 20-fold greater in Israel than in the rest of Europe.
There is no greater threat to Israel or to the peace and stability of the region than Iran.
Mr Obama's greater sternness towards Israel is for the general good including Israel's.
This time, he says, there is greater sympathy for Israel since Hezbollah sparked the fighting with a cross-border raid, killing eight Israeli soldiers and capturing two others.
Because of the war in Iraq, Iran which always posed a greater threat to Israel than Iraq is emboldened and poses the greatest strategic challenge to the United States and Israel in the Middle East in a generation.
This was understandable, considering America's invasion of neighbouring Iraq, the bellicose tone of Mr Bush's administration, the sudden upsurge of anti-Syrian nationalism in Lebanon that chased Syria's long-ensconced supporters out of power in a country seen in Damascus as its backyard, and the far greater firepower of Israel, whose occupation of the Golan Heights has been a humiliating thorn in Syria's side since 1967.
But there is no greater tension, no greater division than over Israel and the Palestinians.
He also called for an end to Palestinian incitement against Israel and greater security in Palestinian territories.
His failure to bear in mind the first law of strategy places Israel in greater and greater peril with each passing day.
"This provides Israel with greater operational flexibility, since we now have another set of eyes on a target, " Chaim Eshed, the director of Israel's military space programme, told The Jerusalem Post.
There are a number of alternative policies that Israel could advance that would have a greater possibility of realizing a just and durable peace between Israel and its neighbors, increasing the stability of Israeli society, strengthening the Hashemite regime and weakening terror-supporting regimes like Iran and Syria while defeating their terror clients in the West Bank and Gaza.
The more potential trouble-makers the Syrians have under their thumbs, the greater will be their leverage over Israel.
President Obama said he had reassured Mr Peres "that in this work Israel will have no greater friend than the United States".
BBC: Obama vows Israeli friendship on first visit as president
Since the flotilla raid, Israel has allowed a greater amount of goods to enter Gaza, but it still maintains a complete blockade of the airspace and territorial waters and has limited most exports.
On the face of it, given that today the potential for blowback in supporting Saudi Arabia is far higher and eminently more foreseeable than it was 25 years ago, it should seem clear that in assessing its strategic assets and interests in the region, the US would place far greater weight on its alliance with Israel.
The longer the onslaught continues, the greater the international pressure will be for Israel to halt its operations.
Moreover, Hamas's rocket capabilities could easily be substantially enhanced to provide greater range and payload to strike throughout Israel, creating a two-front challenge.
They have no reason to fear being embarrassed when and if Iran emerges as a nuclear power, because their constituents view Israel as threat equal to or greater than Iran.
The prospect of the UN vote in September is a cloud on the horizon: Israelis know it could lead to greater ostracism, but Mr Netanyahu seems confident Israel can weather it.
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