Israeli ministers announced publicly, refusing to comply with any international demands or pressures to stop settlement activities, sit at the negotiation table, or discuss the idea of establishing an independent Palestinian state. Israeli media reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted in a speech he delivered on Tuesday, on the occasion of building 17 new settlements in the West Bank, that his country is closer than ever to imposing sovereignty over the West Bank. Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen stated on Wednesday that imposing sovereignty over the West Bank is a priority and a response to Israel’s enemies and those talking about establishing a Palestinian state.
Some have raised questions about the implications of the Israeli government’s talks with the international community regarding the annexation of the West Bank and the displacement of Palestinians, and about the possibility of confronting these plans on Arab, international, and Palestinian levels. Hussein Al-Deek, an expert on Israeli affairs, stated that the idea of “Greater Israel” has deep historical roots in Israeli religious texts, emphasizing that religious concepts in the Talmud and Torah define the borders of Greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates, as evidenced by the two blue stripes in the Israeli flag and in the Israeli national anthem “Hatikvah” (The Hope), which talks about “the sun that will shine on the people of Israel in the land extending between the rivers from the Nile to the Euphrates.”
According to his statement to “Sputnik,” this idea embodies the starting point from Palestine to achieve the biblical prophecy of the State of Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates. There is a map representing the borders mentioned by Benjamin Netanyahu recently, which extend to Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and parts of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and all of Palestine. Al-Deek mentioned that the Israeli government’s rejection of the two-state solution, followed by an American refusal of the two-state solution conference in New York, reflects an absolute Israeli and American rejection of this solution.
He pointed out that this creates a new alignment, where the United States stands for the first time in a completely different position from the European stance, which was characterized by some consensus regarding the Palestinian issue and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Al-Deek concluded his remarks by confirming that this distinction between the European and American positions clearly expresses the Israeli government’s disbelief in any political horizon or solution for any state.
In this context, Palestinian political analyst Nauman Tawfiq Al-Abed confirmed that the extremist government of Benjamin Netanyahu, since its formation, set a primary goal of preventing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Al-Abed pointed out in his statement to “Sputnik” that the plans were primarily focused on the West Bank, as this extremist government believes that the essence of the Israeli occupation state should be in the lands of the West Bank.
He added that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s plans were all about controlling and providing funds to establish more Israeli settlements. He explained that these goals include seizing the largest area of the West Bank and deepening settlements to create geographic continuity between the settlements in the West Bank and the lands occupied in 1948, leading to the separation of Palestinian cities and towns and turning them into isolated cantons, making the establishment of a Palestinian state impossible.
Al-Abed noted that these ideas have become more entrenched and violent after October 7th, prompting an acceleration in their implementation, whether through genocide or the destruction of Palestinian land in the West Bank. He mentioned that what is happening now in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is a premeditated plan by Netanyahu’s government, which was slowly implemented before October 7th, but afterward, the pace of execution became more explicit and clear.
He said that these incursions into the West Bank aim to undermine the work of the Palestinian state nucleus and the Palestinian National Authority by imposing financial blockades and preventing Palestinian security, sovereign, and administrative bodies from working freely. Al-Abed pointed out that these measures aim to dissolve the National Authority or completely eliminate it, or restrict its work to some simple administrative and police aspects, without being a cohesive unit.
Al-Abed called on the international community, specifically the European Union, Western countries, Russia, and China, to exert pressure on Netanyahu’s government to stop the war in Gaza, stop settlement activities, and attempts to displace in the West Bank. He asserted that if the active international parties do not besiege, punish, and oblige Netanyahu’s government through economic and military boycotts, it will not respond to the requirements of peace, stop the aggression, and stop this “monster of settlement.”
Al-Abed noted the strength and brutality lie in receiving fundamental support from the American administration, making it indifferent to the requirements of Western countries. He called for a unified coordination through the Security Council, the General Assembly of the United Nations, or the BRICS countries to besiege, punish, boycott, and force Netanyahu’s government to stop its plans, and support the Palestinian people and the Palestinian National Authority to remain steadfast on the land.
The idea and phrase “Greater Israel” date back to after the 1967 war when Israel occupied Palestinian and Arab lands. It is a phrase associated with an alleged geographic context about Israel’s borders in the region. In June 1967, Israel occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem and the West Bank, as well as the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt and the Syrian Golan Heights.
In January, an online page affiliated with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a supposed map that includes parts of the occupied Palestinian land, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt. Israel still occupies lands in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon and refuses to withdraw from them and establish an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital on the borders of June 5, 1967.
Currently, Israel is waging a wide-scale war against the Gaza Strip that has been ongoing since October 7th, causing the death of more than 61,000 Palestinians and injuring about 153,000 others, according to data from the Gaza Ministry of Health. Meanwhile, Netanyahu rejects all local and global calls to end the war and opposes any internal voices urging him to negotiate a ceasefire.
