Negative views of Israel soar across 36 countries since Iran war, survey finds

Pew found a marked increase in unfavourable views of Israel, with nearly every country surveyed hosting majorities with negative views

By MEE staff

Published date: 5 June 2026

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/negative-views-israel-soar-across-36-countries-iran-war-survey-finds

Negative views of both Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have soared since last year across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, according to a new poll from Pew Research Center. 

Out of 36 countries, majorities in 32 of them have either a very unfavourable or somewhat unfavourable view of Israel, with only respondents in India, Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya holding a favourable view of the country. 

The survey was conducted between 8 February and 13 May of this year. The US-Israel war on Iran started on 28 February and has had an impact on countries across the world, in part likely due to the economic impact of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, where around 20 percent of the global oil supply passes through. 

Pew reported that across 36 countries, a median of 67 percent of adults held an unfavourable view of Israel, with just 25 percent holding a favourable view. 

Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem had the highest percentage of unfavourable views of Israel, with Turkey at 97 percent and Japan at 83 percent.

In the Anglophone world, specifically the US, Canada, Australia and the UK, all had majorities that held unfavourable views of Israel at 60, 65, 79, and 69 percent respectively.

All ten countries surveyed in Europe also held generally unfavourable views of Israel, with Sweden and Spain topping out at 78 percent each and Hungary with the most favourable views of Israel, but still carrying a majority, 54 percent, who held unfavourable views. 

Israel's war on Gaza and subsequent genocide has led to a global hardening of views against the country over the past three years. But the war on Iran appears to have triggered a strong response across the world, with significant year-on-year spikes in unfavourable views of Israel.

Israel's actions in Gaza, deemed a genocide by leading scholars, human rights organisations and political leaders, resulted in the death of at least 73,000 Palestinians since 7 October 2023. Its bombardment of the Gaza Strip has either destroyed or damaged 81 percent of structures in the enclave, with an estimated $18.5bn in damages according to the United Nations. 

Effects of war on Iran

Some of the fallout from the genocide was visible in Pew's survey last year, but since then there has been another spike, likely connected to the war in Iran. 

Nigeria, where 47 percent have favourable views of Israel, saw a nine percent increase in unfavourable views of Israel. South Korea had the largest jump in unfavourable views, marking a ten percent jump. 

Germany, Italy, Argentina, Poland, the UK,  and the US all recorded between a seven and nine percent jump in unfavourable views. 

Pew showed that people on the left of the political spectrum tended to hold more negative views of Israel than their counterparts on the right. The ideological gap was widest in the US, where 83 percent of liberals held negative views and just 37 percent of conservatives held negative views. 

That ideological gap is more prevalent in high-income countries but does not necessarily hold true in middle-income countries, according to the survey's authors.

Only two countries, the Philippines and Kenya, had confidence in Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu "to do the right thing regarding world affairs". Majorities of respondents in every other country had no confidence at all or little confidence in Netanyahu.

The same leap in unfavourable views of Israel was reflected in respondents' views of Netanyahu, with prominent increases in people losing confidence in Netanyahu's leadership over the past year.

US-Israel integration is far from 'America First'

We cannot outsource components of our national security to nations that do not share our interests and that is exactly what this proposed scheme would do

Joe Kent

Jun 03, 2026

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-israel-integration/

The war against Iran may have resulted in some tactical victories for Israel and the United States on the battlefield, but Israel is not winning American public opinion and neither are those American leaders who ardently support it.

This dwindling popularity could put in jeopardy the $3.8 billion that Israel receives in U.S. military aid each year. And that $3.8 billion is not all we provide to Israel — we also offer invaluable diplomatic cover on the world stage, in addition to direct U.S. military support during specific crises. Separately, the war in Iran has mostly benefited Israel’s regional agenda and has cost the U.S. taxpayer more than an estimated $50 billion so far.

Because of these factors, most Americans are growing wary of the support we give to Israel.

To get ahead of the changing sentiments, Israel and their American allies, like U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, are attempting to rebrand the aid we give to Israel each year. Rather than the annual Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) outlays, anything we give Tel Aviv will be “based on trade," according to Huckabee. The goal of this shift is to undermine the notion that Israel is dependent on American hand-outs and that the U.S. taxpayer is footing the bill for the horrific scenes coming out of Gaza and Lebanon. There is, of course, a major catch.

