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Jeffrey Sachs: The Greater Israel Project is Collapsing

 June 27, 2026, https://scheerpost.com/2026/06/27/jeffrey-sachs-the-greater-israel-project-is-collapsing/

For further reading, the interview references the article “Stop ‘Greater Israel’ to Make Peace”: In which Jeffrey Sachs and Sybil Fares argue that the ideology of “Greater Israel” has become the driving force behind decades of conflict across the Middle East, describing it as an expansionist doctrine that continues to fuel war rather than security.

Sachs and Fares argue that lasting peace in the Middle East requires rejecting the ideology of “Greater Israel,” which they contend has driven decades of conflict in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and, most recently, Iran. The authors claim that Israeli expansionism—backed by both secular nationalists and religious extremists, and enabled by unwavering U.S. political support—has repeatedly fueled wars that have devastated the region while ultimately undermining Israel’s own security and international standing. They maintain that the recent U.S.-Iran ceasefire demonstrates diplomacy is more effective than military force and argue that a durable peace depends on ending the war in Gaza, halting Israeli occupation and expansion, withdrawing from neighboring territories, and establishing an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel within the 1967 borders.

The authors highlight what they characterize as increasingly hardline rhetoric among Israel’s leadership, writing that the ideology is rooted in “secular hardliners like Netanyahu who say that Israel must control all the land from the river to the sea to be safe, and damn the eight million Palestinians in the way.” They also point to statements by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has declared there is “no such thing as a Palestinian” and vowed that Israel “won’t commit suicide to make them happy” by relinquishing military control of the West Bank, Gaza, or occupied territory in Lebanon and Syria. Sachs and Fares contend that these views help explain continued military action despite diplomatic breakthroughs, arguing that “Greater Israel” advocates view peace itself as a setback. As evidence, they note that “even after the deal was sealed, Israel has continued to bomb Lebanon,” arguing that the ideology remains a major obstacle to a lasting regional peace.

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July 3, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, politics