'Jewish state will extend from Jerusalem to Damascus': Israeli finance minister

In a new documentary, Bezalel Smotrich says the Zionist goal of conquering parts of Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia is part of Israeli public discourse  

News Desk - The Cradle

In a new documentary, Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich detailed his desire to conquer not only all Palestinian territory to the Jordan River but also the Syrian capital of Damascus and territories extending as far as Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Smotrich, the Finance Minister in the Israeli cabinet and head of the Religious Zionism party, made the comments in a recently released documentary entitled Israel: Extremists in Power. The documentary was produced by Arte Reportage, a Franco-German broadcast news magazine.

When asked about his goal, Smotrich tells the interviewer, “I want a Jewish state … It is a country run according to the values of the Jewish people.”

Israel currently controls territory from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, including the Palestinian territories in the West Bank, which have been under Israeli military occupation since 1967.

Israel has been building illegal Jewish settlements on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank ever since.

The interviewer then asked Smotrich whether he thought the borders of the Jewish state should extend past the Jordan River.

Smotrich responded by saying, “Absolutely, but slowly … Our great religious elders used to say that the future of Jerusalem was to extend as far as Damascus.”

The documentary narrator then added, “Bezalel Smotrich has a maximalist vision of the promised land. And it includes all Palestinian lands, but also territories in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt. Even in Saudi Arabia. A radical vision admittedly, but one that is accepted in public debate in Israel.”

Since the beginning of the Gaza genocide in October 2023, many Israeli soldiers, media personalities, and politicians have made it clear they are fighting to conquer the enclave for the sake of building Jewish settlements there.

They say that Gaza must be destroyed and the 2.3 million Palestinian inhabitants of the strip forcibly expelled, whether to Egypt by land or Europe by boat, to allow for Jewish settlement.

The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in northern Gaza is now underway, according to the so-called “general’s plan.”

Some soldiers make clear the additional goal of conquering Arab territory as far as Syria and Iraq as well by the patches they wear on their uniforms.

Many in Israeli society also look forward to conquering southern Lebanon and bulding Jewish settlements there. On 25 September, the Movement for Settlement in Southern Lebanon published a map with “the new Hebrew names for the settlements of Southern Lebanon,” based on the current names of the Lebanese towns and villages.

Jewish Currents reports that in the movement's worldview, “the Israeli settlement of southern Lebanon will begin with a war with Hezbollah – which they view not as a last resort barring a diplomatic solution, but as the only reasonable path forward.”

Political analyst James Dorsey notes that the movement claims a Biblical justification for the conquest of Lebanon in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 3, verse 25. As Moses appeals to God to allow him to enter the Promised Land, he asks, “Let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan – that fine hill country and Lebanon.”