The catch is Section 224, cleverly buried deep in the massive National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is entitled “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.” This initiative transitions the traditional aid relationship into a deeper partnership between the U.S. and Israel in many aspects of technological research and development and defense production, and would also give Israel unprecedented access to U.S. technology development and "data fusion."

Section 224, which has been literally endorsed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, essentially transforms Israel from a top U.S. aid recipient to a full member of the U.S. defense and intelligence apparatus.

When it comes to counterintelligence and strategic messaging, the Section 224 initiative is far more damaging to U.S. national security than the previous arrangement. By embedding Israel in the production of critical defense technologies, we are creating access and control mechanisms for a nation that has drastically different goals than America does.

We should instead keep the development of key technologies restricted to Americans only. The dangers of allowing any other nation to access our sensitive military technologies are obvious, including the fact that back doors and spyware can be installed that will most certainly be used by the Israelis to influence U.S. policy.

From a strategic messaging perspective, Section 224 is a nightmare for the Trump administration and any lawmaker who supports it. Sentiment in America is turning against Israel, and Section 224 will not help quell the prevailing narrative that Israel has too much influence on the American government.

A more troubling aspect of this scheme is that it allows Israeli manufacturers to operate production facilities in the U.S. with an American partner. This stands in contrast to the standard way America provides military support to nations; historically the weapons that the U.S. provides in arms packages are all made in the U.S. by American manufacturers. Section 224 will give Israel the ability to actually create jobs in America. This is a powerful talking point that will give Israel leverage with many members of congress and the American public.

Sure, Israeli defense companies and subcontractors currently operate in the U.S. — however they still must compete with American companies, and lack the access to the U.S. government that American defense companies enjoy. Section 224 would turn that on its head as US.-Israel would be co-producing weapons systems, giving Israeli companies an unprecedented edge inside the Pentagon.

The idea of Israel creating American jobs by manufacturing military technologies in the U.S. may sound positive on its face. After all, who doesn’t want more American jobs? But this argument is built on the same fallacy that is used to justify the $3.8 billion in military aid that we currently give to Israel: that the aid is mostly spent on American weapons systems, so it’s not actually aid but an investment in American industry, as the pro-Israel lobby claims.

First, the idea that we need to give billions to a foreign country to manufacture American weapons systems is ridiculous. Supporters of Israel like Ambassador Huckabee like to say that the $3.8 billion we give to Israel goes back into the American economy. This assumes that we need to give a foreign nation money to fund our defense industry. This is nonsense, We should instead invest the $3.8 billion directly on weapon systems for our own inventories or sell them to nations that don’t need to pay for it with American aid money.

Second, the majority of the profits from the defense sector don’t go into creating American jobs or back into American communities, they go to the CEO’s profits and stock buy backs. This has been an issue that President Trump himself has raised.

Moreover, how have Israel’s actions in Iran, Gaza, or Lebanon made America safer and more prosperous? Some of the intelligence we get from the Israelis can be useful, but our increasing over-reliance on it has caused our own capabilities to atrophy.

We are a sovereign nation. We cannot outsource components of our national security to nations that do not share our interests; they will put their own interests first every time. No other government prioritizes the needs of a different country before its own, because that would be foolish. Israel can still be a decent partner, so long as we are clear-eyed about the differences between our two countries and act accordingly.

We must put America’s needs first.

Why Trump May Actually Have Told Netanyahu ‘Everybody Hates You!’

by Trita Parsi | Jun 4, 2026 |

Reprinted with permission from Trita Parsi’s Substack.

https://original.antiwar.com/trita-parsi/2026/06/03/why-trump-may-actually-have-told-netanyahu-everybody-hates-you/

“You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”

According to Axios, this is what Donald Trump said to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in “an expletive-laden call” earlier today.

Trump also accused Netanyahu of ingratitude since Trump had helped keep Netanyahu out of jail. At the heart of the matter was Trump’s frustration with Netanyahu not caving to his demands to cease bombing Lebanon, as Israel’s aggression risked jeopardizing Trump’s diplomacy with Iran.

The story has understandably been met with considerable skepticism. After all, there is a long and well-documented pattern of American presidents privately expressing anger and frustration with Israeli prime ministers while publicly standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them and continuing to support their policies.

Take Joe Biden as an example. In late December 2023, Axios reported that Biden’s frustration with Benjamin Netanyahu had become so intense that he abruptly ended a phone call with the Israeli leader, reportedly concluding the exchange with the terse remark: “This conversation is over.” Yet in practice, Biden remained firmly aligned with Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza.

