Zionism without borders: Annexation and normalization as tools of Arab subjugation
Tel Aviv’s colonial project blends the ambitions of
Greater Israel with the reach of ‘Great Israel’ – annexing land while redrawing
the sovereignty of its Arab neighbors.
AUG 1, 2025
Four weeks after Israel signed the US-brokered Abraham
Accords with the UAE and Bahrain on 15 September 2020, Tel Aviv’s Higher
Planning Council approved 4,948 new settler units in the occupied West Bank. No
public fanfare.
No tanks rolled in – just signatures authorizing
another layer of occupation. The first wave of expansion advanced quietly,
legitimized by the language of “peace.”
This sequencing deliberately reflects the core logic
of Zionist expansion: Normalize when the region submits, colonize when the
world blinks.
Where possible, the occupation state's army conquers land directly. Where resistance or scrutiny makes that unfeasible,
the occupation government builds a web of security pacts, trade routes, and
intelligence partnerships that extend its reach without a single uniformed
soldier. This dual formula, territorial conquest and hegemonic integration, has
underpinned Israeli strategy since 1967, and today stretches unimpeded from the
Jordan Valley to the Atlantic coast.
Two paths, one destination
“Greater Israel” represents the settler-colonial
ambition to annex, settle, and absorb land across historic Palestine and
beyond. It is rooted in the Zionist vision of Jewish dominion over the
so-called “biblical Land of Israel.” In contrast, “Great Israel” describes the
imperial design to dominate the surrounding region through proxies, economic
leverage, and security alignments.
Where occupation is costly, Tel Aviv turns to
influence. Through deals, destabilization, or coercion, it reshapes the
sovereignty of its neighbors. Greater Israel devours land. Great Israel
neutralizes independence. Together, they are one project.
Zionist literature makes this plain. Ze'ev Jabotinsky,
founder of Revisionist Zionism, demanded sovereignty over all of Mandatory
Palestine and Transjordan – “Greater Israel on both sides of the Jordan River”
– and rejected compromise with Arabs. In The Iron Wall (1923), he declared that only an unyielding
Jewish force could compel Arab acquiescence:
“Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must
either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native
population.”
“Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must
either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native
population.”
The occupation state’s first prime minister and Labor
Zionist leader, David Ben-Gurion, publicly accepted a partition plan in 1937,
but privately described it as “not the end but the beginning.” In a letter to
his son, he wrote that a Jewish state on part of the land would strengthen the
Zionist project and serve as a platform to “redeem the entire country.” In a
June 1938 meeting of the Jewish Agency executive, he said:
“After the formation of a large army … we shall
abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine.”
Early Zionist leaders did not view borders as final,
but as phases. During its first two decades, Israel lacked the military
strength or western backing to expand beyond its 1949 borders. Direct
confrontation with Arab states risked catastrophe. Instead, Tel Aviv pioneered
a subtler doctrine of peripheral infiltration.
Through the “periphery doctrine,” it cultivated covert ties with non-Arab states and
oppressed minorities – Shah-era Iran, Turkiye, Kurdish groups in Iraq, and
Christian separatists in Sudan. This strategy sowed chaos among Israel’s Arab
rivals while embedding Israeli influence in strategic corners of West Asia and
Africa. Most recently, the occupation state has made overtures to Druze communities in southern Syria, seeking to replicate this
strategy amid renewed instability.
The corridor to colonization
Israel’s integration into the Arab world is now deeper
than ever before. Through normalization, Tel Aviv has converted former enemies
into partners economically, diplomatically, and militarily. While Egypt and
Jordan first formalized ties through Camp David and Wadi Araba, it was the
Abraham Accords that opened the floodgates. What followed was a deluge of tech
deals, weapons transfers, and commercial partnerships linking the occupation
state to the Persian Gulf.
By 2023, Israel’s trade with the UAE had reached $3 billion annually. That figure rose by 11 percent the following
year, even as Israel waged genocide in Gaza. Israeli Consul General Liron
Zaslansky described trade relations between Abu Dhabi and Israel as
"growing, so that we ended 2024 at $3.24 billion, excluding software and
services."
In 2022, Morocco purchased $500 million worth of Israeli Barak MX air
defense systems. Rabat also partnered with BlueBird, an Israeli drone firm, to become the first UAV
manufacturer in West Asia and North Africa.
This has created a “corridor of influence” that grants
Tel Aviv access to new markets, air and sea routes, and intelligence spaces
stretching from Casablanca to Khor Fakkan.
On the ground, the war continues
While trade flourishes, colonization accelerates. In
2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultranationalist government
approved 12,855 settler homes – a record for any six-month period. More than
700,000 settlers now occupy the West Bank and East Jerusalem. That figure has
grown sevenfold since the early 1990s.
In May 2025, Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed
cabinet approval for the construction of 22 new West Bank
settlements, including multiple previously unauthorized outposts. Katz framed
the move as necessary to “strengthen our hold on Judea and Samaria” and to
“prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
These settlements are not arbitrary. They are
connected by Jewish-only bypass roads, fortified by the occupation army, and
strategically designed to fragment the occupied West Bank into isolated
Palestinian enclaves. This is de facto annexation, defined by a matrix of
irreversible facts that eliminates the territorial basis for any future
Palestinian state, while avoiding the international fallout of formal
annexation.
The “logic” of expansion has also spilled beyond
Palestine. In Syria, Tel Aviv now occupies 250 square kilometers across
Quneitra, Rural Damascus, and Deraa – territory seized during the collapse
of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's government by Al-Qaeda rooted
terrorists – Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – who now occupy the seat of power
in Damascus. HTS was under the leadership of former ISIS chief Abu Mohammad
al-Julani. Upon ousting Assad, Julani began using his government name, Ahmad
al-Sharaa, and became the de facto president of Syria.
In Lebanon, Israeli forces maintain a presence over
30–40 square kilometers, including Shebaa Farms, Kfar Shuba Hills, and the
northern half of Ghajar. Additional outposts and buffer zones stretch along the
so-called Blue Line.
Occupation rebranded
Israel’s expansion today is no longer confined to
bulldozers and soldiers; it is mediated through trade, tech, and treaties. But
make no mistake: normalization has not replaced occupation. It has enabled and
accelerated it.
Every Emirati deal, every Moroccan drone line, every
Bahraini handshake fuels Tel Aviv’s capacity to deepen its military presence
and Judaize more land. Plans are underway to double the number of settlers
in the Golan Heights and to deploy armored units along the demilitarized zone.
The ripple effects are already destabilizing the
region. Egypt has begun constructing a concrete wall on its border with Gaza to
prepare for mass displacement or military spillover. Jordan faces existential peril in the Jordan Valley, where settler expansion is
displacing Bedouin communities and draining natural aquifers. Syria and Lebanon
remain hemmed in by fortified Israeli positions, with both countries facing
increasing pressure from Washington to normalize relations.
Greater Israel devours Arab land. Great Israel
colonizes Arab decision-making. One swallows borders. The
other swallows sovereignty.
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