Greater Israel

No single territorial map has ever been universally accepted as the definition of Greater Israel. The concept encompasses several distinct usages associated with different historical periods, textual traditions, and political frameworks.

The most expansive version rests on the biblical covenant in Genesis 15:18, describing territory from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates.[1][2] Some religious authorities described the envisioned territory as extending beyond the areas captured in 1967, toward the Euphrates in the northeast and part of the Nile in the southwest, although the source emphasizes that there was no unanimity over the operational meaning of this biblical map.[3] Rabbinic tradition associated the extensive boundaries promised to the patriarchs with the messianic era rather than immediate legal obligations.[2]

A narrower early Zionist version, associated particularly with Ze'ev Jabotinsky and the Revisionist movement, referred to present-day Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and present-day Jordan — historic Palestine on both banks of the Jordan.[4] This differed from the 1918–1919 Zionist territorial proposals, which also extended into southern Lebanon.[5]

One post-1967 usage includes Israel together with East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights — the territories brought under Israeli control in the Six-Day War.[6] Other modern programs focus more narrowly on the West Bank and Gaza. A minimal position described in one academic source calls for retaining Israeli sovereignty over those territories and making no further withdrawals from areas captured in 1967, while a maximalist position includes annexing Jordan and establishing Jewish settlements in southern Lebanon.[3] Far-right Israeli figures continue to invoke the concept in support of annexing or controlling territories beyond Israel's pre-1967 lines, though annexing neighboring Arab countries is not widely accepted among mainstream Israelis.[6]

Historian Benny Morris describes the post-1967 version as "a policy geared to permanently holding onto the newly conquered territories for both historical-ideological and strategic reasons," and distinguishes this Beginite conception — narrowed to historic Palestine west of the Jordan — from earlier, broader proposals.[5] Secular versions have drawn on security, legal, and historical arguments, whereas religious-messianic proponents have emphasized the biblical covenant and promise to Abraham.[3] The Washington Institute for Near East Policy distinguishes Greater Israel from the concept of Israel as the Jewish people's national homeland, noting that the latter concerns Jewish self-determination and does not necessarily include the West Bank.[7]

The phrase Eretz Yisrael is biblical in origin and historically referred to different parts of the region under Jewish sovereignty at different times.[8] An expansive formulation appears in Genesis 15:18, where a divine covenant with Abraham describes a land grant to his descendants extending "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates."[1][2] Numbers 34 gives a more bounded description, assigning the Mediterranean as the western border, the Brook of Egypt as the southern limit, and a northern boundary running through Mount Hor and Lebo-Hamath.[1] These differing formulations became part of the textual background for later debates over the Land of Israel.

Additional boundary traditions appear in Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Ezekiel.[2] The land shown to Moses before his death included Gilead, territory extending to Dan in the north, the lands of Naphtali, Ephraim, Manasseh and Judah, the Negev, and the plain near Jericho as far as Zoar. David and Solomon are described in the same account as ruling from Dan to Beer-Sheba.[2] A government of Israel historical publication distinguishes the extensive "Promised Land" from the more limited areas in which Israelites actually resided, noting that the de facto homeland changed over time because of political and military developments.[2]

A separate tradition is the halakhic conception of the Land of Israel, based not simply on past Jewish sovereignty but on areas where agricultural laws, including tithing and sabbatical-year restrictions, applied. These boundaries, preserved in Tosefta Sheviit 4:11 and an ancient synagogue inscription at Rehov, ran from modern Raphia or Ascalon north to Acre, then included parts of southern Lebanon, the Golan, and Transjordan before returning toward the south of the Dead Sea.[2] Rabbinic discussions associated the extensive boundaries promised to the biblical patriarchs with the messianic period, while halakhic boundaries served practical legal purposes.[2]

A 2021 scholarly article cataloged by the National Library of Israel reconstructs an ancient kingdom of Greater Israel extending north of the Jezreel Valley, east of the Jordan River toward Bethel, and west to the Mediterranean. The study argues that the transition from a smaller to a greater Israel involved two independent and contemporaneous spheres of political activity, each identifying with the name Israel. Its reconstruction corresponds with archaeological evidence for separate northern and southern settlement systems but conflicts with the Bible's narrative of a single kingdom that later divided.[9]