Two months later, NBC News reported that Biden had repeatedly referred to Netanyahu as an “asshole” in private conversations with aides and donors. But even as he vented his exasperation behind closed doors, Biden continued to arm Israel lavishly and shield it from mounting diplomatic and political pressure at the United Nations. The gap between private frustration and public policy could hardly have been more striking.

According to Bob Woodward’s 2024 book War, Biden’s frustrations became intensely personal during the Rafah dispute and Biden told an associate: “That son of a bitch, Bibi Netanyahu, he’s a bad guy. He’s a bad f***ing guy.” No policy change followed.

There are plenty of other examples.

There are, however, a few important counterexamples – particularly from Trump’s second term – that suggest the Axios story is not entirely implausible. (Indeed, the report would have been far more difficult to believe had Axios claimed that Trump told Netanyahu, “Everybody loves you.”)

On June 24, 2025, after Israel and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire following their twelve-day war, Israel almost immediately violated the agreement, infuriating Trump. Before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, Trump delivered an unusually blunt and public rebuke, declaring that Israel and Iran “don’t know what the f*** they’re doing” and adding that he was “really unhappy with Israel.”

The outburst was not merely rhetorical. Trump reportedly intervened directly with Netanyahu, after which Israel halted its planned escalation and the ceasefire held for several months. Ironically, however, Trump himself would restart the conflict in February 2026, after sustained pressure from Israel and its supporters in Washington.

Another notable episode came after Israel bombed the Qatari capital, Doha, killing a Qatari security guard and jeopardizing Qatar’s role as a key mediator in the Gaza negotiations. In an extraordinary and arguably unprecedented move, Trump arranged a phone call from the Oval Office and had Netanyahu apologize directly to the Qatari Emir.

When Netanyahu later denied that he had apologized, the White House responded by releasing a photograph from the Oval Office showing Trump holding the phone while Netanyahu appeared to be reading from a prepared script. A Qatari diplomat was also present in the room, observing the apology as it unfolded.

The only comparable example that comes to mind is from 2013, when Barack Obama pressed Netanyahu to apologize to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan over the Mavi Marmara flotilla raid. Even then, however, the apology took place privately. By contrast, the Qatar episode was so unusually public that the White House itself effectively documented Netanyahu’s compliance.

None of this, of course, proves that the Axios story is true, but it suggests that it may not be as implausible as some may otherwise believe. What is also plausible, however, is that Trump will once again fail to sustain the pressure and, by that, allow for Netanyahu’s potential retreat to prove temporary.

Rep. Massie on Reported Trump-Netanyahu Spat: It’s All Talk Until US Withholds Military Aid to Israel

The Kentucky congressman said withholding aid to Israel for just a month would force Israel to stop bombing its neighbors

by Dave DeCamp | June 2, 2026

https://news.antiwar.com/2026/06/02/rep-massie-on-reported-trump-netanyahu-spat-its-all-talk-until-us-withholds-military-aid-to-israel/

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) on Tuesday responded to an Axios report that alleged President Trump lashed out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s escalations in Lebanon, saying that it was “all talk” and pointing out that the US could withhold military aid if it actually wanted to see an end to Israel’s wars.

“It’s all talk. Just withhold foreign aid to Israel for a month and they’ll stop bombing their neighbors – instant peace, the Strait of Hormuz can be opened, and gas drops $2 a gallon,” Massie wrote on X. “Israel has been, and continues to be, the biggest welfare recipient from American taxpayers.”

According to a source speaking to Axios, Trump told Netanyahu, “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.” Axios had published multiple accounts of similar rifts between President Biden and Netanyahu as the Biden administration continued supporting Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.

After the call with Netanyahu on Monday, Trump said in two separate posts on Truth Social that there was an agreement between Israel and Hezbollah for a ceasefire in Lebanon, but Israeli attacks continued on Tuesday. Israel did hold off on threatened strikes on Beirut, though an Israeli official had told Ynet earlier on Monday that the threat was coordinated with the US.

Massie also took aim at Netanyahu in a post on X on Tuesday, saying that the more the Israeli leader “prevents the war with Iran from ending, the more obvious it becomes that he convinced Trump to start it.”

Massie, virtually the only Republican in Congress who consistently opposes military aid to Israel, recently lost his primary to a Trump-backed candidate in a race that became the most expensive House primary in US history, fueled by spending from pro-Israel groups and donors.

