Israel’s Expansion Means an Unraveling of Middle East Stability
by José
Niño | Apr 20, 2026
The recent ceasefire between Israel and Iran may have
paused the most intense phase of direct military confrontation, but it has done
nothing to resolve the deeper questions about Middle Eastern stability that
have emerged since October 7, 2023. Behind the temporary calm lies a profound
transformation in Israeli strategic thinking, one that has moved from
containment to active regional reorganization.
Israel is not a normal democracy that abides by the
rule of law or legal restraint. It is very much an expansionist state with bold
ambitions and a demonstrated willingness to break international law. The events
of the past two years have made this reality impossible to ignore.
The “Greater Israel” project, a term that has carried two primary meanings over the decades, has moved from the ideological
fringe into the governing coalition of Israeli politics. In its narrower,
post-1967 usage, “Greater Israel” referred to Israeli sovereignty over the West
Bank, Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights. In its maximalist, biblicist form, drawn
from Genesis 15:18, it invokes the territory stretching “from the river of
Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates,” a vast area encompassing
parts of modern Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and potentially reaching into Iraq.
Once confined to religious nationalists and settler
ideologues, this expansionist vision now sits at the cabinet table. Finance
Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for Israel to “expand to Damascus,” displayed a
map showing Jordan as part of Israel at a 2023 speech in Paris, and settler
leader Daniella Weiss has publicly stated that “the real borders of Greater Israel are the
Euphrates and the Nile.”
Netanyahu’s coalition agreement explicitly declares that “Jewish people have an exclusive and
indisputable right to all parts of the Land of Israel” and that “the government
will promote and develop settlements in all parts of the Land of Israel.” As Al
Jazeera reported in February 2026, figures like Smotrich and Ben Gvir, once regarded as
outside the mainstream, “are now in government, reflecting a wider
radicalisation within Israeli society itself.”
Perhaps most striking is that this rhetoric is no
longer confined to religious rights. Opposition leader Yair Lapid, an
ostensibly secular figure, stated in February 2026 that he supports “anything that
will allow the Jews a large, broad, strong land,” adding that “the borders are
the borders of the Bible.” When even centrist politicians invoke biblical
mandates to justify territorial expansion, the ideological transformation
becomes undeniable.
The conflict with Hezbollah has catalyzed a
significant shift in Israeli policy regarding Lebanon’s territorial integrity.
The previous doctrine of containing Hezbollah has given way to explicit calls
from senior Israeli officials for the permanent occupation and annexation of
territory up to the Litani River, approximately thirty kilometers north of the
current border.
Smotrich has repeatedly asserted that the military
campaign in Lebanon must result in a “change of Israel’s borders.” On March 23,
2026, he told an Israeli radio program that the campaign “needs to end with a different
reality entirely, both with the Hezbollah decision but also with the change of
Israel’s borders.” He then declared at a Knesset faction meeting that “the Litani
must be our new border with the state of Lebanon, just like the Yellow Line in
Gaza and like the buffer zone and peak of the Hermon in Syria,” adding, “I say
here definitively, in every room and in every discussion, too.” Al Jazeera reported that these were “the most explicit” statements
by a senior Israeli official on seizing Lebanese territory since the current
military operations began.
Defense Minister Israel Katz has adopted a
complementary posture. He announced at the end of March that the IDF will maintain
“security control over the entire area up to the Litani River” and that “hundreds of thousands of residents of southern
Lebanon who evacuated northward will not return south of the Litani River until
security for the residents of the north is ensured.”
The shift toward annexation is bolstered by the
emergence of Uri Tzafon, a movement founded in late March 2024 that advocates
for the establishment of Jewish civilian settlements in southern Lebanon. The
group, whose name means “awaken, O North” in Hebrew, has organized conferences
focused on what it describes as the “occupation of the territory and
settlement” of southern Lebanon. Its leaders have invoked conquest, expulsion,
and settlement as the necessary sequence for transforming the region.
Senior rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh wrote in a public letter that “after the conquest and
expulsion of the hostile population, a Jewish settlement must be established,
thus completing the victory.” Eliyahu Ben Asher, a founding member of Uri
Tzafon, told Jewish Currents that “the
Israeli-Lebanese border is a ridiculous colonial border,” building on his
earlier assertion that “what is called ‘southern Lebanon’ is really and truly
simply the northern Galilee.”
