Allahkaram Moshtaghi, Iranian diplomat
The concept of "Greater Israel" is currently more than just a mere religious belief and an ideological aspiration in the election campaigns of "Ultra Zionists"; in practice, it has transformed into a geopolitical project. The expansionist, occupier, and racist nature of this idea, which targets the security, sovereignty, and regional structure of the Arab world and Islamic societies, is such that if its dimensions are thoroughly explored and explained, it could play a significant role in introducing the true nature of Zionism and the conspiracy of Western civilization against the future of the region and the Islamic world. For this reason, the leaders of the Zionist regime attempt to substitute this concept with legal, quasi-security, and populist phrases, including "New Regional Order," "New Middle East," "Normalization," and similar terms.
1. Historical Context of the creation of the Greater Israel idea in the contemporary era
The initial concept of Greater Israel has been discussed in Zionist literature and certain ideologies since the beginning of the twentieth century, and it took on a practical nature following the occupation of Palestine. Prior to that, terms like The Promised Land, Eretz Yisrael, and The Holy Land were used. In other words, the concept of Greater Israel is not a simple internal religious distortion but a contemporary, political fabrication with an aggressive nature, capable of taking on various religious, Zionist, legal, security, and even development-oriented guises in different situations. Following the Six-Day War in 1967, when the Zionist regime managed to occupy parts of Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon in addition to the West Bank and Gaza, religious Zionist and right-wing movements began to use the term "Greater Israel" to justify retaining these areas. This concept later transformed into the ideology of groups like the Gush Emunim movement, which viewed the regime's victories in the 1967 war as a divine sign for the complete return of Jews to the Promised Land. Over time, this merged with the political ideology of right-wing parties like the Likud. Although Gush Emunim dissolved in the 1980s, it became an inspiration and intellectual support base for some of the most extremist and violent Jewish movements. In the last two decades, its ideological legacy and social network have continued in the form of the "Religious Zionism" movement and the regime's present-day far-right parties, such as the "Religious Zionism" party, "Jewish Power", "Noam", "United Torah Judaism", and other similar parties.
Currently, the issue of "settlement building" is one of the sub-concepts and the beating heart of the "Greater Israel" project. For Zionists, it holds a nature that is existential, symbolic, and ideological, more than merely technical. In other words, the settlements that have been implemented over the past decades are not just a project for housing new immigrants in the occupied territories, but rather a code/symbol to prevent the flame of the Greater Israel project from being extinguished. Despite this, up until Al-Aqsa Flood operation and the explicit declaration by the Prime Minister of the Zionist regime regarding Tel Aviv's belief in implementing "Greater Israel," the leaders of Arab countries regarded settlement construction as part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and few Arab states considered it a threat to themselves.
2. Jordan: From an alternative homeland to the middle link in the Greater Israel project
In the eyes of the early occupiers of Palestinian lands, Jordan was seen as a suitable site for settling Palestinian refugees – or more bluntly, the best place for “population cleansing and the final solution to the Palestinian issue." Control over water resources, economic influence, and security pressure in the Jordan Valley have served as tools to facilitate Israel's broader influence. Zionist control over Jordan would complete the central link in forming a network of geopolitical influence that facilitates the expansion of Greater Israel. Although the 1994 peace treaty between Tel Aviv and Amman remains in effect, in the Zionist view, the Jordan River is a temporary border. Citing certain Talmudic texts and interpretations by Rabbi Abraham Kook and his students, the eastern side of Jordan – which includes the ancient regions of Edom, Moab, and Ammon – is considered to be within the boundaries of the Promised Land to the Children of Israel and must one day be returned to Israel.
3. Egypt: The Waters of the Nile Turning the Millstones of Tel Aviv
For many years, Egypt was regarded as the greatest military threat to Tel Aviv, and Cairo emerged as the standard-bearer in all four major wars with the Zionists. Until the mid-1970s, it was considered the leader of the anti-Israeli Arab Front. Moreover, in the Arab world, Egypt was viewed as one of the pillars of Arab nationalism and the anti-colonial, awakening ideas of its thinkers were viewed as a potential threat by the Zionists. Although the Camp David Accords in 1978 nominally returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, the overt and covert interactions among Cairo, Washington, and Tel Aviv gradually weakened Egypt strategically or aligned it with certain Israeli interests. Israel continues to view the Sinai Peninsula with security concerns and geopolitical greed.
For decades, the United States and Israel have sought to keep Egypt economically and militarily weak and subservient to the West so that it can never return to its golden age as an independent and anti-Zionist player. Zionist leaders are well aware of Egyptian public sentiment toward Israel: many Egyptians believe Israel still carries a colonial and anti-Arab spirit, and that peace was merely imposed by the United States. In other words, peace with Israel exists only in government palaces, not in the public conscience. Former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi has stated, “Egypt has a large army, and that worries us; with advanced jets, submarines, and missiles, the situation can change in a moment.” This statement stems from the Zionists' historical fear of Egypt. This is the same Egypt whose symbol of dynamism, growth, and antiquity – the Nile River – the Israelis now consider a side of the “Greater Israel” plan, and they have no qualms about including Egypt on the maps they publish and those inscribed on their soldiers' uniforms.
4. Syria: From the Cradle of Resistance to the target of Zionist ambition – Syria’s place in the dream of Greater Israel
Alongside Egypt, Syria has been one of the two major birthplaces of Pan-Arab thought and anti-Zionist nationalism. Damascus – especially after Assad’s rise to power – saw itself as the defender of the Palestinian cause and the continuer of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s path. Syria actively fought against Israel in the wars of 1948, 1967, and 1973, and unlike the Egyptians, it refused to compromise with Tel Aviv, even at the cost of reclaiming its own occupied lands in the Golan.
