Why Israel Should Expand Its Borders
Far-Right Israelis want the Jewish state to have sovereignty over Gaza and Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank). They think this is the path to security and peace. It is worth analyzing their case.
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This is a guest essay written by Nachum Kaplan of Moral Clarity.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
Israel’s Far-Right is often dismissed as Messianic maniacs and Jewish supremacist warmongers.
There is much to dislike.
However, they predicted the Islamist takeover of Gaza after Israel’s 2005 withdrawal with unerring accuracy. Do they understand something about Israel’s security that so-called moderates do not?
The Right-Left divide in Israel is different than in most countries. There is the joke that when you get off the plane at Ben Gurion International Airport in between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the first thing you do is take eight steps to the right. When it comes to security and defense, this joke contains much truth.
Israelis have differing views on how the war in Gaza has been prosecuted, but an overwhelming majority support destroying Hamas, and no one advocates Israel being weak on defense or deterrence. Differences emerge when it comes to what an end-game might look like in Gaza, and in the wider conflict with the Palestinians.
The international community blindly and foolishly supports a two-state solution that is destined to fail. Israel’s Right, by contrast, thinks Israel controlling the whole area — Gaza, and Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank) — will provide the greatest security and greatest prosperity, for Jews and Palestinians.
Since the October 7th attacks, the war in Gaza, and with a full-scale war with Hezbollah in Lebanon brewing, more Israelis are starting to see merit in the Far-Right’s analysis. Let us have a look at the case.
Israel must take a long-term view and recognize that it alone is ultimately responsible for its security. This is partly philosophical; the point of Jewish sovereignty is for Jews to control their own destiny. There is also a practical element. The U.S. remains Israel’s greatest ally, but there are emerging forces on both sides of American politics that means Israel cannot take this for granted.
Far-Left elements in the Democratic Party are sympathetic to the Palestinians, and some even with Islamists. This wing looks set to get stronger with Vice President Kamala Harris now seemingly the Democrats’ presidential nominee.
In the Republican Party, Donald Trump may be flexing his pro-Israel credentials but there are isolationists elements that would prefer to see the U.S. less engaged in foreign problems, including with Israel. Such isolationism would weaken Israel directly, but also indirectly because an isolationist U.S. would make the world less stable and secure.
Israel’s other allies such as France, Britain, Canada, and Australia have increasingly been infected by Islamist psychopathy and “Woke” antisemitic imbecility. Israel must always build and maintain alliances, but it must not be overly reliant on them.
It does not make sense for Israel to shrink itself into something weaker by giving away its land for illusory peace. Judea and Samaria, and Gaza, are two of many active fronts in Israel’s existential war with Jihadism. By annexing and settling these areas properly, Israel could remove these fronts.
There might still be terror, but there is terror now, and Israel would be better placed to deal with it. Think of it this way: Would an Israeli presence make it easier or harder for Israel to foil a terror attack? Would it be easier or harder for the Palestinians to build terror infrastructure?
Judea and Samaria are Israel’s heartland, the place where all the Biblical stories happened — and they are also strategically important.
Bordering the capital Jerusalem, it is high land that gives whoever controls it a military advantage. The region also gives Israel greater strategic depth, which is what military types call the distance between the frontlines and the rest of the country. That makes Israel annexing Judea and Samaria, or even just Area C where Jewish settlements are and which is largely empty, a sensible long-term security play.
Security was the original reason Israel built settlements after the 1967 Six-Day War. The Messianic settlers and those seeking cheap land came later — and those security reasons remain sound. Besides pushing the frontlines further from Israel’s major cities, the settlements deprive Jihadists of being able to attack Israel from that area. It would also provide more space for Israel to create security buffer zones.
Settlements can help resolve another problem that is rarely discussed. Beginning now, and in the years ahead, more Diaspora Jews are going to return to Israel. Global antisemitism, rising for years but at a fever pitch since the October 7th attacks, has shown that the golden age for Jews in the West is over.
While American Jews are, for now, relatively safe, attacks on Jews have become common in Canada, France, Britain, Australia, and elsewhere. Many are concluding, and more will do so in the years ahead, that making aliyah (returning home to Israel from exile) is the best and safest option for their families. Things do not need to reach Holocaust levels to be very bad indeed.
Israel will need space to absorb these people and accommodate a larger population, and there is room in Judea and Samaria. From this perspective, annexing all, or parts of, Judea and Samaria would not just make Israel safer; it would make Jews everywhere more secure. Further settlement would also disperse the Jewish population over a larger area, potentially reducing the impact of attacks on densely populated areas.