Early Zionist leaders framed expansive territorial aspirations partly in biblical and historical terms and partly through strategic and economic arguments. In 1918–1919, Zionist leaders claimed a "Greater Palestine" that included all territory west of the Jordan River, a strip east of the Jordan and Wadi Araba, and territory in present-day southern Lebanon near the Litani River.[5] Chaim Weizmann presented a related map at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, claiming all of Palestine west of the Jordan, territory extending approximately twenty miles east of the river, and southern Lebanon south of Lake Karaoun for the Jewish National Home.[5] Weizmann wrote that "the deciding factor is the question of water supplies," illustrating that these proposals relied on strategic and economic rationales as well as historical ones.[5] They also assumed that mass immigration from Europe would eventually create a Jewish majority in the claimed territories.[5]

When Britain excluded Transjordan from Zionist aspirations under the Palestine Mandate, mainstream Zionist leaders accepted the concession, but the Revisionist movement did not. Ze'ev Jabotinsky founded the Revisionist Movement in 1925 partly to oppose that exclusion.[5] At the first world Congress of Betar in Danzig in April 1931, the movement resolved to turn the Land of Israel "on both banks of the Jordan" into a Jewish state with a Jewish majority.[5] Jabotinsky's vision allowed for a large Arab minority with individual civil rights but without collective national rights.[5] This Revisionist conception — present-day Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and present-day Jordan — differed from later post-1967 usages focused primarily on historic Palestine west of the Jordan.[4][5]

An essay in a government of Israel historical publication argues that the League of Nations Mandate established a Jewish legal right to settle in western Palestine between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.[2] The publication also records that the Golan Heights was part of the British Mandate in 1922 but was transferred by Great Britain to the French Mandate of Syria in 1923.[2]

The phrase Eretz Yisrael carried political weight throughout the Mandate period and into statehood. During the British Mandate, it served as the Hebrew name for Palestine. After 1948, David Ben-Gurion generally used Medinat Israel (the State of Israel), while politicians including Menachem Begin continued using Eretz Yisrael to signal allegiance to a larger historic or biblical Israel.[8]

The Six-Day War of 5–10 June 1967 gave the modern Greater Israel idea a major political boost. Israel's capture of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights strengthened expansionist and messianic impulses, especially among religious nationalists and the political right.[5] Many religious Zionists interpreted the victory as divinely ordained and as heralding messianic redemption.[5]

The movement was not confined to religious Zionists. Some secular Jews supported permanent retention of the conquered territories for historical-ideological and strategic reasons.[5] The writers Natan Alterman and Moshe Shamir, whom Morris identifies as figures of the Left, became prominent advocates; Alterman described the victory as "the zenith of Jewish history."[5] Prime Minister Levi Eshkol briefly considered retaining the Arab-populated hills of Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip, while David Ben-Gurion called for withdrawal from the West Bank but not East Jerusalem.[5]

The ensuing debate produced distinct positions. Menachem Begin and Moshe Dayan sought to retain the territories for strategic, historical-ideological, or religious reasons, while Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir represented those willing to exchange them for peace.[5] Yigal Allon proposed retaining East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley while transferring much of the West Bank's hilly spine to Jordan. His plan kept the Israel Defense Forces on the Jordan River to guard against an eastern invasion, particularly from Iraq, without incorporating as many Arabs into Israel.[5] Unlike Gush Emunim's later strategy, Allon's settlement approach focused on areas with low Arab population.[10]

The Land of Israel Movement — Ha-Tenu'ah le-Ma'an Eretz Israel Ha-Shelemah — was founded immediately after the Six-Day War to secure permanent Israeli retention of the territories occupied in that conflict.[11] On September 22, 1967, it published a manifesto signed by more than fifty Israeli public figures demanding a firm position against withdrawal.[12] The manifesto declared that the Jewish people held a historical and future responsibility to retain the entire Land of Israel within the June 1967 ceasefire lines and that no Israeli government had a mandate to surrender any part of that inheritance.[11] Immigration and intensive settlement were presented as central to integrating the newly controlled areas.[11]

