What Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli right really mean when they invoke ‘Greater Israel’ - The concept is about much more than acquiring territory, it is also about Netanyahu’s desire for Israel to become a regional superpower.

Daniel Levy served as an Israeli peace negotiator at the Oslo II talks and is president of the US/Middle East project 

First responders and residents gather at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's Tallet al-Khayyat neighbourhood, on 8 April 2026. Photograph: Fadel Itani/AFP/Getty

Mon 13 Apr 2026

Much remains unclear about the significance and durability of the two-week pause in the US and Israel’s war on Iran. But one aspect of the conflict remains as clear today as it was six weeks ago. Donald Trump doesn’t have a plan. Benjamin Netanyahu does.

Israel’s war aims were to maximally degrade the capacity of the Iranian state, achieving not so much regime change as state implosion. Despite the ceasefire, Netanyahu has emphasised that this is “not the end of the campaign” and that Israel’s “finger is on the trigger” to resume combat. A seasoned strategist, he has spent the second Trump administration seizing the opportunity of geopolitical fluidity to reach for his end goal: a Greater Israel.

When it’s invoked on the Israeli right, “Greater Israel” is often seen as a purely territorial concept: an attempt to increase the size of territory that Israel claims as its own. This is certainly integral to its meaning. After all, Israel has been expansionist and entailed the displacement and dispossession of Palestinians since its inception, and this process has now accelerated considerably.

In the past two-and-a-half years, Israel has flattened and reconquered Gaza, killing tens of thousands of people and laying waste its civilian infrastructure, squeezing its population, according to one estimate from last year, into just 12% of an already tiny strip of land. In the West Bank, Israel continues a campaign of destruction and displacement towards Palestinian people and property that is unparalleled since the six-day war in 1967, expanding its matrix of control and settlement.

After the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in 2024, Israel seized territory in Syria (beyond the illegally annexed Golan Heights) and is in the process of reconstituting a zone of occupation in southern Lebanon. Government ministers from the Religious Zionism and Jewish Power factions, and Likud parliamentarians, openly agitate for Israeli sovereignty and settlement in that country. The finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has called for Israel to “expand to Damascus”, and Netanyahu himself claimed to feel “very much connected” to this territorial vision of Greater Israel.

However, Greater Israel should be seen as a geopolitical and strategic concept as much as a territorial one. The acquisition and control of land is, in many respects, the obvious and easy part... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/13/benjamin-netanyahu-middle-east-greater-israel

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"Recognizing a Palestinian state is a limited but welcome step that addresses an enduring blind spot: Palestinian rights cannot be conditioned on Israeli interests" Noam Sheizaf in The Guardian

 "... Since the Oslo process in the 1990s, much of the world has accepted the Israeli framing: Palestinian rights would be recognized only after a peace process was completed. In other words, rights were treated as conditional on Israeli interests – a prize to be granted at the end rather than a foundation to guide negotiations. This is the root of past failures. But if rights become the starting point, then the two peoples could finally choose their political future: one state, two, or some in-between like a federation. No choice would need to be final; states can divide or unite, agreements can evolve. The very idea of a definite end point is an illusion.

Recently, there are signs that the west is opening its eyes to the horror in Gaza, mainly due to sustained civil society activism. It is not surprising that the United States is mounting unprecedented opposition to the countries deciding to recognize Palestine, including by withholding visas from Palestinian officials seeking to travel to the UN. For Washington too, Palestinians exist only on Israel’s terms. So far, the countries leading the recognition effort are not deterred; pushing against American hegemony over diplomacy is another positive byproduct of recognition.

As limited as the recognition of Palestine – a state with no territory or sovereignty – is, it is a step in the right direction, because it re-establishes the existence and the rights of Palestinians as individuals and as a collective. It finally moves up the end goal, which should have been a precondition to the talks all along. More urgently, it strengthens the Palestinian case in international institutions and further justifies the demand for sanctions that could end the war.

Steps against Israeli ministers who advocate ethnic cleansing and genocide, as some countries are considering, are another positive development. More should follow, and more rapidly; as the destruction of Gaza is happening now...."  ... READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/sep/14/how-to-burst-the-israeli-bubble

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How to burst the Israeli bubble

Noam Sheizaf

Recognizing a Palestinian state is a limited but welcome step that addresses an enduring blind spot: Palestinian rights cannot be conditioned on Israeli interests

Sun 14 Sep 2025 09.00 EDT

Chris Hedges Confronts the N.J. State Assembly on Dangerous Antisemitism Bill: The bill would accept the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which conflates criticism of the state of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism.

