The fantasy of Greater Israel is becoming a regional nightmare
The fantasy of Greater Israel is becoming a regional nightmare
In late 2024, a small group of radical Israeli settlers briefly crossed into Lebanon and established an outpost. The group was led by the Uri Tzafon Movement, a religious Zionist organisation that has staged events demanding the Jewish settlement of southern Lebanon.
This vision is shared by the Nachala settler movement. A video on its website presents a pioneering spirit of Jews building, developing and settling the West Bank. Backed by Daniella Weiss, the godmother of the Zionist colonisation project, Nachala also advocates Jewish settlement in Gaza, Lebanon and beyond.
"Jewish settlement is the only thing that will bring about regional stability and security for the State of Israel, along with a stable economy, national resilience, and deterrence," a Facebook post in December 2024 declared.
"In Gaza, in Lebanon, in the entire Golan Heights, including the 'Syrian Plateau', and in the entire Mount Hermon," it continued.
The post included a biblical map titled "Abraham's Borders", featuring Israel, all of Lebanon and most of Syria and Iraq. On its website, Nachala explains that its aim is "encouraging and helping the government to carry out an official plan of [Israeli] Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, which laid the foundations for 2 million Jews to settle in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]".
Arguably, there are not enough Jews in the world willing to live in the occupied West Bank, raising the possibility of more liberal entry requirements - perhaps allowing evangelical Christians and Jewish converts.
Dangerous delusions
If reading these delusions makes you laugh at the sheer audacity of a fundamentalist ideology committed to ethnically cleansing Palestinians and Arabs from vast swathes of the Middle East, you have not been paying attention.
The Arab League response was incredibly weak to a policy that directly threatens countless Arab nations, yet unsurprising, given their feeble reaction to Israel's genocide in Gaza
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently told an Israeli media outlet that he was on a "historic and spiritual mission". Asked if he supported the Greater Israel project, he replied: "Very much."
The response from Arab nations was almost immediate. A coalition of 31 Arab and Islamic countries and the Arab League issued a statement condemning Netanyahu's remarks as "a grave disregard for, and a blatant and dangerous violation of, the rules of international law and the foundations of stable international relations".
It was an incredibly weak response to a policy that directly threatens countless Arab nations. Yet it was unsurprising, given the Arab elite's feeble reaction to Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Arab states accounted for 12 percent of Israeli arms sales in 2024. None of Israel's Arab partners has cut ties since 7 October, preferring to issue increasingly belligerent statements rather than take tangible action.
Follow Middle East Eye's live coverage of Israel's genocide in Gaza
Earlier this month, the United Arab Emirates warned Israel that annexing the West Bank would cross a "red line" and undermine the Abraham Accords. Such a move would make "regional integration" extremely challenging, according to the US-backed regime.
"I have news for the UAE," tweeted Mairav Zonszein from the Crisis Group. "Israel is already annexing the West Bank and has little interest in formal declaration. Absent serious and immediate action by the world, formal declaration will be just that - a stamp on reality."
Zionist empire
Israel today stands as the most dominant military power in the Middle East, unmatched by any regional actor, and backed and armed by the Trump administration. Every Arab dictator knows and fears this, wary of both domestic revolt and Israeli meddling.
Even after Israel's recent illegal strike against Hamas in Qatar, it's hard to see the Arab autocracies doing more than huffing and puffing. Will they cut ties with Washington and Tel Aviv or stop buying their offensive weapons?
But this military superiority has achieved little in Gaza beyond mass destruction and death. An Israeli army report recently admitted Israel had made "every possible mistake" in its Gaza offensive since May.
Such incompetence is typical of western militaries that believe occupying foreign lands will bring thanks from a besieged population or outright victory. Think Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Israel is learning that the quicksands of Gaza will swallow it whole because its strategy is nothing more than destroying all forms of life.
It would be foolish to dismiss the danger of the Greater Israel ideology to the region, given Israeli belligerence, a western-armed and backed military and the absence of any state on earth that seems willing or able to oppose it.
What would really stop Netanyahu, or any future Israeli leader, from building settlements in Lebanon or Syria, or pursuing military adventures in Iraq and Egypt?
Beyond a stretched Israeli military - already fraying under a surge in soldier suicides, exhaustion and moral decay - a settler military, highly active in the West Bank, poses an existential threat to Arab borders drawn a century ago by imperial powers.
Israel has never been content to decide its own borders, and now openly threatens the region. Perhaps there is hubris, even showmanship, in Israel's desire to expand the state into a Zionist empire.
But ignoring this ambition is folly when Israel believes that its main military opponents, Hezbollah and Iran, have been neutered.
Much of the western media still frames Iran, which undeniably has a dismal record of human rights abuses, as the Middle East’s leading menace. Yet it is Israel’s expansionist project, fuelled by a surging religious extremist population, that threatens peoples far beyond the Palestinians.
Listen to the warning signs: Zionist theocracy is on the march.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
