by ROBERT INLAKESH
If the resistance is Kurdish, Sunni, Shia, Communist, Socialist, Nationalist, Liberal, Christian, or Druze, the Israelis will demonize and murder them all the same.
In an interview with I24 News earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his first public admission that he seeks to impose “Greater Israel” on the surrounding region. A plan long labeled as an “anti-Semitic conspiracy theory” by pro-Israeli propagandists, it involves taking all of Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan, while seizing most of Syria, parts of Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and even Türkiye.
The idea of a “Greater Israel” has for some time been the ultimate goal of many Israeli politicians, political parties, and religious nationalist citizens. The idea itself actually predates the Israeli state and can be linked back to the early Revisionist Zionist movement.
In fact, Benjamin Netanyahu’s father, Ben-Zion Netanyahu, was part of the infamous Irgun terrorist organization and was active in ideologically influencing the movement. The Irgun played a role in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine (1947-49) and had waged a terrorist campaign against both Palestinians and the British Mandate authorities in Palestine prior to this. The Irgun’s symbol is of a “Greater Israel” map that includes all of Jordan.
Theodore Herzl, the founding figure of Zionism, also once stated that the “Jewish State” should have boundaries, “From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.” Then there’s the infamous “Yinon Plan,” written by Oded Yinon, an advisor to former Likud Party Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The article written by Yinon laid out a strategy for Israel’s survival, arguing that to survive, it must become a regional empire and collapse all the surrounding Arab states, dividing them along ethnic and religious lines to achieve this goal and secure Greater Israel.
Fast forward to March of 2023, before the genocide in Gaza began. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sparked outrage from neighboring Arab countries after he spoke at a podium that featured a “Greater Israel” map, which included all of Jordan in addition to parts of Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. This map is very similar to the one on the Irgun emblem from the 1930s and ’40s.
Even earlier this year, in January, the official social media handles of “Israel” published a map that represented what they called “historic Israel,” which expanded into neighboring Arab countries. Now, we no longer have to turn to the voices that are often shrugged off as “fringe” and “extremist,” as Benjamin Netanyahu is himself admitting to seeking a “Greater Israel.”
No Longer Just a Plan
On Wednesday morning, Israeli military chief of staff Eyal Zamir paid a visit to occupied southern Lebanon, where Israel’s army has set up six bases and outposts, commenting that he had visited the area due to a changed reality on the “northern front.”
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