‘Ceasefire Is a Joke’: Israeli Soldiers Recount Ongoing Indiscriminate Killings in Gaza

“It was a jungle,” one soldier said. “After the ceasefire, the order was: If someone crosses the line, you shoot them.”

by Brett Wilkins | May 31, 2026

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2026/05/31/ceasefire-is-a-joke-israeli-soldiers-recount-ongoing-indiscriminate-killings-in-gaza/

Israel Defense Forces soldiers interviewed for an article published Friday by The Associated Press described ongoing indiscriminate killing of Palestinians – including civilians – despite a purported ceasefire.

One IDF combat soldier told the AP that he saw his teammates “yelling in celebration” and “congratulating one another” after blowing up a vehicle driving near the ever-expanding so-called “yellow line” dividing the Gaza Strip into Israeli and Palestinian-controlled zones. The strike killed everyone inside the vehicle.

“It was a jungle,” the soldier said. “After the ceasefire, the order was: If someone crosses the line, you shoot them.”

The problem is, the yellow line is often unclear, invisible, and often shifts. It cuts through farmland, roads, neighborhoods, and areas where Palestinians live and work.

Nadav Weiman, an IDF veteran who is now the executive director of the veterans’ whistleblower group Breaking the Silence, told the AP that the military’s permissive shoot-to-kill policy has “created a reality where countless civilians have and are being killed for crossing invisible lines.”

One IDF soldier interviewed by the AP said, “there was a general feeling that human lives are not valuable.” The soldier said his commanding officer told him it would be “too much work” to clearly mark the yellow line, and that Palestinians were supposed to somehow know where it was.

According to the AP, one soldier said that “sometimes snipers fired warning shots at people close to the line… but commanders told troops to do more to protect themselves. The soldier understood that to mean firing more lethal shots.”

“Soldiers shooting or ordering drone strikes don’t always know who’s crossing the line,” the AP reported, citing interviewed troops. “Although soldiers must provide coordinates and get approval from superiors before striking, it’s hard to give exact information as people are moving,” and soldiers reported colleagues “calling in coordinates based on a hunch or the last place they saw someone.”

IDF troops interviewed by the AP also described “a sense of confusion” and “a lack of clarity on rules of engagement around the yellow line.” Some commanders “paid lip service” to the ceasefire agreement that’s been in effect since last October, but in practice ignored it.

According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, Israel has violated the ceasefire more than 3,005 times, resulting in more than 900 Palestinians killed and nearly 2,800 others injured, despite the truce.

“To call it a ceasefire is a joke,” one IDF soldier told the AP.

Israel claims that the entire length of the yellow line is now clearly marked. However, as Common Dreams reported this week, the IDF has incrementally shifted the boundary deeper into Gaza, where Israel now controls more than 60% of the coastal strip. This has left Palestinians sometimes waking up to learn they’re in “open-fire zones” where they are subjected to being shot on sight.

Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 250,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including thousands of people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Israeli troops have previously described indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians, including children and aid-seekers.

While such killings have become less frequent since the ceasefire, some IDF soldiers dismiss the word as practically meaningless.

“We need to stop using this term,” one soldier told the AP, referring to the word ceasefire. “It’s not serving people that want to stop the war.”

AIPAC 'obscures' support for Democratic candidates in US elections: Report

Only 13 percent of Democratic voters in the US view Israel favorably, making support from the lobbying group AIPAC a liability

News Desk

MAY 31, 2026

https://thecradle.co/articles/aipac-hides-support-for-democratic-candidates-as-support-for-israel-now-viewed-as-toxic-report

The pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC has begun hiding its involvement in funding political campaigns for candidates running for public office in the US, as support for Israel becomes increasingly “toxic” among Democratic voters, Haaretz reported on 31 May.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has traditionally boasted of its success in helping elect candidates for Congress and the Senate who are committed to supporting Israel, including voting to provide it billions in US military aid each year.

However, as Israel continues to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and wage war on Lebanon and Iran, US voters are beginning to view Israel and its lobby in the US in an increasingly negative light.

Support among Democrats has fallen to particularly low levels, making AIPAC campaign contributions to Democratic candidates a potential liability.

"But as the Israel-boosting organization's brand becomes toxic in many Democratic primaries, [AIPAC] has adopted a new fundraising method that hides its involvement in steering funds to favored contenders," Haaretz writes.

