Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said
the Israeli state's borders should be expanded into Syria, a shocking new
documentary has revealed.
MENA
The New Arab Staff
10 October, 2024
https://www.newarab.com/news/smotrich-calls-bit-bit-israeli-expansion-damascus
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's
latest controversial remarks were featured in the Arte documentary 'Israel:
Extremists in Power' [Getty]
Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel
Smotrich has advocated for the creation of a Jewish state that would encompass
all Palestinian territories and neighbouring Arab territories, including the
Syrian capital of Damascus.
Smotrich, in an interview for the Arte
documentary 'Israel: Extremists in Power', said he hopes to expand Israel's
borders deep into Arab land, according to Jewish scripture.
"It is written that the future of Jerusalem
is to expand to Damascus," he was quoted as saying.
This Jewish state, he said, must extend into
Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, highlighting the
long-standing vision of many Israeli ultra and religious nationalists for
significant territorial expansion across the Middle East.
Annexation and acquiring territory through
military conquest are prohibited under international law, as outlined in the
United Nations Charter.
Arte’s latest documentary, 'Israel: Extremists in
Power examines the views and potential policies of members of the most
right-wing government in Israeli history, focusing on Smotrich and fellow
far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, against the backdrop of the war on
Gaza.
It also highlighted how Smotrich and Ben-Gvir
have gained considerable political influence, further deepening divisions
within Israeli society and exacerbating the plight of Palestinians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has
relied on the support of the far-right figures, particularly following the
resignation of former Defence Minister Benny Gantz from the emergency war
cabinet.
Gantz left amid disagreements over strategies in
the Gaza war and the how to approach the issue of Israeli captives being held
by Hamas.
Israel’s year-long assault on the devastated
Palestinian territory has led to the killing of at least 42,010 people in Gaza,
according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Israel has also intensified air strikes in
Lebanon since September 23, uprooting more than a million people and killing
over 1,200 Lebanese.
Movement for
Greater Israel
Movement for
Greater Israel
התנועה למען ארץ ישראל השלמה
Leader Avraham Yoffe
Founded July 1967
Dissolved 1976
Merged into La'am
Ideology Greater Israel
Neo-Zionism
Anti-Arabism
Ethnocracy
Jewish
supremacy
Alliance Likud (1973–1976)
Most MKs 1 (1973–1976)
Fewest MKs 0 (1969–1973)
Election
symbol
כן
Politics of
IsraelPolitical partiesElections
The Movement
for Greater Israel (Hebrew: התנועה למען ארץ ישראל השלמה, HaTnu'a Lema'an Eretz Yisrael HaSheleima), also known as
the Land of Israel Movement, was a political organisation in Israel during the
1960s and 1970s which subscribed to an ideology of Greater Israel.
The
organisation was formed in July 1967, a month after Israel captured the Gaza
Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights in the Six-Day
War. It called on the Israeli government to keep the captured areas and to
settle them with Jewish populations. Its founders were a mixture of Labor
Zionists, Revisionists, writers and poets, including Nathan Alterman, Aharon
Amir, Haim Gouri, Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi, Yitzhak Tabenkin, Icchak Cukierman,
Zivia Lubetkin, Eliezer Livneh, Moshe Shamir, Shmuel Katz, Zev Vilnay, Uri Zvi
Greenberg, Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Isser Harel, Israel Eldad, Dan Tolkovsky and
Avraham Yoffe.
In the 1969
Knesset elections it ran as the "List for the Land of Israel", but
earned only 7,561 votes (0.6%), and failed to cross the electoral threshold of
1%. Prior to the 1973 elections, it joined the Likud, an alliance of Herut, the
Liberal Party, the Free Centre and the National List.Likud won 39 seats, of
which one was allocated to the Movement for Greater Israel, and taken by
Avraham Yoffe.
In 1976 it
merged with the National List and the Independent Centre (a breakaway from the
Free Centre) to form La'am, which remained a faction within Likud until its
merger into Herut in 1984. Two of its members, Moshe Shamir and Zvi Shiloah,
later became Knesset members for Likud and Tehiya.
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