In mid-2024, the group used drones and balloons to drop eviction notices on Lebanese border
towns, informing residents that “they are in the Land of Israel, which belongs
to the Jewish people, and that they are required to evacuate immediately,”
according to a post the group made on its Telegram channel. In February 2026,
dozens of Uri Tzafon activists crossed the border fence near the Lebanese town of
Yaroun and planted trees inside Lebanese territory in what the group called a
“moral and historical step.” The IDF detained two individuals and called the crossing “a
serious criminal offense.” By April 2026, Jewish Currents reported that Uri Tzafon’s once-marginal ideas had gained
“broad governmental and public support,” with the movement’s leaders now
setting their sights on territory beyond the Litani, toward the Zaharani River,
another dozen miles deeper into Lebanon.
The pursuit of “Greater Israel” and the annexation of
buffer zones draw on a lineage of Israeli strategic thought that advocates for
the fragmentation of rival Arab states. This lineage includes the 1982 Yinon Plan, an article published in the Hebrew journal Kivunim
(“Directions”) and authored by Oded Yinon, who had served as a senior official in the Israeli Foreign
Ministry and as a journalist for The Jerusalem Post. Yinon argued
that the borders drawn by colonial powers were inherently unstable and that
Israel’s security would be best served by what he called the “dissolution of
the military capabilities of Arab states east of Israel.” He specifically
proposed that Iraq should be divided into separate Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiite
entities, and that Syria and Lebanon should similarly fragment along sectarian
lines.
The deterioration of relations between Israel and
Turkey represents one of the most significant diplomatic casualties of the
post-October 7 era. Israeli leadership has designated Turkey not merely as a
problematic partner but as a strategic adversary whose regional ambitions
require a coordinated counter-alliance.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz spearheaded this posture
with highly personalized and escalatory rhetoric. Following Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s July 28, 2024, speech suggesting that his country might intervene in
Israel “just as we entered Karabakh, just as we entered Libya,” Katz responded on X that Erdoğan was “following in the
footsteps of Saddam Hussein” and that he “should remember what happened there
and how it ended,” posting a photograph of Erdoğan alongside the former Iraqi
dictator. Katz also instructed Israeli diplomats to “urgently dialogue with all NATO members” to
push for Turkey’s condemnation and expulsion from the alliance, calling Turkey
“a country which hosts the Hamas headquarters” and describing it as part of
“the Iranian axis of evil.”
Beyond rhetoric, Netanyahu has articulated a vision
for a regional counter-alliance. On February 23, 2026, ahead of Indian Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel, Netanyahu announced a proposed “hexagon of alliances” that would
include Israel, India, Greece, and Cyprus, along with unnamed Arab, African,
and Asian states. He stated that the initiative was designed to counter “the
radical axes, both the radical Shia axis, which we have struck very hard, and
the emerging radical Sunni axis.” While Netanyahu did not explicitly name Turkey as leading the Sunni axis, Israeli political
discourse and analysts have pointed to Turkey under Erdoğan as the primary concern, with
former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett recently describing Turkey
as “the new Iran.”
The shifts in Israeli rhetoric and doctrine since
October 7 have had profound implications for its international standing. The
“Greater Israel” rhetoric and the annexation of southern Lebanon have led to
what observers describe as a “dark new phase” in Israel’s relations with the
international community. Long-standing partners, including the United Kingdom,
have suspended trade negotiations and imposed sanctions on individuals involved in
the settler movement, citing the strident rhetoric of Israeli ministers as a
primary cause.
The military campaign against Iran in early 2026 and
the subsequent Iranian retaliation through the closure of the Strait of
Hormuz triggered
the world’s biggest oil supply disruption since the 1970s. The reclassification
of the Strait as a maximum war-risk zone led to insurance premiums surging by
over 1,000% contributing
to a global fuel crisis and massive volatility in financial markets. Within
Israel, the economic damage from the multi-front war has been estimated at
over $11.5 billion.
As Israel moves to dismantle the borders of the
twentieth century, the resulting shockwaves are rattling both regional
alliances and global energy markets. The Jewish state’s transformation into an
expansionist power has turned former partners into strategic adversaries,
making the recent ceasefire feel like a brief intermission in a much larger
drama. In this new Middle East, the map is being redrawn by force, and the cost
of that ink is being felt from the Litani River to the Strait of Hormuz.