To obscure its involvement, AIPAC is asking donors to make donations through online portals it controls that "funnel money directly to candidates' campaigns — erasing AIPAC's fingerprints in public data."

The pro-Israel lobbying group used the tactic in Michigan, where Congresswoman Haley Stevens is running against Abdul el-Sayed for an open Senate seat.

During the campaign, Sayed has criticized Stevens for accepting financial support from AIPAC, saying the funds have "bought" her support for providing US military aid to Israel.

According to the Detroit News, a local Michigan newspaper, AIPAC raised several million dollars for Stevens by placing a fundraising page on its website, allowing donors to steer funds directly to her campaign.

In similar moves last summer and fall, AIPAC sent emails to donors directing them to use candidate-specific links to pages on the Pro-Israel Network website, rather than donate to the lobbying group.

The online portals also allow AIPAC to collect information about donors, including how much they contributed, to provide the data to the candidates. This allows AIPAC to work on the candidates' behalf "while shielding it from public view."

Doing so protects candidates from criticism for accepting AIPAC funds, as only 13 percent of Democratic voters hold a positive view of Israel.

In March, Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona announced, "I wouldn't take AIPAC money because you have to basically be endorsing what's happening right now, and it's not good."

AIPAC has also begun creating political action committees (PACs) with names unrelated to the organization or Israel that obscure their origin.

The United Democracy Project, AIPAC's main political spending arm, now focuses its advertising on domestic issues important to voters, such as immigration, while avoiding any mention of Israel, Haaretz added.

For a congressional election in the city of Chicago, AIPAC created a political action committee called "Elect Chicago Women" to try to defeat Daniel Biss, the Jewish candidate who advocates placing conditions on US aid to Israel.

The issue of Israeli lobby funding also arose on the Republican side of the political aisle when AIPAC spent $16 million to help defeat long-time Congressman and prominent critic of Israel, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, in a Republican primary earlier this month.

Ed Gallrein defeated Massie in the most expensive Congressional primary in US history, thanks to AIPAC's spending.

"It's turned into a referendum on whether Israel gets to buy seats in Congress," said Massie.

Last year, Massie tried to pass legislation known as the "Dual Loyalty Disclosure Act," which would have required candidates for federal office to disclose both their dual citizenship and the foreign country in which it is held.

In 2024, he revealed to journalist Tucker Carlson that each member of Congress and the Senate is assigned an AIPAC "minder" who is responsible for steering lawmakers to vote for pro-Israel legislation.

Israel's colonization of south Lebanon is already under way

Paul Khalifeh

27 May 2026

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israels-colonisation-south-lebanon-already-under-way

Despite official Israeli denials and the refusal of some Lebanese to acknowledge the reality, the colonization of south Lebanon is neither a myth nor a fantasy. It is a concrete and structured project.

On 14 May, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir revealed that Israel had a "settlement plan for Lebanon". The far-right minister made the statement on the very day Lebanon and Israel were due to resume direct negotiations in Washington under US auspices aimed at normalizing relations and reaching a comprehensive agreement.

Several weeks earlier, on 26 March, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared 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".

These statements are not merely rhetorical provocations. They accompany and support actions already taking place on the ground by Israeli civilians inside Lebanese territory.

On 12 February, weeks before the latest war broke out, dozens of settlers, including women and children, attempted to plant trees inside Lebanese territory in what appeared to be a staged demonstration promoting Israeli settlement expansion. Participants called for the alleged "resumption" of settlement activity in Lebanon, presenting it as a "historical correction".

Not isolated

The Yaroun incident is not an isolated case, despite attempts by Israeli authorities to portray it as such. It fits into a broader and carefully orchestrated campaign designed to acclimatise Israeli public opinion to the idea of colonising south Lebanon, a territory regarded by some extremists as an integral part of "Greater Israel".

On 5 December 2024, only days after the end of the "66-Day War", a group of Israelis entered the border village of Maroun el-Ras and erected tents before being evacuated by soldiers.

At the height of the fighting, on 20 November, another major incident exposed Israeli ambitions more clearly.

Controversial Israeli archaeologist Zeev Erlich, aged 71, was killed during clashes between the Israeli army and Hezbollah fighters in the village of Chamaa, located 25km from the border.

Originally from the settlement of Ofra in the occupied West Bank - of which he was one of the founders - Erlich was wearing a military uniform and carrying a weapon when he died. He authored several books on Jewish history in Israel and the broader region.

