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The Likud Charter and the Jordan River

Americans have heard the chant "from the river to the sea" condemned in Congress, on cable news, and on college campuses as a call to erase Israel. Few have been told that Israel's ruling party wrote the same geography into its own founding program, in the other direction. Likud, the party Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has led for most of the last three decades, came to power in 1977 on a platform that said: "between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty" (Jewish Virtual Library).

This page explains what Likud is, what its platforms have said about the Jordan River from 1977 to today, where that idea came from, and how it became the written policy of the government now at war with Iran.

What Likud is​

Likud ("consolidation" in Hebrew) is Israel's main right-wing party. It was formed in 1973 when several groups merged, including Menachem Begin's Herut party and, according to an archived Likud history page, the Labor Movement for Greater Israel. Herut grew out of the Revisionist Zionist movement of Ze'ev Jabotinsky and the Irgun underground militia that Begin commanded. Begin won the 1977 election and became Likud's first prime minister; Yitzhak Shamir, who came from the Lehi underground, followed him; Benjamin Netanyahu, son of the Revisionist historian Benzion Netanyahu, has led the party since 2005. Likud has governed Israel for most of the years since 1977.

The scholar Barnett Rubin calls Jabotinsky "the direct political ancestor of Benjamin Netanyahu" (Barnett Rubin on X, 19 March 2024).

The 1977 platform: "between the Sea and the Jordan"​

The founding platform's first section reads: "The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." It warns that any plan giving up "parts of western Eretz Israel ... unavoidably leads to the establishment of a 'Palestinian State,'" and calls settlement "in all parts of the Land of Israel ... the focal point of the Zionist effort."

In 1978 the U.S. Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, described Likud's position as calling "for permanent Israeli retention of all of the West Bank and Gaza" (TRT World, 2024). Responsible Statecraft summed up: Begin "ran on a platform that was unequivocally committed to annexation of the West Bank" (Responsible Statecraft, 18 May 2020).

Go deeper: The 1977 Likud Platform, and on the slogan double standard, The Slogan Banned for Others, Written into Likud's Platform.

Later platforms: "permanent eastern border"​

The platforms that followed kept the Jordan as the line and said so more sharply.

  • 1996, Netanyahu's first election, as quoted by a researcher: "The Jordan River shall be the eastern border of the State of Israel, south of Lake Kinneret. This will be the permanent border between the State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan" (Hamid on X, 13 December 2023).
  • 1999, as reproduced by the writer Jonathan Weiler: "The Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel," and "The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river. The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state" (AUPHR, 4 August 2014).
  • 2002, on the Knesset website, as the journalist Ben Norton showed: "Israel flatly rejects" a Palestinian state west of the Jordan river (Ben Norton on X, 15 February 2017).
  • 2014 constitution: the party commits to "persevering in the settlement and development of all parts of the Land of Israel and applying the sovereignty of the state to them" (Likud constitution, Hebrew PDF, as translated on Quora).

Weiler's summary: "the Likud Party has never in its statements of principles accepted a Palestinian State." In October 2025, a summary of the party's documents concluded: "No changes dropping this goal have been made since the 1977 charter" (Grok on X, 5 October 2025).

Go deeper: Likud Platforms 1996 to 2014

Before 1977: both banks of the Jordan​

The 1977 line at the Jordan was itself a narrowing. Jabotinsky's movement claimed both banks of the river, meaning today's Kingdom of Jordan as well. His 1930 hymn runs: "There are two Banks to the Jordan — This one is ours, and that [one] as well." In 1931, as the historian Avi Shlaim records, Jabotinsky insisted the Zionist Congress declare that its aim was "a Jewish state on both sides of the River Jordan." Begin cited that congress in his 1977 victory speech. And in March 2023 Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich spoke in Paris from a podium hung with a map of Israel that included Jordan.

Go deeper: Jabotinsky and "Both Banks of the Jordan" and Smotrich in Paris.

Today: the platform became the government​

In December 2022 Netanyahu formed the government that would fight Iran. Its guidelines open: "The Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel," and commit to settlement "in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan and Judea and Samaria" (Times of Israel, 28 December 2022). The 2018 Nation-State Basic Law says national self-determination in Israel is "unique to the Jewish people." In July 2024 the Knesset voted 68 to 9 against a Palestinian state west of the Jordan; in July 2025 it voted 71 to 13 to call for applying Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank.

And Netanyahu, in his own words:

  • January 2024: "In any future settlement, Israel must control all the territory west of the Jordan River," adding that "The prime minister needs to be capable of saying no to our friends" (Al-Monitor, 18 January 2024; Middle East Monitor, 19 January 2024). One translation rendered it as "the state of Israel has to control the entire area from the river to the sea"; Snopes concluded that "no matter the translation, he called for Israeli control of all Palestinian territories" (Snopes, 19 January 2024).
  • September 2025: "There will be no Palestinian state to the west of the Jordan River" (as summarized on X).
  • June 2026: "no room" for a Palestinian state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River (Reddit r/worldnews headline, 28 June 2026).

Go deeper: The 2022 Guidelines and the Nation-State Law

Why this matters to an American family​

The narrow Greater Israel is not an interpretation. It is the written program of the party that has governed Israel for most of half a century, restated in the governing guidelines of the coalition now at war alongside the United States. The American historian Zachary Foster put the double standard in two sentences: "if you say, 'between the river & the sea, there will be only Jewish sovereignty,' (Likud Charter) you get $3.8B/yr in military aid from the US. if you say, 'between the river & the sea, Palestine will be free,' you are censured from congress, fired from CNN or banned from X" (Zachary Foster on X, 20 November 2023).

The platform is also a map of what comes next. It is being built on the ground (Settlements), extended into Gaza and the Golan (Steps Already Taken), and its wider horizon is spoken aloud by ministers (Ministers' Own Words).

Evidence rating: the governing party, the coalition guidelines, and a Knesset majority claim all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan: CONFIRMED.

Status: Benjamin Netanyahu, Bezalel Smotrich, Barnett Rubin, Jonathan Weiler, Ben Norton, Avi Shlaim, and Zachary Foster are alive. Ze'ev Jabotinsky is deceased (1940). Menachem Begin is deceased (1992). Yitzhak Shamir is deceased (2012). Benzion Netanyahu is deceased (2012). Cyrus Vance is deceased (2002). Nothing on this page states that any living person committed a crime.

Sources​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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