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https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/copy-confronts-the-nj-state-assembly?publication_id=778851&post_id=169193100&isFreemail=true&r=34riug&triedRedirect=true

Chris Hedges

Jul 24, 2025

 

VIDEO- ZIONISTS ATTACK FREE SPEECH 

https://youtu.be/ky5811p43-I

Text of Speech:

I am the former Pulitzer-prize winning Middle East Bureau Chief for The New York Times. I spent seven year covering the Middle East, including in Gaza and the West Bank. I am an Arabic speaker. During my time in the Middle East, I was based in Jerusalem and Cairo. I am also the author of 16 books and have taught at Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University and Rutgers University. I live in Princeton.

I strongly oppose A3558, which expands antisemitism’s definition to include most anti-Zionst expression for the purpose of civil rights law. This is a dangerous assault on free speech by seeking to criminalize legitimate criticism of Israeli policies.

The Trump administration’s campaign to ostensibly root out antisemitism on college campuses is clearly a trope to shut down free speech and deport non-citizens, even if they are here legally. This bill falsely collapses ethnicity with a political state. And let’s be clear, the brunt repression on college campuses was directed against students and faculty who opposed the genocide in Gaza, 3,000 of whom were arrested and hundreds of whom were censored, suspended, or expelled. Many of these students are Jewish. What about their rights? What about their constitutional protections?

I have had numerous relationships with Israeli journalists and political leaders. I knew, for example, former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who negotiated the Oslo peace agreement. Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli ultranationalist who opposed the peace accord, stated bluntly that the occupation was not beneficial to Israel. Israeli colleagues frequently criticize Israeli policies in the Israeli press in language that would be defined as antisemitic by A3558.

For example, the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, who served in the Israeli army and writes for the newspaper Haaretz, has called for sanctions to be imposed on Israel to stop the slaughter in Gaza, saying “Do to Israel what you did to South Africa.” 

Omer Bartov, who served as an Israeli company commander in the 1973 war, is Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University. He stated in an article on July 15 in The New York Times that his “inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.”

These kinds of statements, and many more I can quote from Israeli colleagues and friends, would see them under this bill criminalized as antisemites.

As someone who speaks and writes frequently about the conflict, I fear that any criticism I make of the Israeli government, although grounded in my long experience in the region, will make me a target if this measure is adopted.

It is imperative, especially with the press under attack from the Trump administration, that we do not erode our constitutionally protected speech and political expression.

---

The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/copy-confronts-the-nj-state-assembly?publication_id=778851&post_id=169193100&isFreemail=true&r=34riug&triedRedirect=true

Israel’s war on Palestinian political life in Jerusalem- by Daoud Kuttab: If Israel truly seeks peace and coexistence, it must begin by recognizing the rights of Palestinians to exist, organize and thrive. That includes respect for international law, the protection of educational and religious institutions, and allowing Palestinians the freedom to engage in normal political and civil life. The international community, in particular Israel’s allies, must also take note: Silence in the face of these violations is complicity. As Israel continues to claim the mantle of democracy, its actions in East Jerusalem tell another story, one of exclusion, repression and systematic erasure.

 "Israeli authorities are redrawing the city not only physically, but socially and spiritually."

Daoud Kuttab

While the world is focused on global economic issues and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, Israel’s recent harsh policies in East Jerusalem mark an alarming new chapter in a long-standing campaign to eliminate any form of organized Palestinian political or civic presence in the city.

Under the pretext of security, Israel has persistently targeted and dismantled institutions that serve as pillars of Palestinian society, be they unions, schools, cultural centers or political offices.

In the latest examples of this, Israeli authorities this week presented orders to shut down six UN-run schools by May 8, and ordered the immediate closure of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions.

This pattern is not new. For years, and especially since the signing in 1993 of the Palestinian-Israeli Declaration of Principles, also referred to as the Oslo Accords, Israel has worked to dismantle Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem. They began with closing the historic Orient House, the Chamber of Commerce, the Arab Higher Council for Tourism, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, and the Palestinian Center for Social Research.

Such actions reveal an apartheid reality. Despite claiming East Jerusalem as part of its “unified capital,” Israel continues to act in ways that starkly contradict its self-declared identity as a democratic state. By criminalizing Palestinian civic engagement and political expression, it exposes the discriminatory foundations and strategy of Jewish supremacy in areas under Israeli civilian, as well as military, control.... READ MORE   https://www.arabnews.com/node/2596753

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James J. Zogby: What investment and freedom would have meant for Gaza

 "Yasser Arafat, speaking of Gaza’s future, would say that with investment and freedom from occupation it could become Singapore; if denied both, it could become Somalia. Israel did everything it could to guarantee that Gaza would become Somalia—and they appear to have succeeded."

