The idea of Greater Israel emphasises a Jewish nation that ranges from the Nile in Egypt, to the Euphrates in Iraq and encompasses Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan, along with significant parts of Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. First explored by Jewish thinker Theodor Herzl in the 19th Century, the idea of a Greater Israel draws upon definitions of a Jewish land from the Hebrew Bible which describes an area from the borders of Egypt to the banks of the Euphrates.
In more recent years, various actions by Israel, including its “de-facto annexation” of the occupied West Bank, and its move to establish a buffer zone in Southern Lebanon have led to concerns Israel may be working on a Greater Israeli project. For instance, in India, Congress Leader Jairam Ramesh alleged that “The current West Asia war is providing cover for Israel to move ahead on its vision of Greater Israel and also finishing off any hope for a Palestinian state”, which was part of a longer post he wrote this Saturday, condemning Jerusalem’s actions.
So, what is Greater Israel? Where and how did it originate from? And why is there renewed concern about the issue?
THE ORIGINS OF GREATER ISRAEL
The concept of Greater Israel draws on biblical promises but was explored in modern political terms by Theodor Herzl, the Hungarian-born Jewish journalist and founder of political Zionism. In his diaries on 14 October 1898, Herzl recorded a discussion with his Zionist colleague Max Bodenheimer about the possible borders of a future Jewish homeland, noting: “Area: from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.”
This phrase echoes the biblical covenant in Genesis 15:18–21, in which God tells Abram: “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”
Originally a fringe concept in Israeli politics, the idea gained traction with the founding of the Movement for Greater Israel in 1967, reports the UK-based news outlet, Middle East Eye. It was founded in the aftermath of the Six-Day War.
For context, the Six-Day War was a conflict between Israel on one side and a coalition of Arab States comprising primarily of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. The conclusion of the war saw Israel triumph over the combined Arab forces and achieve its greatest territorial extent after grabbing the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. The Movement for Greater Israel subsequently called on the Israeli government to retain the captured territories and settle them with Jewish populations, viewing the victory as a historic opportunity.
The idea entered the Israeli mainstream after the 1977 Knesset elections, when the right-wing Likud party, founded in 1973, defeated the left-wing alliance known as The Alignment.
Likud’s 1977 platform stated, “The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” This would later lead to Israeli policies that led to the permanent occupation of the West Bank and Gaza even as the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights were ceded back to Egypt and Syria respectively.
THE STATUS OF GREATER ISRAEL IN CURRENT DAY ISRAELI POLITICS
Although Israel does not have an official policy of establishing a Greater Israel, references to the same have become increasingly common since the 2022 elections to the Knesset, which saw a coalition headed by the Likud party win power, and Benjamin Netanyahu appointed the Prime Minister.
In 2023, Axios reported Israel’s Finance Minster Bezalel Smotrich as having featured a map of Greater Israel that included Jordan and the occupied West Bank as part of Israel while delivering a speech in Paris.
Later in 2024, Middle East Eye reported Smotrich as advocating for the expansion of Israeli borders to include Damascus, the capital of Syria. He suggested that Israel would gradually grow to encompass not only all Palestinian territories but also parts of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
“It is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus,” he was reported as saying then.
Similarly in 2025, Al Jazeera reported that when interviewer Sharon Gal with the Israeli i24NEWS channel asked Netanyahu if he subscribed to a “vision” for a “Greater Israel”, Netanyahu said, “absolutely.” When asked during the interview if he felt connected to the “Greater Israel” vision, Netanyahu said, “Very much.”
Also in 2025, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a map on its Arabic-language social media account, depicting what it claims to be the ancient Kingdom of Israel. The map, which showed significant portions of modern-day Jordan, Lebanon and Syria within Israeli borders, ended up sparking widespread condemnation from Arab nations who viewed it as an affront to their sovereignty.
And it’s not just the ruling coalition indirectly batting for a Greater Israel. The Middle East Eye reported Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid as telling a reporter that “Zionism is based on the Bible, our mandate over the land of Israel is biblical, the biblical borders of Israel are very clear.” He added “I believe our ownership deed over the land of Israel is the Bible, therefore the borders are the Bible’s borders.”
In August 2025, US envoy, Tom Barrack, told journalist Mario Nawafal that Israel is not interested in adhering to the Middle East’s established borders set by the WWI Sykes-Picot agreement and has the “capacity or the desire” to take over Lebanon and Syria, historian William Dalrymple wrote on X that “Very dark days ahead for the Middle East as the US apparently green lights, or at least shrugs, at the creation of a Greater Israel”.
And in February 2026, Mike Huckabee, the United States Ambassador to Israel, told conservative talk-show host Tucker Carlson in an interview that it would be “fine” if Israel took over the entire Middle East.
WHY IS GREATER ISRAEL ONCE AGAIN IN THE VOGUE IN THE MIDST OF IRAN WAR?
Even as Israel has found itself embroiled in the war against Iran in lockstep with the US, it has also launched ground operations in southern Lebanon, which began this month and have since expanded toward the Litani River.
The reason given by Israel for the offensive is to create a secure buffer zone to hobble the ability of the Iranian proxy, Hezbollah to launch rocket attacks against northern Israel. Some, however, have interpreted the push for deeper territorial control as part of a longer-term expansionist agenda to establish a Greater Israel.
The Lebanese newspaper L’Orient Daily on March 25 reported Hezbollah’s acting leader Naim Qassem as stating that “it is no longer hidden from anyone that there exists a dangerous American-Israeli project, that of ‘Greater Israel,’ based on occupation and expansion from the Euphrates to the Nile, including Lebanon.”
Similarly, Wafiq Safa, a member of Hezbollah’s Political Council, in an interview with the Lebanon based news outlet Janoubia, on March 22 claimed the group was fighting “to defend Lebanese sovereignty” and that their “victory” protected certain Arab countries from the project of Greater Israel.
Turkish National Intelligence Organisation Chief Ibrahim Kaln, speaking at the STRATCOM Summit on March 28, alleged that “Israel is the main actor that started the war” against Iran, and that the conflict was being used by Jerusalem as a means of territorial expansion. He stated that Israel was “pursuing new policies of destruction, annexation, and occupation by creating faits accomplis in Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian territories, and elsewhere in the region. We see the recent developments in Lebanon, in particular, as an attempt to create a fait accompli similar to what happened in the Golan Heights in 1974 and to transform this into a policy of destruction, annexation, and occupation.”
Journalist Mehdi Hasan, wrote on X, alleging that “Israel doesn’t have borders, has never declared its borders. These are not ‘expanding security lines’, this is Greater Israel in action”. This was after Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announced last week that the IDF had shifted to an offensive strategy and was “expanding security lines in Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon, and aiming to remove threats from its borders.”
Even the Congress in India alleged that Israel was pushing its “Greater Israel” plan in the garb of the war in the Middle East. “The current West Asia war is providing cover for Israel to move ahead on its vision of Greater Israel and also finishing off any hope for a Palestinian state,” said Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on X, as part of a longer post on March 28.
While Israeli officials have framed current operations in Lebanon and beyond as security-driven, critics argue they reflect a broader ideological vision rooted in history and scripture. Whether this represents a coordinated expansionist policy to establish a Greater Israel or a convergence of security imperatives and political rhetoric remains contested.
– Ends
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