as a justification to commit war crimes and ethnic cleansing, with some of the most radical openly calling for genocidal actions if need be.
Inside Israel's expansionist ambitions
Israel has never officially defined its borders, but Israeli settlers and ministers are flirting with the biblical idea of extending them far beyond the current state. What's behind the concept of "Greater Israel"?
https://www.dw.com/en/from-the-nile-to-the-euphrates-inside-israels-expansionist-ambitions/a-76711994
April 10, 2026
Israeli PM Netanyahu presents a map of "The New Middle East" in which the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the Golan heights are part of Israel at the UN General Assembly in September 2023Image: Richard Drew/AP Photo/picture alliance
Daniela Weiss holds a laminated map of the Middle East with the title "The Promised Land" into the camera and says: "This is the promise of God to the patriarchs of the Jewish nation." The map shows a Jewish state that encompasses parts of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia – extending way beyond the 1949 armistice line, the so-called Green Line that defines Israel's territory according to international law. "It's 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) – almost as big as the Sahara desert," Weiss adds. Weiss – sometimes nicknamed "the godmother of the Israeli settler movement" – is referring to the idea of "Greater Israel", or in Hebrew "Eretz Israel HaShlema" – "Complete Israel." It's an expansionist concept popular among the Israeli far right that originates in the Bible.
Settler leader Daniela Weiss at a right-wing rally near the Gaza Strip in July 2025Image: Menahem Kahana/AFP
"For the proponents of the settlement policy like Bezalel Smotrich, the current finance minister, or Itamar Ben Gvir, the national security minister, it's not about making Israel greater than it actually should be," Gil Shohat, a historian and director of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Tel Aviv, tells DW. "It's about completing the job. This means that the claim to the whole of historical Palestine or 'Eretz Israel', as they frame it, is a divine promise," he adds.
Some Israelis interpret "Complete" or "Greater Israel" to include the territory Israel seized in 1967: The Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) — the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza — as well as the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights in Syria and the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt that Israel returned decades ago. Others aim for the entire area promised in the Bible, stretching from the Egyptian Nile River to the Euphrates River, which flows through Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Weiss' words are from a 2014 interview with Australian channel ABC News, but her ideas have only gained traction in Israeli politics since, as Israel continues its multi-front war across the Middle East.
'Greater Israel' in current politics
In March 2023, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich caused diplomatic turmoil when he spoke at a Paris memorial behind a podium featuring a "Greater Israel" map that included not only the territories Israel currently occupies but also Jordan. A year later, he told the German-French channel ARTE that "the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus," referring to the Syrian capital. In September 2024, when speaking about his plans for "the day after" the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a map that fully annexed the West Bank. In August 2025, he told the Israeli channel i24NEWS that he was "very much" connected to the vision of "Greater Israel," prompting Egypt and Jordan to demand clarifications from Israel. And just a few months ago, in February 2026, the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, told American talkshow host Tucker Carlson that it would be "fine" if Israel took over the entire Middle East.
The origins of 'Greater Israel'.......
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Israeli Minister Announces ‘Border Expansion’ in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria
The 'Greater Israel' project.
https://novaramedia.com/2026/04/10/israeli-minister-announces-border-expansion-in-palestine-lebanon-and-syria/
An Israeli minister has announced his government’s plan to expand the country’s borders into Syria, Lebanon and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Finance minister and Religious Zionist party leader Bezalel Smotrich gave a speech at the inauguration ceremony of a new illegal West Bank settlement on 9 April, where he said “there will be a final political leg” to the military actions of the war. This “final leg” includes expanding Israel to encompass parts of Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza, Smotrich said. The comments were interpreted as a reference to the ‘Greater Israel’ project, which is based on a biblical idea that Israel should cover a much greater area than it currently does.
“We have a strong military arm with significant achievements, alongside a decisive political phase in Judea and Samaria that rejects the idea of dividing the land and establishing a terror state in the heart of the country,” Smotrich said, according to the Israel National News. “There will be a political component that completes the outcome in Gaza, one that expands our borders. There will be a political component in Lebanon that will extend our borders to the Litani River within defensible lines. There will also be a political dimension in Syria, at Mount Hermon and at least within the buffer zone.”
Judea and Samaria is what the Israeli government calls the occupied West Bank. ‘Greater Israel’ is an expansionist Zionist project based on Genesis 15:18-21– in which God promises Abraham’s descendants the land between the Nile in Egypt and the Euphrates in Syria. A more extreme interpretation of the Greater Israel project is popular with far-right elements of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, including Smotrich – who has previously said “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people” – and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has called for the full occupation of Gaza.
The ceremony on Thursday was attended by ministers Yariv Levin, Eli Cohen, Shlomo Kari, Amichai Shikli and Knesset speaker Amir Ohana. Smotrich also bragged that the new Maoz Tzur settlement is one of “thirty communities in Binyamin alone” that have been “advanced since this government took office”. Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law. He added: “What is remarkable is that they do not remain on paper or in cabinet decisions; through full partnership, they become roads, temporary housing, permanent homes, families and children.”
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Smotrich says there’s no Palestinian people, declares his family ‘real Palestinians’
In Paris, far-right minister says Palestinian nation is 'an invention of past 100 years,' and 'world should hear this truth'; speaks in front of Israel map that includes Jordan
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.timesofisrael.com/far-right-lawmaker-bezalel-smotrich-declares-himself-his-family-real-palestinians/amp/
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich speaks in Paris on March 19, 2023. (Ynet screenshot; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
Far-right lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich said Sunday that the Palestinian people were “an invention” from the last century and that people like himself and his grandparents were the “real Palestinians.”
Speaking in Paris at a private memorial service for prominent right-wing Likud activist and Jewish Agency board member Jacques Kupfer, who passed away after a long battle with cancer in 2021, Smotrich said there was “no such thing as Palestinians because there’s no such thing as the Palestinian people,” a comment that was met with applause and cheers from attendees, as seen in a video from the event posted online.
"Do you know who are the Palestinians?” asked the head of the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party and Israel’s finance minister. “I’m Palestinian,” he said, also mentioning his grandmother who was born in the northern Israeli town of Metula 100 years ago, and his grandfather, a 13th-generation Jerusalemite, as the “real Palestinians.”
Smotrich was speaking from a podium that featured a map of “Greater Israel” that included the territory of modern-day Jordan, in accordance with hardline aspirations by some early Zionist groups. Smotrich has a history of making inflammatory statements against Palestinians, Arab citizens of Israel, non-Orthodox Jews, and the LGBTQ community including once declaring himself a “proud homophobe.” In 2021, he said David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, should have “finished the job” and kicked all Arabs out of the country when it was founded. Earlier that same year, he said members of Israel’s Arab minority communities were citizens “for now at least.”
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