Mar 29, 2026
3 min read
Israel plans to set its border at the Litani River and add 10% of Lebanon.We analyze the concept of "Greater Israel" after Netanyahu's statement.
"Greater Israel" or what Netanyahu called the "New Middle East".
- The concept of a state of Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates is as old as the Zionist movement itself
- The fall of Iran would make Israel better suited to dominate the region
There is no doubt and Israel has spoken about it publicly.Tel Aviv will occupy and control the military in southern Lebanon and its new border will be marked by the Litani River, about 30 kilometers from the current border with Lebanon.That is, the aim is to control 10% of the territory of Lebanon, 850 km2 in size.The reason (or excuse) is to re-assure safety and reduce power.Hezbollah, which was founded in 1982 to fight Israel.
Security is the official argument, but there are powerful voices within the Israeli government that reveal a different dimension.The finance minister said last Tuesday: "The Litani should be our new border with the Lebanese state, like the "yellow line" in Gaza and the buffer zone in Syria and Mount Hermon."That is, Israel must occupy 10% of Lebanon.
GazaWest BankNow Lebanon and possibly Syria eventually.Israel seems to want to redraw its borders and elsewhere in the region.This is what Netanyahu defined as the "new Middle East" and is uniquely connected to the historic doctrine that has been in the DNA of Zionism since its inception.In recent decades,It has played a different role, especially among the radical regimes in this country's history.
From the Nile to the Euphrates
It is not a modern concept, nor is it the result of ideological hyperbole by extremist politicians.The concept of Greater Israel is as old as the Zionist movement itself.It is based on two concepts: the geographical interpretation of Biblical Israel and Jewish ethnocentrism in the region.However, from a current geographical perspective, this means that Gaza and parts of the West Bank, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and even Saudi Arabia will become part of Israel.The process, which historians such as Israeli Ilan Pape refer to as "settler colonization," replaced one local population with another through colonization.Jewish state from the Nile to the Euphrates.
In the yearIn August 2025, Israeli journalist Sharon Gal of i24 News conducted a live interview with Netanyahu.In that interview, Gal presented an amulet representing a map of the "Promised Land," or as it is known in Zionism, Eretz Yisrael Hashlema, Greater Israel.Gal asked him if he had identified the vision of the Prime Minister and his answer left no room for doubt: "A lot".Netanyahu.
He is not the only one.The far-right settler Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister of the Israeli government, repeated this on several occasions."It is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus," he said in a speech to his followers last year.For his part, the minister and also of the extreme right, Itamar Ben Gvir, encouraged the settlers who welcomed the idea.But the truth is that the utopia of Greater Israel is as old as Zionism itself.
The utopia of the Zionist movement
More or less vigorously, Zionist leaders of all stages defended the idea.From the beginning, Israel has never considered its borders permanent, not even former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, the leader of the Zionist movement and the first head of state of the State of Israel, recently born in 1948. 19,” 7 wrote.
The most extreme or right-wing sectors, such as the revisionist (or right-wing) Zionism of Zeev Jabotinsky, started from the idea of a Greater Israel as the ultimate goal, because they believed that coexistence with the Arabs was impossible.As Jabotinsky said in his famous 1923 article, The Iron Wall: "The only way to achieve harmony is through an iron wall," he wrote, "a strong force in Palestine that will not yield to any Arab pressure."
Their political descendants, whether in the Likud party—with leaders like Menahem Begin, Itzaak Shamir (two former prime ministers), and Benzior Netanyahu (Bibi's father)—or in the Gush Emunim settlement movement of the 1970s and 1980s also supported the idea.
right moment
This ideology, which seems like a utopia, is not meant to be achieved together through conquest.This is a long-term and ambitious project of several generations.But now the situation seems far from that direction, according to many Israeli ministers.One step is the annexation of Gaza and the West Bank and their reoccupation.Others, for example, to do the same in southern Lebanon, expanding the current border of Israel and reoccupying the south of the Cedars land with settlers.perform.Perhaps the next to repeat the operation in southern Syria, where Israel has the complicity of its strategic support, the Druze.
Since the creation of the State of Israel, the country has had many limitations in realizing that dream.Initially, there was a military alliance of Arab countries, but it was first deactivated after the peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan.The obstacle then was the support of Palestinian guerrillas and groups and other regional powers.That power in the 90s was Saddam Hussein's Iraq, but Iraq became a threat after the country's fall due to the 2003 invasion.The biggest enemies were Iran, Syria and the so-called "axis of resistance".
The Syrian civil war turned the country into a failed state that could not even maintain its territorial integrity, leaving only Iran and its militias and its allies standing.Now Syria and Iraq are not competitors.Egypt and Jordan are allies.This scenario would be appropriate for Israel to achieve regional supremacy and with it Netanyahu's ability to impose a "new Middle East" power, perhaps the brutality that masks the progressive (or at least) attempt to build Israeli superpower power.
