Territory is important. History is full of bloody battles over land, regardless the size, value and quality of that land.
The vaster the better. A tiny, crowded country with hardly any solid borders like the one I live in, is a recipe for disaster. It might get swallowed up by its neighbors. Peace can help, but genuine, lasting peace in this region is hard to imagine, as the dispute is...over land. We're being accused of having robbed others of their land.
A country with a pluralistic population definitely needs a vast territory ; this will help give people the right space and distancing, and so prevent ethnical and religious conflicts between the various groups. Togetherness can sometimes be a recipe for disaster too. Luckily, most pluralistic nations do have the adequate space.
And from the general to the individual.
I once had a neighbor whose 'hobby' was to demolish parts in his apartment (and even beyond that) seeking to enlarge it; that was weird and annoying.
I discussed the matter with another neighbor and she said: 'oh, well, he's looking for the desert , he'll never have enough space compared to the vastness of the desert'.
- What do you mean?
- His ancestors lived in a place close to the Sahara desert in Morocco.
- So ?! He's second or third generation in Israel, and hasn't even seen that desert.
At this point, she threw me the famous line: 'you can take a man out of the desert, you cannot take the desert out of a man, for many generations'. 'As long as he lives, wherever he lives, he'll always try to demolish something to make way for more living space'.
That's the desert syndrome, according to her.
It sounded like a joke, but she wasn't joking.
Anyway, if you happen to be angry at someone or something (and I used to be very angry at that demolish-er), you might 'buy' even a rather strange explanation such as 'looking for the desert'.