US official calls MENA borders 'illusory', signals support for Israeli expansion

A senior Trump administration official has described modern Middle Eastern borders, including those defining Israel's current territory, as "illusory", while raising doubts about the viability of several regional nation-states.

The comments, made during a recent closed-door briefing and reported by The Hill on Tuesday, have drawn criticism from regional experts who say they reflect a push to legitimise aggressive Israeli territorial expansion.

The official, who was not named, spoke during a briefing on President Donald Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Syria and the administration's efforts to build diplomatic ties between the new Syrian government and Israel.

In their remarks, the official questioned the post-Ottoman nation-state model and praised the decentralised governance of the former empire.

"[The] Ottoman Empire did not exist in nation-states, right?" the official said. "They had a centralised government, but they allowed each of the regions to operate independently in an appellate system. So where we're going can be something new. The nation-states haven't worked very well," the official said. 

They went on to describe borders drawn in 1948, 1926, 1967, and 1974, dates that mark key territorial expansion and land grab by Israel, as "illusions" based on facts that "were there at the time".

While the comments were framed as historical reflection, analysts say they carry alarming present-day political weight.

Lamis Andoni, a leading expert on Jordanian-Palestinian affairs, said the remarks "suggest that Israel can expand its borders in the Arab world" under the justification that existing boundaries are artificial, obsolete and expendable.

"This isn't about rethinking borders for coexistence," Andoni told The New Arab. "It's about normalising Israeli hegemony. What the official is saying is that Israel is not bound by these borders and is free to redraw the map according to its interests."

She added that invoking the Ottoman Empire was historically misleading and politically convenient. "No one, not even the Zionists, is advocating for a single entity that includes Israel and its neighbours. What's being pushed is Israeli dominance, not shared governance."

Since its creation in 1948, Israel's borders have shifted repeatedly due to wars, annexations, and ceasefires. The state was established on 78 percent of historic Palestine following the Nakba, during which over 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. In 1967, Israel captured the remaining Palestinian territories, Gaza and the West Bank, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

Though Sinai was returned to Egypt in 1982, Israel continues to illegally occupy the Golan and the West Bank, with its military controlling Gaza, where it is accused of carrying out genocide against the indigenous Palestinians.

Israeli officials have increasingly voiced support for annexing additional territory in Syria and Lebanon, while recent military operations have expanded Israel’s footprint in both Gaza and southern Syria.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly presented provocative maps erasing Palestinian territory and redrawing regional boundaries in line with a "Greater Israel" expansionist vision.

At the 2023 UN General Assembly, Netanyahu held up a map labelled "The New Middle East" that made no reference to Palestine and depicted all territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as part of Israel. The map omitted the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem as distinct Palestinian areas, in what was widely seen as a brazen visual rejection of Palestinian statehood.

In early 2025, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted an Arabic-language map on social media that extended Israeli borders into parts of Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

Citing dubious ancient biblical claims with no historical or archaeological basis, the map sparked outrage and condemnation across the Arab world, with critics calling it a flagrant violation of international law and a direct threat to regional sovereignty.