Inside Israel's expansionist ambitions • Israel has never officially defined its borders, but Israeli settlers and ministers are flirting with the biblical idea of extending them far beyond the current state. What's behind the concept of "Greater Israel"?

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Daniela Weiss holds a laminated map of the Middle East with the title "The Promised Land" into the camera and says: "This is the promise of God to the patriarchs of the Jewish nation." 

The map shows a Jewish state that encompasses parts of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia – extending way beyond the 1949 armistice line, the so-called Green Line that defines Israel's territory according to international law. 

Weiss – sometimes nicknamed "the godmother of the Israeli settler movement" – is referring to the idea of "Greater Israel", or in Hebrew "Eretz Israel HaShlema" – "Complete Israel." It's an expansionist concept popular among the Israeli far right that originates in the Bible. 

In March 2023, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich caused diplomatic turmoil when he spoke at a Paris memorial behind a podium featuring a "Greater Israel" map that included not only the territories Israel currently occupies but also Jordan. 

In March 2026, he called for the annexation of southern Lebanon

In September 2024, when speaking about his plans for "the day after" the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a map that fully annexed the West Bank. 

In August 2025, he told the Israeli channel i24NEWS that he was "very much" connected to the vision of "Greater Israel," prompting Egypt and Jordan to demand clarifications from Israel.

And just a few months ago, in February 2026, the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, told American talkshow host Tucker Carlson that it would be "fine" if Israel took over the entire Middle East. 

Expansion is already reality

Israel expanded its borders beyond what was proposed in the UN Partition Plan in 1947. The plan allocated about 56% of former British Mandatory Palestine to a future Jewish state, but after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Israel controlled about 77%. 

Since occupying East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 1967, Israel effectively controls nearly all of former Mandatory Palestine, in addition to the Golan Heights.

The UN views all Israeli settlements beyond the Green Line as a violation of international law, and in an advisory opinion of 2024, the International Court of Justice found the occupation to be illegal.