James J. Zogby- president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, "

What investment and freedom would have meant for Gaza

Mar 18,2025 - Last updated at Mar 18,2025

When I first heard President Donald Trump’s “Gaza Riviera” scheme, it brought back memories of Palestinian hopes three decades ago during the heyday of the Oslo Accords. Back then, I was serving as co-chair of “Builders for Peace,” a project launched by Vice President Al Gore to encourage American businesses to invest in the Palestinian economy to support the fledgling peace process.

My fellow co-chair, Mel Levine, and I led a number of delegations of American business leaders (including Arab Americans and American Jews) to the Palestinian lands. Our first exposure to the problems we would encounter came as we attempted to enter via the Allenby Bridge from Jordan. American Jews and others passed easily, while Arab Americans were separated from the group and forced to undergo humiliating screening.

We convened a session in Jerusalem for Palestinians to meet with Americans interested in investment opportunities, but to enter the city Palestinians had to secure a pass from the occupation authority. The passes only permitted them a few hours in the city, limiting the time they could devote to our discussions.

Entry into and exit from Gaza was equally problematic. One deeply disturbing scene on leaving Gaza has stayed with me. Hundreds of Palestinian men filled what I can only describe as cattle chutes, waiting in the sun for permission to enter into Israel. Straddling these chutes were young Israeli soldiers shouting at the Palestinians below to look down and hold their passes above their heads.

Our meetings with Palestinian business leaders in Gaza and the West Bank were hopeful. They were eager to discuss possibilities with their American counterparts, and the Americans were impressed. A number of partnerships were discussed.

Two projects were notable: one to manufacture leather products, another to assemble furniture. Both sought to take advantage of Gaza’s proximity to Eastern Europe for export. As both projects required that Israel permit import of raw material and export of finished products, both failed. It appeared that Israel might have been willing to entertain such projects, but only if they operated through an Israeli middleman, thereby reducing the ventures’ profitability.... READ MORE   https://www.jordantimes.com/opinion/james-j-zogby/what-investment-and-freedom-would-have-meant-gaza

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‘Last nail in the coffin’: Israeli settlers push on with fresh West Bank land grab... "Israeli settlers are pushing ahead with a largely unnoticed de facto annexation of large areas of rural land in the occupied West Bank that has already seen the almost total displacement of Bedouin in large areas." 13 Feb 2025

Jameel Shahalda from the Palestinian village of Minya monitors the movement of Israeli settlers from an illegal outpost nearby. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

There are fears that a widely unnoticed displacement of Bedouin has the aim of fragmenting the territory intended for a future Palestinian state

Peter Beaumont and Quique Kierszenbaum in Tko'a

Thu 13 Feb 2025 00.00 EST

Last modified on Thu 13 Feb 2025 03.00 EST

Israeli settlers are pushing ahead with a largely unnoticed de facto annexation of large areas of rural land in the occupied West Bank that has already seen the almost total displacement of Bedouin in large areas.

While settler activity, including violence, has long been well-documented in the section of the West Bank designated by the 1993 Oslo accords as under Israeli security and administrative control – the so-called Area C of the occupied territory, including the south Hebron Hills – settlers have switched their focus to mostly rural Area B, which was designated to be under Palestinian civil control initially.

All three of the Oslo areas – Area A being the major Palestinian cities – were intended under the accords to be transferred to a future Palestinian state.

At a time when the US president, Donald Trump, has talked about the relocation of Palestinians from Gaza, effectively endorsing its ethnic cleansing, a process of displacement is already advancing in Area B as West Bank Palestinians come under pressure from settlers and their far-right political backers in Israel

In one section of Area B in the arid desert hills between Bethlehem and the Dead Sea near the Israeli settlement of Tko’a all evidence of Bedouin who once lived there appears to have been erased, while in a second area those that remain are being harassed by settler violence.

In a landscape of deep wadis and dusty limestone escarpments, Bedouin shepherds until recently grazed flocks on the low-lying plants that appear in the winter months, or on seasonally cultivated forage crops in the flat valley bottoms.

Valleys that once sustained groups of Bedouin... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/13/last-nail-in-the-coffin-israeli-settlers-push-on-with-fresh-west-bank-land-grab

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Jonathan Cook: Thirty years of Middle East lies just keep coming back to haunt us- The West’s ‘war on terror’ was built on a series of deceptions to persuade us that our leaders were crushing Islamist extremism. In truth, they were nourishing it

Gaza- Palestinian refugees

January 30 2025

The story: Did you believe it 30 years ago when they told you that the Oslo Accords would bring peace to the Middle East? That Israel would finally withdraw from the Palestinian territories it had illegally occupied for decades, end its brutal repression of the Palestinian people, and allow a Palestinian state to be created there? That the longest runing sore for the Arab and Muslim worlds would finally be brought to an end?