The movement included figures from both the political Left and Right: writers, reserve officers, academics, rabbis, business leaders, and kibbutz members.[11] Its intellectual initiators included Nathan Alterman, Moshe Shamir, and Zvi Shiloah.[12] The Institute for National Security Studies identifies the movement and the contemporaneous Soldiers' Talk as opposing ideological responses that helped frame Israeli discourse on the territories after 1967.[13]

The movement conducted mass meetings and political lobbying and, from April 1968, published the biweekly newspaper Zot ha-Aretz.[11] It was directly involved in the resettlement of Jews in Hebron in 1968 and less directly involved in settlement projects in the West Bank and Golan Heights.[11] In October 1969, some leaders ran for the Knesset under the Land of Israel List, after which its broad cross-party support gradually narrowed.[12]

In 1973, leading members joined the new Center Block within Likud. In March 1976, that group joined the Independent Center and State List to form La'am, which became a component of Likud.[11] The original nonparty movement remained active and in September 1977 associated with Gush Emunim and other groups seeking to expand Israeli settlements beyond the Green Line, particularly in Judea and Samaria.[11] It subsequently opposed the Camp David accords, territorial concessions to Egypt, and proposed Palestinian autonomy arrangements.[11]

The religious-nationalist dimension of Greater Israel drew on the teachings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and his son Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook. After 1967, followers presented their messianic interpretation of Zionism as evidence that the Jewish people were living in an era of redemption. Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook defined the State of Israel as the halachic Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Israel as the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.[3] This framework transformed territorial retention into a religious obligation for a segment of Israeli society.

A Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs analysis describes the Complete Land of Israel ideology as becoming increasingly associated with religious Zionism after the Six-Day War. It argues that the National Religious Party adopted a maximalist territorial position based on a messianic interpretation of contemporary Jewish history and subsequently took an increasingly hawkish stance.[14] Gush Emunim was formed at a founding meeting at Kfar Etzion in early March 1974 with approximately 200 participants.[3] It initially operated as a faction within the National Religious Party and became independent in spring 1974.[3] Its founders sought to oppose territorial concessions, promote Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria, and extend Israeli sovereignty to those territories.[3]

Gush Emunim formed core groups to populate settlements and sought a Jewish presence throughout the Land of Israel, including densely populated Palestinian areas.[3] The Elon Moreh group preceded Gush Emunim's formal founding. After seven failed attempts to settle in the Nablus-Sebastia region, an eighth attempt in December 1975 brought approximately 2,000 people to Sebastia before a compromise moved them to a military camp at Kadoum.[3] Gush Emunim members also attempted to establish settlements near Ramallah and Nablus. Although these efforts confronted the Labor government, the government sometimes authorized temporary settlements that later became permanent.[10]

Not all supporters shared the movement's explicitly messianic theology. An academic study notes that Gush Emunim's leaders and supporters agreed that the West Bank and Gaza should be settled by Jews and become integral parts of Israel, but not all believed settlement was a religious stage in imminent redemption.[15] Over time, religious parties retained much of Gush Emunim's nationalist-political vision while reducing its explicit messianic language and increasingly using security arguments alongside divine promises. The source describes the religious and secular ultra-nationalist programs as becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish.[15]

Although Gush Emunim ceased to exist as an organized movement in the 1980s, it generated settlement, political, and ideological organizations that continued to advance the Greater Land of Israel ideology in the West Bank and Gaza.[16] In 1990, fewer than 20 percent of an estimated 80,000 Jewish settlers in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza were thought to be active supporters of Gush Emunim, yet its sympathizers dominated local and regional councils in the territories.[15] In 1989, a 31-member Knesset group called the Land of Israel Lobby opposed Israeli concessions to the Palestinians.[15] Gush Emunim's legacy continued to affect attempts to define a two-state solution after the Oslo agreements, and its supporters became an important factor in Israeli governmental coalitions.[16]

