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← Netanyahu's "Very Much"

Netanyahu on the Land, 1996 to 2026

The "Very much" of August 2025 was not a stray remark. Benjamin Netanyahu has led Likud, the party whose founding platform says "between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty," for most of three decades. Read his own words in order and a straight line appears: no Palestinian state, permanent Israeli control from the river to the sea, and, since 2023, "security zones" pushed into Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria that he says Israel will keep. This page collects those words, with sources.

The foundation: his father's movement and his party​

Netanyahu's father, the historian Benzion Netanyahu, was a leading figure in Revisionist Zionism, the movement of Ze'ev Jabotinsky that claimed both banks of the Jordan River. The Routledge study Netanyahu and Likud's Leaders: The Israeli Princes describes Benzion as the "foreign minister" of Jabotinsky's movement. Netanyahu's own treatise places the claim to the east bank at Versailles: "the national home included both sides of the Jordan in those days," as quoted by the political scientist Nadav Shelef (Evolving Nationalism, book scan). The party he leads wrote the sea-to-Jordan line into its 1977 platform; see The 1977 Likud Platform.

Against a Palestinian state, from the start​

  • Ofra, decades ago, repeated in 2025. At the Ofra settlement he recalled: "I stood here half a century ago and said that we would do everything to ensure our continued hold on the land of Israel, that we would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and that we would thwart all attempts to uproot us from here." Then: "Thank God we kept our promise." (New York Times, 25 August 2025)
  • Since 1996. The economist Jeffrey Sachs argued on Tucker Carlson's show in December 2024 that since 1996 Netanyahu has rejected "land for peace" in favor of territorial control (summary by The Structural Architect on X, 15 May 2025).
  • 2014. "I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan" (as quoted by Jonathan Weiler, AUPHR, 4 August 2014).
  • 2017. "Israel must keep security control of all territory west of the Jordan River" (as quoted by Tony Karon on X, 15 February 2017).
  • 2019. "Israeli military and security forces will continue to rule the entire territory, up to the Jordan [River]," as quoted in Human Rights Watch's report A Threshold Crossed (Yodysseus on X quoting HRW, 12 February 2025). In the same year, as quoted by the writer Joseph Klein, he said: "Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas" (Joseph Klein on X, 9 February 2024). The Israeli historian Adam Raz, in The Road to October 7, argues that Qatari cash to Hamas kept the Palestinian movement "splintered between Hamas in Gaza and the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, thus allowing Israel to maintain its dominance over the whole of the land" (as quoted from +972 by Robin Monotti on X, 17 November 2024).
  • 2019, again. "Israel is… the nation-state of the Jewish people and only them" (Vanguard Online).

"West of the Jordan" becomes "from the river to the sea"​

On 18 January 2024, three months into the Gaza war, he told a press conference: "In any future settlement, Israel must control all the territory west of the Jordan River," adding that he had told the Biden administration (Al-Monitor, 18 January 2024). One translation rendered it: "the state of Israel has to control the entire area from the river to the sea" (Truthout, 5 May 2024). Snopes concluded that "no matter the translation, he called for Israeli control of all Palestinian territories" (Snopes, 19 January 2024). Middle East Monitor added: "The prime minister needs to be capable of saying no to our friends" (Middle East Monitor, 19 January 2024).

In September 2025, at the City of David in Jerusalem: "This is our city. It is forever our city. It will never be divided again and there will be no Palestinian State" (American Rhetoric transcript, 15 September 2025). The same month, as summarized by Grok: "There will be no Palestinian state to the west of the Jordan River" (Grok on X, 21 September 2026). In June 2026, a headline: "Netanyahu: 'No room' for Palestinian state between Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River" (Reddit r/worldnews, 28 June 2026), reposted by Kenneth Roth (repost, 29 June 2026).

The Bible as the deed​

The new ground: Syria, Gaza, Lebanon​

  • Syria, December 2024. After Assad fell he called it "an earthquake that hasn't happened in the 100 years since the Sykes-Picot Agreement" (MintPress News, 28 January 2025). His cabinet unanimously approved his Golan settlement plan: "Strengthening the Golan means strengthening Israel... We will continue to hold onto it, develop it, & settle it" (Ramy Abdu on X quoting the PMO, 15 December 2024). On Mount Hermon he said Israel would stay "until another arrangement can be found that guarantees Israel's security" (Times of Israel, 17 December 2024). In July 2025 he announced the "demilitarisation" of southern Syria from the Golan to the Druze Mountain area (Afshin Rattansi on X, 17 July 2025); in October 2025 he used the Gaza ceasefire to declare Israel would stay in southern Syria indefinitely (Afshin Rattansi on X, 25 October 2025).
  • Gaza. "We are taking over the Gaza Strip" (Amit Segal on X, 4 August 2025). On emigration: "Why should Gaza be closed? We are not pushing them out, but we are allowing them to leave" (HOT SPOT on X, 12 August 2025, caption translation). In July 2026: "My directive is to move to 70% control of the Gaza Strip... We're at 60% right now. Let's do this step by step, first 70%" (Jerusalem Post, 15 July 2026). See Gaza: the Yellow Line.
  • Lebanon. "This is a 10-km deep security belt. We are here, and we are not leaving" (as quoted by Lise Santolini on X, 3 May 2026). In June 2026: "Israel stays in the yellow security zone that keeps us safe. And this is a huge achievement. Huge!... I thank President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio" (Clash Report on X, 27 June 2026, translation by the account).
  • All three. "In Lebanon, Syria and in Gaza, we have created security zones deep beyond our borders," and "We have changed our security concept. We initiate, we attack, and we have created three security zones deep within enemy territory" (NPR, 31 May 2026).

The larger ambition​

Read end to end, the record answers the question the August 2025 denial tried to close: the prime minister has said for thirty years that no other sovereignty will exist west of the Jordan, and since 2023 he has added zones in three neighboring territories that he says Israel will keep.

Evidence rating for "Netanyahu has consistently rejected any Palestinian state between the river and the sea": CONFIRMED. Evidence rating for "he has announced that Israel will hold zones in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria": CONFIRMED.

Status: Benjamin Netanyahu is alive. Benzion Netanyahu is deceased (2012). Jeffrey Sachs, Adam Raz, Joseph Klein, Amit Segal, and Kenneth Roth are alive. Nothing on this page states that any living person committed a crime.

Sources​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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