Netanyahu's 'Greater Israel' remarks sets off a wave of anger in Egypt

Egypt has strongly denounced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 'Greater Israel' vision, which implies expanding Israel's territories from the Nile to the Euphrates rivers. 

In a statement late on Wednesday, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said Netanyahu's remarks undermine regional stability and reflect a policy direction opposed to peace, one that aims for escalation.

"This contradicts the aspirations of regional and international parties that crave peace and want to achieve security and stability for all regional peoples," the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said.

"Egypt is keen on laying the foundations of peace in the Middle East," it added.

Netanyahu stirred up major debates in Egypt after divulging his attachment to the controversial vision. During an interview with the Israeli television channel i24 late on Tuesday, the far-right premier said he feels he is on a "historic and spiritual mission" to fulfil this vision.

Netanyahu did not refer to specific territories he hopes to include within his imagined 'Greater Israel'.

Nevertheless, the vision is generally known to include areas slated for the aspired Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, along with parts of present-day Jordan and Egypt.

His answer came after interviewer Sharon Gal offered him an amulet of a map of what the Israelis call "the Promised Land".

"There are generations of Jews that dreamt of coming here and generations of Jews who will come after us," Netanyahu said.

His remarks have kicked up a storm of angry reactions in Egypt, a country that, despite its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, has always been suspicious of Israeli intentions.

"I am generally against war, but if Netanyahu tries to apply his religious hallucinations to us, we will defend our country with full force," commented one Egyptian social media user on X.

"Netanyahu's remarks have brought to the fore an expansionist Zionist dream that threatens the security of the Middle East as a whole," wrote another Egyptian.

Embarrassing for pro-deal supporters

Netanyahu's remarks came only days after Egypt signed a $35-billion deal for the purchase of Israeli gas until 2040, Israel's largest export deal since it started exporting gas from its Mediterranean fields in 2020.

The deal was strongly opposed by Egyptians, especially as it comes at a time Israel continues to commit atrocities in the Gaza Strip, ones described by the Egyptian president as being tantamount to "systematic genocide".

A sizeable number of Egyptians also oppose the deal, citing Israel's belligerent policies towards Egypt, including its desire to displace the Palestinians of Gaza into Sinai, viewing it as an unreliable source of gas for their populous country.

This opposition to the deal came at a time pro-government media and commentators tried to promote it as a gesture of peace from Egypt to Israel.

However, Netanyahu's 'Greater Israel' vision causes embarrassment to Egyptian media outlets and commentators who defended the deal.

This was why some Egyptians commenting on the Israeli premier's remarks on social media asked Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi about how he would react to them.

Opposition to the gas deal and the government camp's defence of it stand as a reminder of the wide chasm between the positions of Egypt at the official level and at the public level towards relations with Israel.

Despite 46 years of peace between Egypt and Israel, a treaty that is deemed widely as only a government-to-government affair and mere ink on paper, with the majority of Egyptians viewing Israel as a 'hostile state'.

"The crimes Israel commits in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and Syria stand of course behind this view," Ahmed Youssef, a political science professor at Cairo University, told The New Arab.

"Netanyahu's remarks reflect his country's expansionist ideology, which threatens the stability of the whole region," Youssef added.

Youssef noted those who read Netanyahu's 1993 book, "A Place Among the Nations," would not find his new remarks new or bizarre.

"These remarks reflect the true way this man thinks. He had never changed this way of thinking," he added.

Casting doubt on peace

Netanyahu's 'Greater Israel' comments cast doubt on his commitment to peace and respect for the sovereignty of his country's neighbouring states, analysts in Cairo said.

They are also expected to produce an angry chain reaction in regional states, and may be, a revision of the policies of these states towards Israel, they added.

Jordan also denounced the same remarks. In a statement on earlier on Wednesday, the Jordanian Foreign Ministry considered them a "provocative" and "dangerous" escalation that threatens the sovereignty of regional states and violates international law.

"These absurd remarks will not undermine Jordan, other Arab states, or the rights of the Palestinian people," it said.

Netanyahu's 'Greater Israel' vision comes to the fore only weeks ahead of a pledged recognition of a Palestinian state by several countries, including France, the UK and Canada.

This vision is steeped in biblical and political dimensions and its meaning has evolved over time and varies depending on context, ranging from religious aspirations to political ideologies.

Although it finds its roots in the Hebrew Bible, this vision gained traction with the rise of European political Zionism in the late 19th century. Some Zionists envisioned a Zionist state encompassing historical or biblical boundaries, including parts of modern-day Jordan; Lebanon; Syria, and Egypt.

'Greater Israel' has become associated with territorial expansion after Israel's forced establishment in 1948 by massive displacement of the indigenous Palestinian population, and particularly following the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel captured the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip in Palestine, the Golan Heights in Syria, and the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.

The Movement for Greater Israel and groups like Gush Emunim advocated for retaining and settling these territories, viewing them as part of the biblical homeland.

The same vision is also held by far-right Israeli groups and religious Zionists, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who once referenced a map of 'Greater Israel' extending beyond his country's current borders.

Egyptian fury

Egyptians' anger comes to the surface at a time of high political tensions between Egypt and Israel, against the background of the Israeli war in Gaza and mounting pressure on Egypt to do something as the people of the war-shattered territory die of hunger, only kilometres away from the Egyptian border.

It also comes a few days after the governor of North Sinai, a former Second Field Army commander and the former head of Egypt's military intelligence agency, threatened what he described as an "astounding" reaction to those who encroach on Egyptian territory.

The governor's remarks came in comment to a journalist who asked him about whether Egypt is ready for war with Israel.

"I assure all Egyptians that nobody can come close to the Egyptian border," the governor said. "Those who do this should only blame themselves."

Israel's war on Gaza and its plans to displace its Palestinian population, either into Sinai or anywhere else, has caused Egypt to reinforce troop deployments in the Sinai, in what the Israelis describe as a 'violation' of the security annex of the 1979 peace treaty.

Earlier this month, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said his country would not function as a gateway for the displacement of the Palestinian people, within Israel's plan to depopulate Gaza.

Sisi had earlier described the plan to depopulate Gaza, within US President Donald Trump's 'Middle East Riviera' blueprint, as an "act of injustice", and vowed that his country would not participate in it.

Netanyahu's 'Greater Israel' remarks, meanwhile, increase tensions with Cairo and widen the scope of Egyptians' hostility towards Israel, observers in Cairo said.

"Nobody will allow Netanyahu to fulfil his dreams," Gen. Ibrahim al-Masri, the head of the Committee on Defence and National Security in the Egyptian parliament, told TNA.

"Egypt has a sufficient deterrence force to defend itself against such an extremist way of thinking," he added.