Between the discourse of “Greater Israel” and the normalization of annexation in Arab consciousness

In every wave of tension in the region, the discourse of “Greater Israel” returns to the forefront, not as a political analysis, but as a semi-sacred truth in some forums. It is presented as an inevitable project to swallow the region from the Nile to the Euphrates, and every extremist statement is invoked to be included as conclusive evidence that expansion is the ultimate goal. But the question rarely seriously asked is: Are we facing a viable strategic plan, or an ideological ceiling used in a political negotiating context?

Critical reading compels us to distinguish between grand slogans and negotiation ceilings, between mobilization discourse and implementation policies, between the highest ambition and the highest possible.

Historically, the concept of “Greater Israel” has been associated with nationalist and religious currents within Israel, especially after the 1967 war and the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai, and the Golan. At that time, the discussion was not theoretical, but directly related to redefining geography and identity. Figures like Menachem Begin clearly expressed a vision that considered the West Bank part of “the historical land of Israel.” With the rise of the right in recent decades, this discourse has been reinforced by leaders such as Benjamin Netanyahu, who has not hidden his positions on expanding settlements and imposing sovereignty over the Jordan Valley, and explicitly proposed scenarios for annexing large parts of the West Bank. Furthermore, statements by some American officials, such as Mike Huckabee, which downplayed the idea of a Palestinian state or redefined the conflict politically and legally, added fuel to this expansionist perception.

However, transforming every extremist statement into a comprehensive regional war map poses a serious methodological problem. In political science, raising the negotiating ceiling is not a new discovery, but a classic tool: you declare the maximum you want, to eventually achieve what you can establish. When there is talk of “full sovereignty” or denial of Palestine's political existence, the goal may not be to redraw the maps of the entire region, but to establish gradual facts on the ground in the West Bank — facts that over time become irreversible.

The most painful irony is that the continuous exaggeration of the idea of “total engulfment” may — unintentionally — serve gradual annexation policies. When the danger is inflated to the level of swallowing the entire region, the hierarchy of priorities in collective consciousness is reshaped. With the repetition of extreme scenarios, the Arab street absorbs the image of the great catastrophe until it becomes familiar, imaginable, and even expected. And then, if the annexation of the West Bank or the greater part of it is proposed, it may seem — by comparison — like a “lesser” loss, a bitter reality but not the end.

Here lies the real danger: normalizing shock through comparison. When the worst is presented as the likely possibility, anything less becomes relatively acceptable. Comparison turns into a psychological adaptation tool, and decline turns into a logical progression. Instead of the annexation of Palestine being a major political, moral, and legal shock, it becomes a station within a path previously depicted as darker and wider.

This does not mean denying the existence of ideological currents that truly believe in the idea of expansion, nor downplaying the danger of settlement and partial annexation; these are realistic and implementable policies, with far-reaching strategic implications. Any unilateral change in the status of the occupied territories undermines the foundations of international law and deepens the conflict's dilemma. But there is a vast difference between annexing parts of the West Bank — a scenario clearly proposed politically — and an expansionist project extending to neighboring Arab countries, a proposal that lacks the elements of realistic power in the contemporary international system and its complex balances.

The problem is that exaggerating the portrayal of the Zionist project as a comprehensive plan to swallow the region may obscure the more important discussion: how do we confront the actual policies being implemented daily? How do we counter the maps being redrawn through settlement, administrative decisions, laws, and facts on the ground? Preoccupation with imagined maps may — without our knowing it — be the best service that can be rendered to real maps.

The intellectual and media responsibility today is not to recycle the maximum ceiling of discourse, but to dismantle it. It is not to exaggerate the catastrophic scenario, but to protect the very standard of rejection from erosion. For when we convince ourselves that the worst is inevitably coming, we become more prepared to accept what is less than it. And when the great catastrophe becomes familiar in the imagination, the smaller catastrophe becomes a reasonable compromise.

Then, the loss is not only in the land, but in the moral and political sense that defines what is acceptable and what is rejected. For the most dangerous forms of retreat do not happen all at once, but through a series of comparisons that lower the ceiling a little each time — until we find ourselves defending the minimum that we rejected yesterday.