The reality: In fact, during the Oslo period, Israel stole more Palestinian land and expanded the building of illegal Jewish settlements at the fastest rate ever. Israel became even more repressive, building prison walls around Gaza and the West Bank while continuing to aggressively occupy both. Ehud Barak, Israeli prime minister of the time, “blew up” – in the words of one of his own main advisers – the US-backed negotiations at Camp David in 2000.

Weeks later, with the occupied Palestinian territories seething, opposition leader Ariel Sharon, backed by 1,000 armed Israeli troops, invaded occupied Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque – one of the holiest places for Muslims in the world. It was the final straw, triggering an uprising by Palestinians that Israel would crush with devastating military force and thereby tip the scales of popular support from the secular Fatah leadership to the Islamic resistance group Hamas.

Further afield, Israel’s ever-more abusive treatment of the Palestinians and its gradual takeover of al-Aqsa – backed by the West – served only to further radicalise the jihadist group al-Qaeda, providing the public rationale for attacking New York’s Twin Towers in 2001.... READ MORE  https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2025-01-30/gaza-middle-east-lies/

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Israel Officially Banned the Palestine Flag from 1967 to1993 (Occupation to Oslo) ... WATERMELONS

Artworks using these four colors were banned by Israeli law in the 1980s. This ban ended in 1993.

Early 1900's photo of watermelon vendors in #Gaza #Palestine!

Watermelon market outside Jaffa Gate at the base of the Citadel walls, #Jerusalem, #Palestine...Circa 1900's

Protest for Palestine

After Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, it banned the Palestinian flag, which was lifted after the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993. They are routinely confiscated by the Israeli police.^[5] Israel's restriction on the Palestinian flag were criticized by Amnesty International as an attempt to legitimize racism, adding that the Palestinian flag has been used for the past decades as "a symbol of unity and resistance to Israel’s unlawful occupation".

The use of the watermelon as a Palestinian symbol has appeared in the wake of Israel's restrictions of Palestinian flags.

Beesan Arafat (@beesanarafat on Instagram), a Palestinian-Jordanian artist in England, depicts a slice of watermelon on a Hebron plate.

 

The use of the watermelon as a Palestinian symbol has come as a response to Israel's confiscation of Palestinian flags.

Some people have a country they live in. We have a country that lives within us. This collection of essays is a journey into the heart and soul of a Palestinian who shares personal stories, reflections, and feelings about Palestine and the diaspora. Through these writings, you will discover a country that is not just a place on a map but a living presence in the minds and hearts of its people. A SEED IN THE FRUIT OF PALESTINE ESSAYS BY MIKE ODETALLA

Thanks Mike!

 

My letter to the NYTimes Sept 8 2020 RE The U.A.E.-Israel Flight Is Nothing to Celebrate by Diana Buttu

RE Diana Buttu's excellent op-ed: The U.A.E.-Israel Flight Is Nothing to Celebrate, It’s a slap in the face of Palestinians, who can no longer count on Arab states for political support. published September 8, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/opinion/uae-israel-palestinians.html?referringSource=articleShare&fbclid=IwAR0nL-feONpJZT0lzSACwFLbigk95qR2eejnGJ9uPanpHO8mez6__mm3Oy8

Dear Editor,

Oslo Accords were so long ago, too long ago. 1993.  A child born then has already fully grown up.  But where is the promised Palestine, as in the fully sovereign and free nation state that was supposed to be born to live side by side in peace with Israel ?!

Inch by inch that Palestine is being crushed by Israeli "settlements", monstrous land grabbing walls, home demolition policies, and Israel's state funded religious extremists... Israel clearly wants the land but not the native non-Jewish people of that land.  How is it that America's elected leaders, and now the UAE,  enthusiastically endorse and empower a Jews-preferred Israel that refuses to respect the Palestinians' basic human rights, including but not limited to the refugees right of return? 

For decades now, I have watched as many have tried all they can to help create a two state solution to end the Israel/Palestine conflict once and for all. Diana Buttu is absolutely right to say "Rather than continuing to press for a two-state solution, the P.L.O. should instead press for equal rights.", and I thank her from the bottom of my heart for speaking truth to power.

Sincerely,

Anne Selden Annab

 

Photo by Photo Ra'id Mukdi, 9 Sept. 2020 of Palestinian children (of Ras al-Tin, east of Ramallah)  during class before by Israeli forces confiscated tin panels from the school’s roof, 30 chairs and 12 classroom tables.   One example of many of how Israel daily harasses and impoverishes Palestinians. https://www.btselem.org/facing_expulsion_blog?nid=213075