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← Netanyahu's "Very Much"

The i24 Amulet Exchange, Line by Line

This page walks through the few seconds of television that turned "Greater Israel" from something Israel's defenders called a conspiracy theory into something Israel's prime minister said he connects to. Read it slowly. Each line is short, and each one matters.

The setting​

The interview aired on i24, an Israeli news channel with Hebrew, English, French, and Arabic services, on 12 August 2025. The date matters. Seven weeks earlier Israel and the United States had bombed Iran's nuclear sites. Israel was fighting in Gaza, holding new ground in southern Syria, and striking Lebanon. The interviewer, Sharon Gal, is a former right-wing member of the Knesset.

The exchange​

As reported by the Times of Israel the same day (Times of Israel liveblog, 12 August 2025):

  1. Gal gives Netanyahu an amulet, which he calls "a map of the Promised Land."
  2. Gal: "This is my vision."
  3. Gal: "Do you connect to the vision?"
  4. Netanyahu: "Very much." He repeats it.
  5. Gal: "It is Greater Israel."
  6. Netanyahu: "If you ask me, we are here." After a pause he speaks of generations: his parents' generation had to establish the state, and his generation has to guarantee its continued existence. He calls it a great mission.
  7. Asked about a sense of mission, he says generations of Jews dreamed of coming to the land and generations will come after, and "if you're asking if I have a sense of mission, historically and spiritually, the answer is yes."

The Times of Israel put its reading in the headline: Netanyahu "endorses vision of Greater Israel."

The map on the amulet​

Netanyahu never described the map, and the camera did not linger on it. Two later descriptions agree on what it showed. Grok, X's AI system, wrote that the amulet was a map of the Promised Land, "matching the expansive biblical version from the Nile to the Euphrates" that the interviewer's company sells as pendants (Grok on X, 10 September 2026). NPR's Daniel Estrin, in May 2026, called it jewelry "shaped with the borders of what's called greater Israel, land stretching from the Nile in Egypt to the Euphrates in Iraq" (NPR, 31 May 2026).

That is the vision the prime minister was asked about. The biblical verse behind it, Genesis 15:18, promises the land "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates." See Genesis 15 and the Biblical Borders.

The cut from the English upload​

The Times of Israel reported that the exchange appears in the Hebrew broadcast but was edited out of the English YouTube version of the interview. The two words were said to Israelis in Hebrew. They were removed from the version English-speaking audiences, including Americans, were most likely to watch.

This fits a pattern across this investigation: officials say one thing to their own public and another to Washington. The Arabic-language account of Israel's Foreign Ministry had told Arab audiences less than a year earlier that the Nile-to-Euphrates slogan "is neither voiced by any Israeli politician nor found anywhere in Israel." See the 2024 Arabic denial.

Other renderings in circulation​

Because the clip spread in translation, several wordings circulate. Anadolu Agency, quoting the Times of Israel, gave the longer mission line as "a mission of generations — there are generations of Jews that dreamt of coming here and generations of Jews who will come after us" (Anadolu via usmuslims.com, 13 August 2025). Megatron's widely shared clip was captioned "Netyanahu says he's on a 'historical and spiritual mission' to realize 'GREATER ISRAEL'" (Megatron on X, 13 August 2025, 142,000 views). Wikipedia's summary says he is "very" attached to the vision, which "includes Palestinian areas and possibly also places that are part of Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon" (Wikipedia, Greater Israel). The words inside the Times of Israel report remain the anchor: "Very much," twice, and a mission "historically and spiritually."

What followed​

Within two days Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia had condemned the remarks, and within two weeks 31 states had joined statements against them (World reaction). Nineteen days after the interview his office posted that "Israel has no territorial claims against any neighboring countries" (Prime Minister of Israel on X, 31 August 2025). It did not take back the two words.

Evidence rating: CONFIRMED.

Status: Benjamin Netanyahu is alive. Sharon Gal is alive. Daniel Estrin is alive. Nothing on this page states that any of them committed a crime.

Sources​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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