Greater Israel was expressed across a wide range of political parties and movements. A Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs glossary describes Herut, the forerunner of Likud, as advocating the unification of Eretz Israel within its historic boundaries; the party long used the slogan of "the two banks of the Jordan."[17] The same glossary states that after the Six-Day War, many members of Achdut Ha'Avoda, including Yitzhak Tabenkin, supported Greater Israel, while Yigal Allon advocated returning some administered territories when doing so would not endanger Israel's security.[17]

Menachem Begin's position on Judea, Samaria, and Gaza drew on historical, theological, and security arguments. A study of his ideology states that he regarded the Jewish people as possessing an eternal and sacred right to the land, and that this belief informed his settlement policy and proposal for Palestinian autonomy, which were intended to prevent division of the Land of Israel.[18] A Jerusalem Center analysis identifies later parties including Morasha, Tehiya, and Ihud Leumi as movements seeking to strengthen Israel's hold over the administered territories.[14]

Kach, founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane, sought to restore Greater Israel — defined in this context as Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza — and expel Arabs living in those areas.[19][20] Kahane Chai was founded by Kahane's son Binyamin after Meir Kahane's assassination in the United States in 1990.[20] The U.S. State Department listed Kach as a precursor and alias of Kahane Chai, which was designated a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. The same report states that Israel banned both Kach and Kahane Chai and declared them terrorist organizations in 1994.[19]

A Jerusalem Center study describes religious Zionist opposition to Greater Israel through Oz Veshalom and Netivot Shalom. Oz Veshalom promoted territorial compromise to preserve Israel's Jewish character and ethical standards. Netivot Shalom argued that traditional Judaism does not require the Complete Land of Israel ideology and treated the sanctity of human life as the highest priority of religious Zionism. In 1995, it proposed a Palestinian state alongside the incorporation into Israel of three-quarters of the Jewish settlers then living in the West Bank.[14]

The same study identifies Zu Artzenu as leading the struggle for the Complete Land of Israel during Yitzhak Rabin's administration, while Dor Hahemshech took a similar role after Ehud Barak became prime minister.[14] These movements illustrate how the concept remained active in Israeli civil society beyond the founding generation of post-1967 activists.

Settlement activity was central to the Greater Israel movement's political program. The Land of Israel Movement's 1967 manifesto identified immigration and intensive settlement as the means of integrating the newly controlled areas.[11] The movement was directly involved in the resettlement of Jews in Hebron in 1968.[11]

Gush Emunim elevated settlement to a religious imperative and pursued communities throughout Judea and Samaria, including areas with significant Palestinian populations — a contrast with the Allon Plan's preference for sparsely populated zones.[10][3] The pattern of attempting settlement, confronting government opposition, and then achieving partial or full authorization recurred during the 1970s.[10]

After Likud's 1977 victory, government policy became more supportive of settlement expansion, and Menachem Begin's administration accelerated building in Judea and Samaria in accordance with his belief in the Jewish people's eternal right to the land.[18] A Washington Institute analysis identifies Israeli far-right ministers and Jewish settlers as pursuing policies intended to alter the geographic and demographic situation in the West Bank in support of de facto annexation. It also notes that some settlers view control over Gaza as part of their Greater Israel vision.[21]

The idea of the Greater Land of Israel was central to the ideological, public, and personal lives of many Israelis for more than thirty years and became a major element in the ideological crisis surrounding Israel's 2005 disengagement from Gaza.[22] When Ariel Sharon's government removed Israeli settlements and the Israel Defense Forces from the Gaza Strip in 2005, it marked a direct departure from the settlement agenda and was accompanied by signals of possible unilateral withdrawal from much of the West Bank.[5]

Greater Israel retains relevance in twenty-first-century Israeli and regional politics. On August 12, 2025, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked in an i24News interview whether he felt a connection to the vision of Greater Israel and answered, "Very much."[6] The interview followed the presentation of an amulet depicting a map of the Promised Land. Several Arab governments and the Arab League condemned the remarks as threatening regional stability.[6] Israel's Foreign Ministry subsequently reiterated its commitment to the 1994 peace agreement with Jordan and recognition of the Hashemite Kingdom's territorial integrity.[6]