The counter-argument is usually that Israel being in Judea and Samaria, and expanding its presence there via settlements, is a cause of conflict in and of itself, since Jews and Arabs compete for land to which they both lay claim.
That is a credible analysis. But, is it right?
Jihadism cannot be appeased. As long as there are Jihadists who want to murder Jews and destroy Israel, they will attack Israel, whatever its borders. If that is the case, would stopping these Islamists be better accomplished with a bigger Israel and strong Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria, or with a retreat? The case for the former looks strong.
Greater Israel does not mean pushing Palestinians out. It means pushing the Jihadists out. Peaceful Palestinians can live and prosper in Israel with some kind of permanent residency. Ideally, Judea and Samaria could be developed to benefit Jews and Arabs, who are already deeply entwined economically.
Of course, Palestinians could leave if they want. There is no shortage of Arab states (plus plenty of overly sympathetic Western countries keen on immigration). There are some Jewish extremists who want to push the Palestinians out, but they are fringe quacks.
Gaza is less strategically important geographically, but it is important for other reasons. It is an enclave of Islamist extremism and Jihadism. Hamas has turned it into an Islamist terror state with the goal of destroying Israel as the first step in building a bigger, maybe even global, Caliphate. This has included indoctrinating generations of Palestinian children with a desire to kill Jews and die as martyrs.
Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist terror group that Egypt banned in 2013 (alongside Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). Egypt has blockaded Gaza to keep these radicalized Islamists there, and out of Egypt. It is telling that those who know Hamas best want nothing to do with them, while the vacuous protestors in the West support them.
The heavy fighting phase of Israel’s war against Hamas may have wound down but the conflict is far from over. Security will be a problem for years. Given that Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza allowed Hamas to turn it into a terror state, a return to that is not an option.
Israel will need to maintain a military and security presence to preserve peace and prevent Hamas, or other Jihadists, from regaining a foothold. That seems non-negotiable.
Being responsible for security, and governing Gaza, are not the same things. Israel could run security with some technocratic Palestinian entity — not Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, which are foul terrorist organizations — running its day-to-day affairs. This may be what happens.
Israel’s Far-Right, however, would like Israel to exert sovereignty over the whole strip, rebuild Jewish settlements, and push the Jihadists out. Given that withdrawing failed spectacularly, Israel should take over Gaza instead. It will be easier to root out and push back on Jihadism with a full Israeli presence, than with just a military one.
Israel defeating Jihadism and integrating Gaza and Judea and Samaria fully into the Israeli economy could create an economic boom. Palestinians and Jews would prosper, and Palestinians would be better served than they have ever been by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
Israel’s gross domestic product per capita is 15-plus times more than that in Palestinian-controlled territories, which is one reason why Israeli Arabs are so much better off than their Palestinian counterparts.
The real obstacle to peace is not who has sovereignty, or what any constitutional arrangements might look like; it is the Islamist ideology that poisons Palestinian minds and makes them refuse to live with the neighboring Jews.
Deradicalization, something akin to what happened with the de-Nazification of Germany after World War Two, is a multi-generational project. It will require input from Israeli’s Arab neighbors who have some experience in deradicalizing parts of their populations. Deradicalization will be easier if Israel has overall control because it will require overhauling everything, such as the education system, from the ground up.
A Greater Israel policy would produce a huge international diplomatic blowback. Israel already faces significant diplomatic isolation over its war with Hamas, even if it is not as bad as the mainstream media pretends.
Israel, however, does not need to be loved. It needs to be strong and respected for its strength. A strong Israel will be more secure than a popular one. Jordan and Egypt made peace with Israel when they faced the cold reality that Israel was too strong to defeat. This way of thinking is especially true in tribal Middle Eastern countries, even if the “progressives” in the declining West do not understand it.
Israel’s Arab friends — such as the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and maybe even Saudi Arabia soon — are no strangers to realist politics. They know a bigger, stronger Israel that is on their side would bolster regional security against the Islamic Republic of Iran’s crazed mullahs. A bigger Israel could be a regional stabilizing force.
I do not buy this analysis wholesale, but it is far from crazy. It rests on a sound understanding of Israel’s security challenges. Anyone who considers themselves a realist would be wise to contemplate this analysis and see what validity it has, as well as the lessons that can be learned from it.
Learn from history. Do not give your enemies the means to attack you. Show them no mercy and destroy them. There will never be any chance of peace when you are dealing with Muslim fanatics.
I think it's essential that Israel take control of Gaza, Judaea and Samaria. The sooner the better.