EDITORIAL • Israel is constantly attacked by a sea of idiotic conspiracy theories. One of the most persistent is the myth of “Greater Israel” – the supposed Zionist master plan to swallow the entire Middle East from the Nile to the Euphrates, with Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and half of Egypt as a bonus. It’s a classic concoction from dysfunctional corners of the internet, where hatred of Jews replaces both facts and logic.

There are conspiracy theories, and then there is that particularly lazy variant that only survives because people on the internet keep repeating the same stupidity to each other until it sounds familiar. The “Greater Israel” myth belongs to that category. The map below shows what conspiracy theorists believe, or rather wish, Israel wants.

It sounds dramatic, it feels charged, it fits the anti-Israel imagination – but it collapses as soon as it is confronted with actual events.

Sinai and Gaza

Take the Sinai Peninsula. After the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and the Camp David Accords of 1978–1979, Israel returned the entire Sinai to Egypt. This was an area three times the size of present-day Israel, rich in oil and strategically vital. Israel evacuated thousands of settlers, demolished settlements, and handed back air bases and oil fields. By April 25, 1982, the withdrawal was complete. Why? Because Egypt under Anwar Sadat chose peace over eternal warfare. The result? No hostilities since. Peace works – when the other side actually wants it.

A country driven by an unquenchable expansionist “Greater Israel” dream does not give up Sinai in exchange for peace. But Israel did just that. That was the price for ending the state of war with Egypt, and the peace has lasted for decades.

Or Gaza in 2005. Ariel Sharon, a right-wing icon, unilaterally withdrew all Israeli settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip. 21 settlements were demolished, over 8,000 Jews were forced to move. Israel left an area that could have become an Arab Singapore on the Mediterranean. This did not happen because Israel dreamed of more land, but despite giving up land, dismantling its own communities, and paying a significant internal political price.

What happened then? Hamas took over, turned it into a rocket factory and terror base. Thousands of rockets have rained down on Israeli civilians since. Israel gave away territory – and got war in return. The claim “if Israel just leaves territory there will be calm” is thus not supported by the experience from Gaza. On the contrary, Gaza is one of the clearest examples of why Israel thinks in terms of security zones rather than seminar rhetoric.

Lebanon

Israel occupied a security zone in southern Lebanon after the PLO’s terror from the area during the 1970s and 80s. In 2000, the IDF completely withdrew to the international border, in accordance with UN Resolution 425.

The UN confirmed the withdrawal was complete. What happened? Hezbollah took over, built up an arsenal, and attacked Israel anyway.

Again: if the theory were that Israel always wants to hold on to and devour more land, why leave southern Lebanon? But they did. And even there, a harmonious awakening did not follow. Afterward, the UN repeatedly reported that Hezbollah’s operations across the Blue Line violated the order after Israel’s withdrawal. The problem was not that Israel refused to leave, but that the withdrawal did not magically eliminate aggression. On the contrary.

Judea/Samaria

You can go back even further and point to the Oslo Process. In 1994, Israeli forces withdrew from most of Gaza and Jericho. In 1995, Oslo II formalized the transfer of extensive powers and shared control in the “West Bank”, with Arab self-rule in various zones. Moreover, in 1997, reorganization occurred in Hebron, formerly a Christian city, where about 80 percent of the city came under Palestinian Arab control. All this is the exact opposite of the tale of a linear, uninterrupted expansion. The reality is that Israel, in several steps, actually left territory, transferred responsibility, and accepted models for Palestinian self-rule.

And then we have the infamous peace offers to the Palestinians. At Camp David 2000, Ehud Barak offered up to 91–92 percent of Judea and Samaria (“the West Bank”) plus all of Gaza, with East Jerusalem as a capital and land swaps. Arafat said no (!) and chose instead the intifada with suicide bombers.

In 2008, Ehud Olmert repeated the offer. He presented Mahmoud Abbas with 93–94 percent of the West Bank, land swaps that would have given the Palestinian Arabs territory equivalent to 100 percent of the 1967 borders, shared sovereignty over Jerusalem and a solution to the so-called refugee question. Here you see his plan:

But Abbas said no again. He didn’t even want to negotiate further.

Why? Because it was never about land for the Arabs. It’s about erasing Israel. “From the river to the sea” is not a demand for a two-state solution – it’s a demand for a one-state solution where the Jews are gone.

Anyone who wants to sell the theory that Israel really just wants to conquer everything must explain why Israeli governments have, on several occasions, offered just the opposite.

Those Who Chose Peace

Egypt and Jordan are in fact the simplest counterexamples. Egypt got Sinai back and has had peace with Israel since 1979. Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994. Neither of these countries has had to live under any Israeli expansionist offensive after leaving the war line and accepting peaceful relations.

