By Savannah Hamilton
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed here are those of the authors. View more opinions on ScoonTV
Srpski Svet, Russkiy Mir, Make America Great Again, Greater Los Angeles (okay, that one’s real, and commuters aren’t thrilled about it)… Spin the globe and randomly pick any country on the map, and somewhere, someone is dreaming bigger — some version of a “greater” ideology loitering in its politics.
Call it irredentism, call it nostalgia, nationalism or a power trip, but the instinct is universal.
Whether driven by “historical unfairness,” a desire to protect one’s people beyond borders, or good old-fashioned territorial ambition, the dream of a bigger, better version of one’s homeland has fuelled speeches, wars, and a truly remarkable number of “what if” maps that exist more in rhetoric than on paper.
Given that this is basically a human political reflex, why does “Greater Israel” get treated like the most dangerous idea in the room?
With the world in its current messy state, it’s a question worth discussing. Not to defend it nor dismiss it, but to look at it through the same diplomatic lens we’d apply to anyone else. History, after all, is the best political resource.
For most countries, the “bigger dream” floats in speeches, party platforms, or the occasional nationalist tweet and mostly stays there. But Israel’s version refuses to go quietly — and seems to attract more heat than almost anyone else’s.
The topic got its fresh 15 minutes most recently during a Tucker Carlson interview with Mike Huckabee, the US Ambassador to Israel, who casually dropped his support for the biblical vision of Israel stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. Then came the growing speculation about whether Israel is planning a full-scale move on Lebanon as Hezbollah gets more aggressive. And just like that, the idea is back in the headlines — one could even say… louder than ever.
The Many “Great” Faces
Before we dive into Israel specifically, it helps to understand that “greater” ideologies don’t all live in the same zip code but rather exist on a spectrum — everything from nationalist propaganda to active military campaigns.
On one end, you’ve got historical nostalgia. Think Manifest Destiny — the 19th-century American belief that the United States was divinely destined to stretch across the continent. Today it’s taught in history class as a thing of the past, not a live threat. The US just took it as “that happened” and moved on.
Greater Germany is the classic historical example, and it invokes a whole separate form of nostalgia. Everyone gets red in the face for one reason or another when discussing that era of Germany, so let’s just move on while acknowledging that most “greater” bad press comes from this.
Then there’s the political grey zone, which is where things get more interesting. Serbia is a useful case study here. “Greater Serbia,” the idea of unifying all Serbs under one state, has never been an official policy, but it’s never fully gone away either. Its updated, sleeker reincarnation is Srpski Svet (Serbian World), a more modern-day version promoted heavily by Aleksandar Vulin, a close ally of President Aleksandar Vučić. Vulin is vocal. Vučić is more diplomatic. This division of labor (AKA the cautious leader vs. the vocal ideologue) is a pattern worth noting — I’ll come back to this.
And finally, at the far end of the spectrum sits Russia, which is arguably the most extreme live example of a “greater” ideology in action today. Russkiy Mir (Russian World) has been used to justify the idea that Russia has a “civilizational duty” to protect Russian speakers and culture beyond official borders. This Slavic protectionism is arguably a far greater spark to World War I than poor Franz Ferdinand’s driver taking a wrong turn.
While it was never declared formal policy (never is, it seems), the idea has been voiced loudly and repeatedly by members and supporters of the Russian government, and even used as the base explanation for the start of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Today, it’s the clearest example of what happens when a map that existed only in someone’s head gets taken literally.
The point here is that most countries don’t have an official “greater” policy, but they do have a framework that gets activated when politically useful. And ideas like these are often most powerful when they’re never quite declared yet never quite denied. The magical grey zone.
Enter “Greater Israel”
There is no single “Greater Israel” definition. Rather, it’s a mix of related but distinct concepts that get bundled together — sometimes carelessly, sometimes deliberately.
