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On June 14, the United States and Iran agreed to end their war. The Strait of Hormuz will be reopened, the bombing of Lebanon will end and – most importantly – the killing will stop. After more than 100 days of war that has killed thousands of people, including Iran’s top leaders, and pushed the economy around the world, even fragile chaos is felt like the first light.
Let us receive it, and let us understand it. To understand why this war happened, as well as several wars that happened before, we need to mention what happened. That is why it is “Greater Israel” – not the state of Israel but the idea of it – that is terrifying. The idea of a “Greater Israel” has led to wars in Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran.
It believes that Israel should expand to all of Palestine – from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea – and to parts of neighboring countries. According to US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a staunch Protestant whose political compass is based on biblical texts dating back to 500 BC, “Greater Israel” stretches from the Nile to the Euphrates. Last summer, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he said being “too much” combined with the vision of a “Greater Israel” which, he said, includes the Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab countries.
This false and dangerous doctrine has two parents. The first are stalwarts like Netanyahu who say that Israel must control all the land from the river to the sea to make it safe, and blame the eight million Palestinians along the way.
The second is the high Jewish belief of Israel’s Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich and Minister of National Defense Itamar Ben-Gvir that God gave the land only to the Jews: There it is, at Smotrich’s. words“there is no such thing as a Palestinian”. When asked recently how Israel would respond to its international fallout, Smotrich vowed that Israel would not relinquish military control over the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon or the Syrian region: “We will not kill ourselves for fun.”
“Greater Israel” is paranoia, megalomania and religious zealotry rolled into one program. This theory should have been rejected when it was first aired decades ago. In fact, it has driven Israel’s foreign policy for three decades – and it has continued to this day because Netanyahu has taken the US on board.
He has done this with two sections of America: Zionist Jews who love Israel and will forgive anything and Christian Zionists who love the prophecy of the End Times and the Second Coming of Christ more than they love any living Palestinian or, for that matter, any living Israeli.
Deceit has led to treachery, and the road has run from one war to another. We have been in this fiasco for 30 years now.
The war in Iran was just the latest myth of “Greater Israel”. A government of 90 million people must be overthrown in one glorious day. Of course, it didn’t happen. Israeli and American bombs killed Iranian leaders on February 28, but this did not deliver the promised collapse. It resulted in thousands of deaths, the closing of the Strait of Hormuz and a global oil shock.
We have seen this movie. The Israeli-US plan to remove President Bashar al-Assad from Syria was also supposed to be quick, a year or two at the most. Instead came twelve years of murder, fueled by a covert war armed and funded by the CIA with the support of Israel. The result was an ancient world that had turned into a wasteland. The promised success of one day is always a grave of ten years.
US President Donald Trump has been beaten into joining the “Greater Israel” scam, and he knows it. The new deal with Iran is his escape valve, a way out of a dangerous war that was not his own to win.
This is why Israeli politicians of “Greater Israel” are trying to disrupt the new agreement in birth, because peace with Iran is the defeat of “Greater Israel”. Despite the signing of the agreement, Israel continues to bomb Lebanon, killing 47 people in one day Friday is another 32 Saturday just hours after the Lebanese-Israeli ceasefire.
Here is a deep truth: “Greater Israel” is not saving Israel. It’s killing it. The apparent conflict between Trump and Netanyahu is only superficial. Underneath is the collapse of Israel’s standing in the world. According to Pew recently psychological researchthe world now has a worse view of Israel. In the US, an important point of view in Israel, six out of 10 adults view this negatively.
A government that makes itself hated by the country, and its only protector, is not pursuing security. It is threatening its own life to feed the hypocrisy.
So the way to peace in West Asia is to stop “Greater Israel”. End the war in Iran, stop the massacre in Gaza and stop the blockade of the West Bank. Most importantly, do what the theory prohibits, which is to create the State of Palestine as the 194th United Nations member of the United Nations together with the State of Israel on the lines of 1967 with real security for both countries and a regional system to ensure it, which should include the withdrawal of Israel from Lebanon and Syria.
The Iranian ceasefire makes the case less likely: it was not won on the battlefield but through mediation. It became possible when Washington decided that it wanted peace more than it wanted a “Greater Israel” war.
Israel may survive, but not as a “Greater Israel”, a dangerous concept that has carried the US from one war to another.
The light of hope today is very real. Whether it will be a true dawn depends on whether the US finally allows Palestine to be born, and thereby allows Israel to live. The Arab world and Iran must continue to insist to the US that breaking with “Greater Israel” is the only way to lasting peace.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the editorial policy of Al Jazeera.