The Israeli army stated that Erlich had been invited to "assess a fortress" intended to be transformed into an observation post.

Lebanese sources told Middle East Eye that the archaeologist's true mission was to inspect the shrine of Saint Peter in Chamaa - also known as Maqam Chamoun as-Safa - a rare pilgrimage site revered by both Shia Muslims and Christians alike.

The religious site, along with the citadel, later suffered extensive destruction in subsequent Israeli air strikes.

Zionist roots

The colonisation of south Lebanon is not a fabrication or a paranoid fantasy. It is a tangible project deeply rooted in the history of Zionist ideology.

Lebanese statesman Raymond Edde (1913-2000), whose father Emile Edde was one of the founders of Greater Lebanon, spent much of his political career warning against Israeli territorial ambitions in Lebanon.

In a statement issued on 22 April 1998, Raymond Edde recalled historical episodes relayed to him by his father:

It is necessary to remember that as early as 1904, Theodor Herzl described the territory Zionism sought to obtain, extending from the 'Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.' It was also to include Lebanon. In July 1947, during his testimony before the UN Special Committee of Inquiry, Rabbi Fischman, official representative of the Jewish Agency, echoed Herzl's words, declaring: 'The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates. It will include part of Syria and Lebanon.' On 14 May 1948, the State of Israel was created. Ben-Gurion presented a military report to the Supreme Command: 'We must prepare to launch the offensive. Our objective is to crush Lebanon. We shall establish a Christian state there.' In May 1954, Ben-Gurion and Dayan devised a military plan for the absorption of Lebanon. According to Dayan, the key would be to find a Lebanese officer, even a mere major. We should buy him so that he agrees to proclaim himself saviour of the Maronite people. The Israeli army would then enter Lebanon, occupy the necessary territories, and create a Christian regime allied with Israel. The territory south of the Litani would be fully annexed to Israel, and everything would be perfect.

Today, the project of colonising south Lebanon is primarily championed in Israel by an organisation known as Uri Tzafon, named after a biblical verse, literally meaning "Awaken, O North".

The movement was founded in late March 2024 to advocate for the reoccupation of south Lebanon and the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the region.

The organisation, which has gathered several thousand supporters, argues that settling Lebanon is both a security necessity for northern Israel and part of a legitimate messianic mission to "reclaim" territories believed to fall within the biblical Land of Israel.

Growing momentum

Uri Tzafon was founded in memory of Yisrael Socol, a 24-year-old Israeli soldier killed in Gaza in January 2024. According to his family, Socol dreamed not only of Israeli settlements in Gaza, but also of settling in Lebanon himself.

"In addition to building a digital community, Uri Tzafon has also organised actions attempting to grow its presence on the ground," wrote Maya Razan on 19 August 2024. "It has led postering campaigns in towns across northern Israel, where public spaces including playgrounds and bomb shelters are now adorned with signs calling for the settlement of Lebanon."

The operations carried out in Maroun el-Ras in December 2024 and in Yaroun in February 2026 were reportedly organised by members of Uri Tzafon.

One can understand why official Israeli leaders continue to deny territorial ambitions in Lebanon, as Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar reiterated on 25 April. Israel remains engaged in direct negotiations with Lebanon while facing growing criticism from international public opinion.

What is more difficult to understand is why certain Lebanese continue to deny Israeli intentions towards their country.

Many still remember the controversial remarks made in January by Lebanese Foreign Minister Joe Rajji, who effectively justified Israeli attacks against Lebanon by stating that "Israel retains the right to launch attacks while Hezbollah is still armed".

The normalisation of Israel's expansionism has extended beyond politics into intellectual and media circles.

A lengthy article published on 31 March by the French-language daily L'Orient-Le Jour proposed a highly particular interpretation of history. Israel was portrayed as a victim of its neighbours, while the notion of a structural and absolute antagonism between Israel and Lebanon was dismissed as a "myth".

"Never, during the 22 years in which this region (south Lebanon) was under the control of the South Lebanon Army (SLA, a militia allied with the Hebrew state), did any Israeli come to plant a tent there," the article asserted.

The author appears to overlook the case of William Robinson, who had operated a children's home since 1985. Living in Lebanon for seven years, the fundamentalist Christian layman was assassinated in 1990, with the killing claimed by the Lebanese National Resistance Front.

Residents of villages in the region suspected Robinson of attempting to purchase large tracts of land in south Lebanon in order to establish a Jewish settlement there.