The episode illustrated the concept's continuing volatility in regional diplomacy. Greater Israel has sometimes described biblical or historical boundaries including parts of present-day Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, though this expansive reading is not widely accepted among mainstream Israelis.[6] Contemporary political uses more commonly focus on Israeli sovereignty or control in the West Bank and Gaza, with settlement and annexation policies as practical expressions.[21][3]

Greater Israel has been consequential in modern Israeli and Jewish political history. It gave ideological coherence to settlement activity that transformed the West Bank — known historically by its indigenous Jewish names of Judea and Samaria — after 1967 and shaped the territorial realities addressed by later peace initiatives. The Land of Israel Movement's manifesto supplied a platform for a coalition of secular and religious figures from both the Left and Right who supported territorial retention.[11][12][5]

Gush Emunim's settlement campaign, though the organization dissolved in the 1980s, contributed to a settler population that by 1990 numbered an estimated 80,000 in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.[15] The organizations it generated became important in Israeli coalition politics and affected efforts to define the boundaries of a two-state solution.[16] The concept also structured a major division within religious Zionism between groups such as Oz Veshalom and Netivot Shalom, which argued for territorial compromise on religious and ethical grounds, and those that treated surrender of the Land of Israel as theologically impermissible.[14]

Biblical and halakhic traditions supplied advocates and critics with different textual frameworks for understanding the land. A government of Israel historical publication distinguishes covenantal promises, changing areas of practical sovereignty, and halakhic boundaries, while noting that Jewish religious and political views have long differed over whether aspirations concerning the Land of Israel should become practical obligations, including settlement.[2] The resulting debate between messianic urgency and pragmatic restraint, and between territorial maximalism and demographic considerations, continues to influence Israeli politics and diplomacy.

Distinct from documented Israeli political movements using the Greater Israel concept, a contemporary conspiracy theory alleges that Israel is covertly taking over large areas of the Middle East as part of a secret expansionist plan. The Anti-Defamation League describes the narrative as having been promoted by anti-Israel activists, antisemitic figures including Louis Farrakhan, and anti-Zionist conspiracy theorists. It resurfaced amid the fall of the Assad regime, Israeli military strikes in the region, and the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led terrorist attack and ensuing war.[23]

Examples include Alex Jones's claim that "greater Israel is expanding" and Stew Peters's film Occupied, which alleges that Israel created Hamas to justify a Greater Israel project.[23] The ADL characterizes the resulting narrative as "blatantly antisemitic."[23] Its account presents no evidence that the conspiracy claims describe an official Israeli government policy or plan. Such claims should be distinguished from the documented ideological movements and political debates over territorial retention and settlement in Israeli history.

A central controversy surrounding Greater Israel concerns the demographic consequences of permanent Israeli sovereignty over heavily Palestinian-populated territories. After the First Intifada, most Israelis favored ending control over these areas of the West Bank and Gaza.[5] Labor and Kadima sought territorial separation and a two-state settlement because they viewed demographic trends as leading toward an Arab majority in a Greater Israel, which they considered incompatible with maintaining both Israel's Jewish character and democratic institutions.[5]

A Washington Institute policy-forum summary distinguishes between "Israel de jure," based on internationally recognized boundaries and excluding the occupied territories, and "Israel de facto," which includes the occupied territories if no Palestinian state is created.[7] A 2002 U.S. State Department report stated that following the 1967 war, Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, and that the international community did not recognize Israeli sovereignty over those territories.[19][24]

The Oslo agreements and subsequent negotiations established a framework in which Israeli and Palestinian boundaries were to be determined by negotiation. Organizations and parties aligned with Greater Israel became significant factors in Israeli governmental coalitions during this period, complicating territorial compromise.[16] The settlement enterprise generated by Gush Emunim and related movements continued to affect the practical boundaries of a potential two-state solution after Gush Emunim itself dissolved.[16]