At the most ancient and mythological level, you have the biblical Eretz Yisrael HaShlema (the “complete Land of Israel”) interpreted as stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. But note: This is a theological concept, not a policy document — treating it as a literal blueprint is roughly equivalent to citing Genesis as a property dispute. (Although, depending on who you ask, it hasn’t exactly stopped some people.)
Then there’s the early ideological layer, rooted in certain parts of late 19th/early 20th-century Zionism. What makes it even more complex is that Zionism itself, much like “Greater Israel,” does not have one strict definition either. It has multiple branches and, believe it or not, they disagree with each other quite a bit. Putting them all into a single expansionist project is simply unfair.
The more relevant layer is the contemporary political one, like the whole Gaza conflict, the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the annexation of the Golan Heights, and the allegedly “security-driven” military presence that has repeatedly extended beyond Israel’s internationally recognized borders. This is where the “Greater Israel” label gets slapped on most often in current debates, and where it has the most traction.
Reach Beyond Borders
There’s also a fourth dimension that doesn’t quite fit the territorial framing but feeds into the same narrative — the perception that Israel, or Jewish communities more broadly, exercise disproportionate influence over local politics or business in other countries. This feeds a different kind of anxiety, one less about maps and more about power, but it gets tangled into the “Greater Israel” discussion in ways that can be difficult to separate from straightforward antisemitism.
What’s important to acknowledge is that none of these four categories are the same thing, although they tend to get treated as if they are. However, that wishy-washy lack of categorisation tends to be useful for people on both sides.
Part of why Israel gets treated as a more serious case than say… Greater Morocco (yes, this is a thing), is that Israel is a genuinely powerful and a cocky country. They have a strong military, a fiercely loyal diaspora, significant cultural/political influence in many key Western capitals — not to mention an ironclad alliance with the US. That combination makes people nervous because capability inflates any perceived threat.
Weaponized Ambiguity
Now we can get to the fun part, because it’s hard to deny that “Greater Israel” as a concept gets weaponized. But… plot twist — it’s by both sides.
Supporters tend to work in their own individual cocoons. There’s the religious one — the language of covenant, divine promise, and return to the homeland. Like with Huckabee mentioned earlier.
Then there’s the security argument, which frames control over local territories not as expansion but as “strategic necessity” — call it buffer zones, preemptive positioning, existential threat management… whatever.
And then, perhaps the most effective approach, there’s strategic vagueness — keeping the idea alive without ever fully committing to what it actually means in practice. This lets the concept function as a nod to loyalist audiences without setting off international crisis alarms.
Not to mention, it definitely keeps all of their neighbours on their toes at all times.
Critics, meanwhile, have figured out that the most extreme version of the idea is also the most useful one. Take Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has openly called for Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank — where suddenly the ancient Nile-to-Euphrates map starts looking less like theology and more like a plan.
Though on the other side, the Palestinian militant slogan “from the river to the sea” operates in the same maximalist logic, and when either phrase enters the conversation, diplomatic nuance tends to back out of the room.
The dynamic is almost elegant, because the most extreme version of “Greater Israel” stays alive and kicking precisely because it’s useful — as a heritage claim for one side, an existential threat for the other, and both remain unresolved enough so they can be revived whenever the news cycle needs it for the right purpose.
It works a bit like a country casually mentioning it has nuclear weapons. Nobody’s saying they’ll use them but nobody’s saying they won’t either.
Why The Idea Won’t Die
Aside from the obvious answer that Israel isn’t exactly the most loved nation in the world, a large part of it is simply because Israel, like many states, has little incentive to let it disappear entirely. It’s not Israel-specific either, as this political strategy observation has been made plenty of times by many and applies to tons of governments globally.
Benjamin Netanyahu is not walking around with a “Greater Israel” flag or policy document. He has never formally declared it as an objective, but he also hasn’t exactly shut the door on the idea either — and some say that’s very much intentional.