This does not mean the region is uncomplicated or without conflict. But it shatters the childish notion that Israel’s innermost nature is always to expand, no matter what the neighbors do. Experience shows something entirely different: where war ends and peace is made, life side by side is possible.

But conspiracy theorists don’t care about facts. They see Jews and shout “expansion!” no matter what happens. When Israel withdraws, it’s “a trick”. When they defend themselves, it’s “genocide”. Their yardstick is not justice or security – it is pure antisemitic obsession. That’s why you can never take them seriously. They live in a parallel reality where Jews are guilty no matter what they do.

It’s Not Complicated

And here we reach the point that many do not want to talk about. The real pattern is not that Israel “must expand”, but that areas around Israel have repeatedly been used as bases for attacks – from southern Lebanon, from Gaza, and previously through various wars in which Israel’s neighbors tried to crush the country militarily. That’s why Israel sees territory through security logic. You don’t have to agree with every Israeli decision to understand this. You just need the ability to distinguish between security doctrine and armchair “experts” getting worked up as a group with other cave dwellers somewhere on the internet.

The most tiresome thing about the “Greater Israel” talk is not even that it’s wrong, but that it’s so lazy. It requires no reading. No historical order. No respect for the fact that Israel has already given up land several times, signed peace treaties, accepted partition solutions and offered extensive compromises. You just toss out a charged slogan and hope the audience doesn’t know the history. For those who actually know history, it mostly appears as yet another example of how the Middle East debate is poisoned by people who think a meme is the same thing as knowledge.

The Obsessed Shoe-Autumn Right-Wing

At the risk of making this text too long, I want to bring up a very telling example of this right-wing’s total obsession – and how completely disconnected from reality they are.

Look at this post from a person who runs an obscure conspiracy theory blog. He posts a picture of Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN, where Netanyahu is holding up a map of the Middle East with five countries marked in green. He claims the map shows “Greater Israel”:

The absurd part is that he himself links to the UN speech where Netanyahu holds up the map. I had heard the speech before and knew what Netanyahu actually said. It was not subtle. It was not hidden. On the contrary, it was very clear.

So the question is: Did Netanyahu stand at the UN and talk about a “Greater Israel”? Or was he talking about something completely different? We don’t have to guess. We can listen to the speech ourselves, exactly at the moment where he holds up the map.

What Netanyahu is showing is not a map of “Greater Israel” at all. It is a map of the Arab countries with which Israel has made peace, or is in the process of normalizing relations. It is a peace map, not a conquest map.

Yet this person chooses to spread the opposite – despite his own link directly contradicting him.

This is what is so fascinating about this environment. It is so obsessed, so ideologically poisoned, that it can lie outright even when the evidence is openly available for everyone to see. It’s like a form of political psychosis. If some spoke of TDS – Trump Derangement Syndrome – then these people rather suffer from something you could call JDS: Jew Derangement Syndrome.

Forcing Reality into Their Delusions

And it becomes even more revealing in the subsequent discussion. When this JDS person is told that the video he himself linked to disproves his claim, he does not back down. Instead, he tries to save face by writing that the “planned Greater Israel partly overlaps” with the map Netanyahu shows:

But listen to how absurd this is. An invented map, which is not used by Israel and only survives in the imagination of conspiracy theorists, “partly overlaps” with something else. Well? So what? That proves nothing. I could draw a map today that “partly overlaps” with almost anything. Today’s France, Poland and Germany partly overlap with Nazi Germany’s “Third Reich”. Today’s Sweden partly overlaps with ancient Danish territories. That proves exactly nothing.

But it reveals the obsession. He so desperately wants the myth of “Greater Israel” to be true that he tries to force reality into his preconceived delusion.

So even though Netanyahu in his speech proudly shows peace and normalization with Arab countries, even though he explicitly talks about what the region could become if more choose peace over conflict, people like the one who wrote the post still come dragging their myth – because they are not seeking the truth. They are just seeking yet another outlet for their obsession.

The Dumbest Corners of the Internet

So no: “Greater Israel” is not a serious explanation for the core of the conflict. It is a convenient bludgeon for conspiracy theorists, activists, and various semi-educated internet know-it-alls. Facts on the ground show something much simpler: Israel has repeatedly shown itself prepared to leave territory when there is a realistic chance of peace or improved security. The problem is that withdrawals have not automatically been met with peace, but more often with new attacks. And then the cheap story that everything is essentially about a Jewish plan to conquer the map falls apart. That belongs where it arose: in the darkest and dumbest corners of the internet.

Israel wants to live. Neighbors who accept that get peace. Those who do not, get war. The rest is just conspiratorial nonsense from people who never cared about the truth.