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Reading Item 5: An Israeli Prime Minister, in an Israeli Newspaper, on Greater Israel

Time to read: about 5 minutes. Document: The Times of Israel, August 12, 2025: "Netanyahu says he's on a historic and spiritual mission, endorses vision of Greater Israel"

This item is on the list for one reason: it is an Israeli newspaper reporting an Israeli prime minister's own words. Nobody can call the Times of Israel hostile to Israel. If a parent is going to test the claim that the war on Iran serves a larger Israeli project, this is where to start.

What "Greater Israel" means​

"Greater Israel" is the English name for the Hebrew Eretz Yisrael HaShlema, "the Whole Land of Israel": the idea that Israel's rightful borders are larger than the ones the world recognizes. A narrow version covers the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights. A wide version, from Genesis 15:18, runs "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates." The Greater Israel section explains both maps and the land already taken since 2024.

The exchange to read​

On August 12, 2025, two months after the first Israeli and American strikes on Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was interviewed on Israel's i24NEWS. He was handed an amulet described as a map of the Promised Land and asked whether he connected to that vision. The Times of Israel reported his answer: "Very much." When the interviewer said, "It is Greater Israel," Netanyahu spoke of a "mission of generations." The Times of Israel also noted that the exchange was cut from the channel's English YouTube version.

Read the liveblog entry yourself. It takes five minutes.

What he has said to others​

Netanyahu has described the same ambition in other settings. The filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza, who writes that Israel "has every justification to strike back," wrote in April 2026: "I interviewed Netanyahu for my last film, and he told me that after October 7 he knew he would have to remake the map of the Middle East" (@DineshDSouza, April 1, 2026). In the same essay D'Souza argued that "we have reached the juncture at which US and Israeli interests diverge," and that America should tell Israel, "We wish you well, but it's not our fight anymore."

A compiled record of the war's summer lists U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee saying on camera that Israel has a "biblical right" to large tracts of the Middle East (@signaloftheeye ledger, July 25, 2026). An April 2026 profile of Tucker Carlson recorded that, with the war underway, he told the BBC the United States went to war "at the behest and then the demand of Israel" (@DefiyantlyFree, April 16, 2026). A blurb for the 2026 book Israel's Lobby by the political scientist Rogers M. Smith, printed by the Quincy Institute, says: "Many Americans have struggled to understand why President Donald Trump launched a massive attack on Iran shortly after a presentation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House Situation Room urged him to do so" (@QuincyInst, July 13, 2026).

On the first day of the 2026 war, former Congressman Dennis Kucinich wrote that the United States had been "reduced to being an arm of the Israeli government, in service of greater Israel," and that "we have made Netanyahu's long-desired war upon Iran our own" (as posted by @RobbinMilne, March 1, 2026).

What you will be told when you bring it up​

A parent who raises this at dinner will hear that Greater Israel is a myth. An Israeli-English outlet ran an opinion piece in April 2026 headlined "The 'Greater Israel' hoax is the most dangerous lie yet," saying "Israel is not pursuing a 'Greater Israel' in any way or form" and that "Those who promote the 'Greater Israel' lie are antisemites" (JNS, April 1, 2026). An American commentator told his large following in March 2026: "I'm tired of the easily debunked conspiracy theories about Jews. Crap like 'Greater Israel'" (@mattforney, March 13, 2026).

This is why the reading list starts with the Times of Israel and not with an argument. When someone says Greater Israel is a hoax, the answer is not a counter-slogan. It is the prime minister's own "Very much," reported by an Israeli newspaper, plus the ministers' statements and the land held since 2024, all documented in Smotrich and Other Ministers in Their Own Words and Lebanon and Syria Since 2024. And a question about a government's stated plan is not a claim about Jews; see Fear of the Antisemitism Label.

Where Iran fits​

Iran is not inside the biblical borders. It is the obstacle. The Iran and the Greater Israel Map page quotes Netanyahu during the June 2025 war, "We will change the face of the Middle East. That is exactly what we are doing," and an Israeli channel's English account arguing that Israel "should focus on Syria before starting the war with Iran." Put that next to Clark's list, which ends with Iran, and the reason a parent's son might be sent to Iran starts to come into focus.

What to take away​

  • Israel's prime minister said "Very much" when asked about Greater Israel, and an Israeli paper reported it.
  • He told a friendly American filmmaker he would "remake the map of the Middle East."
  • The people who call this a hoax are asking you not to read the Israeli press. Read it.

Sources​

Research captures: twitter/t73__v865.md, t73__v866.md, t73__v869.md, t72__v857.md, t72__v863.md.

Status: Benjamin Netanyahu, Dinesh D'Souza, Mike Huckabee, Tucker Carlson, Rogers M. Smith, Dennis Kucinich, and Matt Forney are alive. Nothing on this page is a claim that any of them committed a crime.

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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