In practice, his government has been in power during a period of steady settlement expansion in the West Bank, with growing administrative control over Palestinian territories and a consistent resistance to any meaningful two-state framework. When he speaks about the land at all, he uses language of a historical and spiritual mission — civilizational, not cartographic. That language resonates with nationalist and religious voters without committing to a set endgame, and gives him the voter support he needs without alienating the rest.
But the more explicit work is done by others in his coalition. Smotrich, for example, has loudly pushed for annexation, while Itamar Ben-Gvir has called for the resettlement of Gaza. All while Netanyahu gets to remain the “friendly,” relatively diplomatic centerpiece, and his coalition voices the parts of the agenda he can’t afford to say out loud himself. It’s not unlike the Vučić-Vulin playbook many speak of — the cautious leader and the vocal fall guy, working the same space from different angles, playing on the plausible deniability card. Many people have noticed the similarity and the comparison is made regularly.
The point is that it’s an idea that can’t be disproven because it was never officially declared. But it can’t be dismissed because the actions on the ground (settlements, annexations, military ops) keep giving it roots. Over time it adapts, depending on which audience needs to hear what, and that adaptability is what makes it durable.
When Spotlight Meets Escalation
Part of it is visibility. Israel is one of the most talked-about countries and has been for decades. Part of it is immediacy, like the ongoing Gaza conflict that has put every Israeli military decision under a microscope. Part of it is the US alliance, which means Israeli military and political decisions carry geopolitical weight that most countries simply don’t have.
And part of it is that Israel, genuinely, does not always help itself.
Consider the sequence of events after October 2023, when Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza. In retaliation, within weeks, Hezbollah began firing across the Lebanon border in solidarity, to which Israel responded with airstrikes. The cross-border exchange quickly escalated into a much wider conflict, with targeted assassinations of Hezbollah leadership, attacks into Lebanese territory, and at various points (much like now), what appeared to be preparations for a ground invasion.
From Israel’s perspective, this was a multi-front defense against simultaneous threats. But from the outside, and to critics, it looked like a country that had gone to war in one place and, almost immediately, opened a second front.
Critics also pointed to the West Bank, where settlement expansion has continued throughout the conflict. They pointed to the Golan Heights, annexed in 1981 in a move almost no country (except the US) recognizes as legitimate. They pointed to regular Israeli strikes on Iranian and Hezbollah targets inside Syria — not occupation, but a sustained military presence well beyond Israel’s borders.
None of these things are by themselves “Greater Israel” in theory. Officially, Israel hasn’t tried to annex Lebanon. The operations in Syria are targeted, not territorial. Now, the West Bank settlements are a far more legitimate grievance, but one that even many Israelis actually disagree with domestically. But taken together, across the same set of headlines, it creates an image that’s giving expansionism — even when the argued logic is simply protectionism.
The Strategy of Uncertainty
The thing about “Greater Israel” is that it probably won’t become official policy, but it also probably won’t disappear either.
Like the best “greater” ideas, this one is most powerful simply because it moves in the shadows. It’s alive enough to rally a base, but vague enough to deny in a press conference. That’s the grey area, and it’s very comfortable political real estate.
The concept of Lebensraum is why critics keep coming back to this conversation. That’s part of the Greater Germany thing for those rusty in German. The comparison is extreme but it ignites the fear of what such ideology can eventually become if left unchecked.
What makes things even more complicated is that Israel isn’t just a victim of a bad narrative but a participant in it. Not by declaring a “Greater Israel,” but by allowing the conditions around it to persist — policies on the ground, rhetoric on call, and just enough ambiguity to keep everyone guessing.
Again, the best ideas live somewhere in the grey zone. And in many ways, Israel’s actions on the ground already end up speaking louder than any formal statements.
Curtis Scoon is the founder of ScoonTv.com Download the ScoonTv App to join our weekly livestream every Tuesday @ 8pm EST! Support true independent media. Become a VIP member www.scoontv.com/vip-signup/ and download the ScoonTv App from your App Store.
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