In the decades that followed, by deepening its ties with Iran and hosting resistance groups, Syria became the "Cradle of Resistance." In response, the Zionists consistently sought to isolate Syria and detach it from the Axis of Resistance by means of military pressure, Western sanctions, and exploiting the country’s civil war. For Israel, Syria has not been merely a border enemy, but the intellectual and operational center of the idea of resistance. For this reason, it has pursued policies aimed at exhausting, fragmenting, and hollowing out the country from within. Thus, even after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, not only did Israel not halt its attacks on Syrian infrastructure, but it also continued its occupying policies consistent with the fragmentation of Syria and its incorporation into the “Greater Israel” project. Although the Zionist regime unilaterally approved the annexation of the Golan Heights to its occupied territories in 1981 and considers preventing its return to Syria one of its strategic goals, developments over the past year have proven that Israel's covetousness for Syria will not be limited to the Golan. A weakened, crisis-ridden, and fragmented Syria could become one of Israel’s trump cards for operationalizing the Greater Israel project.
5. The New Middle East and “Greater Israel”: Two sides of the same coin
Terms like “New Middle East” and “Normalization” seemingly promise cooperation and development, but experience has shown that these titles are merely a decorated cover for preparing the geographical and political horizons whose practical translation is "Greater Israel." The ultimate goal of this project is not only the resistance actors but also the political, economic, and cultural independence of the Arab and Islamic world, and ultimately its destruction and fragmentation. The consequences of this process will extend far beyond Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan, leading to the redrawing of borders, the redefinition of resource ownership, and the establishment of a regional order favorable to the West. The US and the West have repeatedly attempted to operationalize their geostrategic visions in West Asia by changing the region's security structure, but they have failed each time, and their actions have resulted in the strengthening of the Axis of Resistance. This includes the US military invasion of the region under the pretext of 9/11, the exploitation of the Islamic Awakening between 2011 and 2015, and now, the era of Al-Aqsa Flood.
It is interesting that the idea of the New Middle East and the Greater Israel project have extensive overlap and are not contradictory; rather, each can reinforce the other. Normalization serves as the gateway and the first step toward realizing these two neo-classical colonial projects. This means that they impose classic colonial concepts upon Arab and Islamic leaders under the guise of deceptive schemes and desirable, modern terminology.
Israel, in cooperation with European countries and the US, is actively striving to pave the way for the political and economic “annexation” of the region and its gradual absorption through several means: economic and energy dependence; symbolic territorial claims through annexations, settlement expansion, and resource exploitation, which enable geopolitical changes; exploiting internal crises; fueling separatism under the banner of supporting minorities; and forging military and intelligence agreements that restrain national security capacities to the benefit of extra-regional powers.
6. The four pillars for confronting the “Greater Israel” project
To neutralize this trajectory, prevent disintegration, support the sovereignty and independence of countries in the region, and move towards an indigenous geopolitical order in the region, four mutually reinforcing domains must be strengthened:
Resistance:
One of the major achievements of Al-Aqsa Flood is the expansion of the Resistance Front and the broadening of its dimensions. Today, resistance is no longer necessarily limited to Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Yemen. Firstly, it has taken on global dimensions and includes legal, political, civil, media, and cultural concepts. Secondly, the overt actions of the Zionist regime against the region's countries have proven that there is no solution other than “resistance” against these expansionist policies. This remains true even if the countries of the region, due to their own political and security considerations and limitations, do not officially classify themselves within the "Axis of Resistance."
Unity:
“Sowing discord” is the traditional policy of colonialism, which today is being pursued by the West under new guises, themes, and concepts. Even small steps toward political, economic, and security convergence among regional governments are essential for preventing fragmentation and for formulating collective, indigenous strategies to confront crises and external pressures. Regional leaders are fully aware of this necessity, even if they avoid stating it publicly.
Awareness:
Schemes like the New Middle East, which inherently carry a Western narrative of regional order and target the intellectual and cultural independence of Islamic nations, serve as the foundation for the Greater Israel project. To counter this process, raising awareness and the battle of narratives play a fundamental role. Exposing the hidden goals of discourses such as normalization, revisiting history, recalling the experiences of colonialism and occupation – which are now taking on new forms – and developing and promoting an indigenous narrative of progress, peace, and just coexistence can all fall under what may be called Islamic awareness. The battle of narratives means reclaiming the power of meaning: for the peoples of the region to define for themselves what “progress,” “security,” or “peace” truly are, rather than having these concepts imposed upon them from the outside. In this framework, media, universities, and intellectual elites can, through raising public awareness, form the greatest barrier against projects that reproduce domination in the name of peace.
The New Islamic Civilization:
This paradigm is the Islamic alternative to the Western-oriented “New Middle East” project. The New Islamic Civilization means that Muslim nations, instead of imitating the imposed Western model, chart their own path of development, science, technology, justice, and security based on their own Islamic values, while relying on their historical, religious, and cultural commonalities, and without compromising their national considerations and values. Such a civilization would not only prevent the intellectual and cultural penetration of schemes like Greater Israel, but also foster genuine regional soft power and solidarity by establishing networks of cooperation among Islamic countries. This ultimately creates an order where peace and progress flow from the independence and dignity of nations, rather than the prescriptions of foreign powers.
(The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Khamenei.ir.)
Comment