Is Israeli invasion of Lebanon stemming from the dream of Greater Israel?

Recent military escalations—from Gaza to southern Lebanon—and statements from key Israeli officials and ministers have prompted speculation that the idea of “Greater Israel,” regarded as fringe, seems to have found an echo in the rhetoric of Israel’s hard-right political factions.

The idea of Greater Israel, which envisions an Israel stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, encompassing parts of Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and beyond, has been dismissed as a conspiracy theory by proponents of the Israeli state. Historically, it has been cast as a tool of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric, designed to delegitimise Israel’s presence in the Middle East.

Ecaterina Matoi, a scholar at the Middle East Political and Economic Institute (MEPEI), argues that Israel’s current offensives, particularly its ground incursion in Lebanon, could be seen as part of a broader strategy aligned with the “Greater Israel” concept.

“Given what has been going on in the West Asia region since the beginning of the 20th century, the ongoing invasion of Lebanon may be interpreted as part of the implementation of the Greater Israel plan,” Matoi tells TRT World.

While the Netanyahu government has not explicitly endorsed such an agenda, Matoi suggests that the increasing involvement in neighbouring territories reflects an expansionist undercurrent.

Expansionist Assertions

Israeli rhetoric towards Lebanon, a sovereign state, has intensified.

“Lebanon, even though it has a flag and even though it has political institutions does not meet the definition of a country,” wrote Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs, on X last month. He even went further suggesting that Israel needs “to recalculate a course regarding the border line with the entity that calls itself a state Lebanon.”

Chikli’s remarks, along with references to Syria and Iraq as “entities” rather than states, hint at a potential shift in how Israel views its borders—and the borders of its neighbours.

Without receiving much condemnation from the Western bloc, Chikli expressed that Israel can take over parts of Lebanon.

“In a broader view, both Syria and Iraq do not currently meet the definitions of a state,” he added, suggesting that current post-WWI Middle Eastern borders drawn by a British-French consortium called Sykes-Picot are not relevant anymore.

The idea of “Greater Israel” looms large in debates. Religious Zionists, some of whom believe that Biblical texts grant Israel a divine claim to vast swathes of the Middle East, continue to exert influence within Israeli politics.

The Netanyahu government’s actions and the rhetoric from its ministers suggest that expansionist tendencies, once dismissed as the stuff of conspiracy, may not be entirely absent from Israeli strategic thinking.

With ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, the notion of “Greater Israel” seems to be reemerging from the ideological periphery, raising uncomfortable questions about the future of the region’s borders.

This week, the Jerusalem Post, published an article titled:"Is Lebanon part of Israel's promised territory?" The article has since been deleted.

What is ‘Greater Israel’ vision?

The idea of “Greater Israel” is rooted in ancient texts, but its modern political significance emerged with the rise of Zionism.

Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, envisioned a Jewish state in the Middle East, an idea that gained traction with Britain’s Balfour Declaration of 1917. The declaration, issued under pressure from Zionist leaders, promised a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Herzl himself once referenced a Biblical vision, calling for Israel’s borders to stretch from the “Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates”—a vast area encompassing parts of modern-day Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq.

Three decades after the Balfour, following the Holocaust, the UN offered a partition plan between Arab and Jewish populations of Palestine, which laid the ground for Zionist leaders to declare the emergence of Israel as a state in 1948.

Since then, Israel has occupied additional territories such as the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, feeding into arguments that modern Israel continues to expand beyond its original borders.

“There are very few arguments that can be brought up to support the idea of a non-expansionist Israel,” Matoi tells TRT World, adding that “Israel actually appears to pursue a complex expansionist process.”

Last week, Israel’s longest serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed a map bereft of Palestinian territories in his UN speech in which he condemned the international organisation as “a contemptuous farce”. The speech contained strong criticism of the UN; the very institution that helped establish the Israeli state.

In tandem, Israel’s military actions, including the announcement of “limited, localised and targeted" raids in southern Lebanon, have stirred debate over whether the country’s expansionist aspirations align with the idea of “Greater Israel.”

The announcement signaled an intent to get more Arab territories under the Israeli control as Tel Aviv’s armed forces have already occupied much of Gaza after October 7.

“I believe that both the importance of southern Lebanon to Israel as part of Greater Israel, and the weakening of Iran in the region to remove the government in Tehran from power, are behind this invasion of (southern) Lebanon,” Matoi says.

The growing presence of far-right, religious Zionists in Israeli politics has led to renewed scrutiny of the idea that Israel’s territorial ambitions may extend far beyond the borders established in 1948.

“It’s an incredibly grim picture,” says Antony Loewenstein, an independent journalist and author of the book: The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World.

“Palestinians are bearing the brunt of the Israeli onslaught as a far-right Israeli government takes the opportunity of expanding the country’s borders into Lebanon, Syria and beyond,” Loewenstein tells TRT World.

In June, Peace Now, a watchdog, released a taped recording outlining Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s speech at a conference for his Religious Zionism party of moves that the campaign group warned would irreversibly change the way West Bank was governed and lead to “de facto annexation”. The watchdog also noted that Israel has approved the largest West Bank seizure in decades.

Last year, during a speech in Paris, Smotrich, the leader of Religious Zionist Party, displayed a map, showing the occupied West Bank and Jordan part of Israel, which sparked a strong condemnation from Amman.

In June, again, an Israeli soldier with a Greater Israel badge on the uniform provoked outrage in Arab countries.

Jewish settler leaders such as Daniella Weiss, a leading Zionist extremist figure, have long advocated for the expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank, aligning with the broader “Greater Israel” vision. “The only people of Israel can settle the Gaza Strip and rule the Gaza Strip,” Weiss said in her speech quoted in a documentary by TRT World.