Greater Israel

Greater Israel (Hebrew: ארץ ישראל השלמה, Eretz Israel HaSchlema " Whole Land of Israel ", often just " Eretz Israel ") is a Jewish political demand, occasionally also Christian groups in and outside of Israel. It postulates the indivisibility of the territory known as the Land of Israel and includes the expansion of Jewish sovereignty over the whole territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, sometimes also on parts of Jordan, and in its extreme form in addition also to areas of Lebanon, Syria and Egypt.

The opinion, Israel strive Greater Israel from the Euphrates to the Nile at, is widespread, but particularly not only in Arab and Muslim countries and has led to various conspiracy theories.

History

Biblical background

The term Eretz Israel and Eretz Israel HaSchlema refers to the in the Hebrew Bible as the Jewish people by God promised land, the extent of which is described in the Bible several times vary, for the first time in Genesis 15:18-21 LUT: " The day concluded the Lord made ​​a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates: the Kenites, the Kenasiter that Kadmonites, the Hittites, and the Perizzites, the Refaïter, the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. "On the importance of the individual used in the Bible geographical names are unclear, the area is defined only diffusely and formed a politically realized in different limits time-limited government unit. As a " river of Egypt " forces itself on the Nile, in the Jewish tradition, especially in Rashi, however, the Wadi al -Arish on the northern coast of the Sinai Peninsula is meant. In Num 34.2 to 12 LUT the area encompassing the Egyptian province of Canaan, from the Negev extends to southern Lebanon with the Jordan as the eastern border, from which the offenses established in Ez 47.15-20 LUT area is slightly different.

Development before and after the creation of Israel

Developed in the 1920s, called the Revisionist Zionism movement within the Zionist movement, called for the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan River. Founded in June 1948, revisionist Zionist Herut Party, which later became the Likud Party, the territory on both sides of the Jordan River, also referred to after the founding of Israel as "the Jewish homeland " the one " historical and geographical whole" forms. Until June 1967 Herut remained the only political party in Israel, who represented this attitude. With Israel's conquests in the Six-Day War in June 1967, the Greater Israel idea was well received outside the right - nationalist and national-religious camp. In August 1967, the Greater Israel movement was founded, which demanded the maintenance of the conquered territories. In the elections of 1969 several of its members in the Israeli Parliament (Knesset ) were selected. The Greater Israel movement was later replaced by the Gush Emunim movement.

The demands of the secular Greater Israel favorable political parties and groups are limited today usually on the conquered territories by Israel in June 1967. The Likud election platform for the 1977 Knesset elections, the Likud for the first time brought to power, contains the promise, " between the sea and the Jordan there will be no other than Israeli sovereignty." After the electoral victory of the Likud, the settlement activities of Jewish Israelis, especially religious Gush Emunim of national, received considerable impetus in the Israeli occupied territories. 1994, a majority of the right Likud for a peace treaty with Jordan and thus recognized its right to exist. In the fall of 2008, the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a former member of the revisionist Zionist Betar youth organization, made international headlines when he declared the " dream of a Greater Israel " dead, and said, who dreams it further, to do something before.

Conspiracy theories

The Eretz -Israel HaSchlema ideology has led to various conspiracy theories that say a pursuit of a Greater Israel from the Euphrates to the Nile was the goal of Zionism and Israeli state doctrine. Likewise, the view that the blue stripes of the flag of Israel is symbolized Nile and the Euphrates, is widespread. In a peace education study project evangelical colleges to interreligious and intercultural learning in Jordan and Israel border demarcation by gene 15:18-21 termed " ideal of the boundaries of Israel to the neighboring peoples ," which, it is claimed, " today on the map the Israeli Embassy " located. Many Arab leaders are or have been convinced that the Israeli parliament hangs a map showing a Greater Israel from the Euphrates to the Nile, despite the fact that there has never been such a card in the Knesset. This view was also shared by Yasser Arafat during a long time, though, as Israeli journalist Danny Rubinstein in his biography says Arafat Arafat was certainly informed by his staff that it is not true. At a special meeting of the UN Security Council in Geneva in May 1990, Arafat also claimed on an Israeli 10 - Agorot coin is a map of Greater Israel, mapped, where he was based on an essay of that time teaching at the University of Sheffield geographers Gwyn Rowley.