Gourt Home::Gourt :: Greater Israel
Greater Israel (also Complete Land of Israel, , Eretz Yisrael HashlemahJerusalem Dispatch: Stripped, Yossi Klein Halevi, The New Republic, August 26 2005"Imperial Israel: The Nile-to-Euphrates Calumny", by Daniel Pipes (accessed 12 October, 2005)) is an irredentist term that denotes historical and Biblical boundaries of the Land of Israel.
Though the borders of Greater Israel are not clearly defined, many devout Jews (and Christians alike) draw such definition from Biblical sources, namely the book of Genesis, which describes God's covenant with Abraham:
- On that day, God made a covenant with Abram, saying: "To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river the Euphrates. The land of the Kenites, Kenizites, Kadmonites; the Chitties, Perizites, Refaim; the Emorites, Canaanites, Gigashites and Yevusites." - Genesis 15:18-21
In the above context, Greater Israel would comprise, roughly, modern-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Sinai, much of Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, as well as parts of Egypt and Turkey.
Present-Day Usages
In present-day discourse, the exact definition of Greater Israel is open to interpretation. According to Daniel Pipes there are three main usages of the term:
- According to some right-wing Israeli views, the term refers to a state of Israel (Hebrew: Medinat Yisra'el) established on the whole historical region of Palestine (known in Hebrew as Eretz Yisra'el, distinct from the political entity Medinat Yisra'el), situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, annexing both the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
- According to some Israeli far-right groups, such as Betar and Irgun Zvai-Leumi that ceased to exist as political movements, it refers to the pre-1922 mandatory Palestine, i.e. both the first the historical region of Palestine and Transjordan
- According to some anti-Zionist and Ba'athist Arab rhetorics, Greater Israel refers to an extremist Zionist conspiracy to stretch the borders of the state of Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates. The term is not used in this sense in Israeli discourse, and no prominent Zionist or Israeli intellectual or political figure advocates pursuing such borders.
See also
References
External links
- For The Land and The Lord: The Range of Disagreement within Jewish Fundamentalism, by Ian Lustick, chapter V and chapter VII (accessed 12 October, 2005)
History of Israel | Israel and Zionism | Israeli-Palestinian conflict | Irredentism
"Greater Israel"