Greater Israel: an ongoing expansion plan for the Middle East and North Africa By Ecaterina MATOI The recent picture of an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldier with a Greater Israel badge on the uniform provoked outrage in Arab countries (Middle East Monitor, 2024). The promised land of Israel, as described in the badge photo, includes regions from the Nile to the Euphrates, from Medina to Lebanon, including territories from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, entire Jordan, and Occupied Palestinian territories. Why it sparked outrage, however, is not clear: the map reflects Theodor Herzl’s more than a century old statement: “Discussed with Bodenheimer the demands we will make. Area: from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates…” (Herzl, Ed. Patai, & Transl. Zohn, 1960, p. 711), and with newer instances of this territorial expansion desiderate, expressed by Oded Yinon plan and Saul B. Cohen’s geopolitical concepts, among others, and the aggressive stance against Israel’s neighbors and regional countries. Hence, it is probably not the existence of the plan that sparked outrage, but its appearance in the broader social media space. This view on region’s future is neither new nor rare. In a January 2024 recording, Israeli politician Avi Lipkin was stating: “… eventually, our borders will extend from Lebanon to the Great Desert, which is Saudi Arabia, and then from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. And who is on the other side of the Euphrates? The Kurds! And the Kurds are friends. So we have Mediterranean behind us, the Kurds in front of us, Lebanon, which really needs the umbrella of protection of Israel, and then we’re gonna take, I believe we’re gonna take Mecca, Medina and Mount Sinai, and to purify those places” (muslimi.official, 2024), (Middle East Monitor 1, 2024). This article analyzes the geopolitical and international relations implications of Israel’s expansion plan in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, in connection with the dynamic concept of Greater Israel, from a historical development perspective. 1. Geopolitical lens considerations and Israeli assertions Rudolf Kjellen’s “geopolitik” was defined at the end of 19 th century, and according to literature, the developed framework encompasses also the “organic concept of statehood” (Tunander, 2001, p. 453), along with other concepts like “state and land”, unity, people, personality of a state on the international scene. Post-World War II literature on geopolitics began to criticize and revise initial geopolitical hypotheses defined by Mahan, Mackinder and Haushofer, among others. For example, Sprot was stating in 1953: “Very few of these hypotheses reflect dispassionate objectivity. Most of them reflect a specific nationalistic viewpoint; most of them were formulated in the heat of some kind of a crisis, in a period of tension; most of them reflect advise to a particular government - a policy which, if followed, it was hoped would achieve some desired result” (Sprout, 1954, p. 20). While the arguments hold true, it was also the association of geopolitics with Friedrich Ratzel’s Lebensraum conceptual framework and its instrumentalization by the German Nazis that led to a “divestment” from geopolitics as a discipline in the mid 20 th century. In principle, geopolitics was concerned with the distribution of (state) power across regions and the globe, i.e., geographical regions, from the perspective of theoretical developments and political practice. It expanded on the previous military power concepts, and the association of