The Forgotten Arab Role in the Palestinian Tragedy

 

People often speak with confidence when they say Britain and the Zionist movement created the Palestinian problem. That view is grounded in history. The Balfour Declaration, British mandate policies, and organized Jewish migration decisively shaped Palestine’s fate.
But the story is incomplete if it stops there. A crucial chapter is usually left out. One that is uncomfortable, but necessary. Arab political choices during the First World War also influenced the path that led to Palestine’s collapse.

Challenging an Empire

Before 1917, Palestine was governed by the Ottoman Empire. For roughly four centuries, Ottoman rule maintained a single administrative framework over the region. It was imperfect, often distant, sometimes harsh. Still, it provided continuity.

The First World War shattered that order. As the Ottomans sided with Germany, Britain sought to dismantle their control over the Middle East. Arab leaders did not remain neutral observers. Many joined what became known as the Arab Revolt.

This uprising was not an isolated nationalist movement. It was supported, funded, and coordinated by Britain. Arab forces operated alongside British officers, most famously T. E. Lawrence. The British promise was clear. Support the revolt, and independence would follow once the Ottomans were defeated.

A Victory Shared, Not Owned

When British troops entered Jerusalem in December 1917, the moment marked a military turning point. But it was not an Arab conquest. It was a British victory, achieved with Arab assistance.

Soon after, Palestine fell under British authority through the League of Nations mandate system. Arab leaders who had expected sovereignty instead found themselves governed by a new imperial power. At the same time, Britain facilitated large-scale Jewish immigration, reshaping the demographic and political reality of the land.

The alliance that had helped weaken Ottoman rule now became the mechanism through which Zionist settlement expanded.

Agreements Made Elsewhere

Some Arab figures expressed concern early on. Yet momentum, wartime urgency, and resentment toward Ottoman authority limited deeper scrutiny. Crucially, the region’s fate had already been discussed behind closed doors.

The Sykes–Picot Agreement, negotiated secretly between Britain and France, outlined the post-war division of much of the Middle East. Arab independence was never the primary objective. The promises made during wartime diplomacy came with conditions that were not fully disclosed.

By the time these realities became clear, the political structure of Palestine had already shifted beyond local control.

A Difficult Historical Reckoning

This dimension of history often receives limited attention in public discussions of Palestine. Responsibility is usually assigned entirely to external powers. British policy and Zionist ambitions undeniably played central roles. Yet Arab participation in dismantling Ottoman authority also mattered.

The argument is not that Arab leaders caused the Palestinian tragedy alone. It is that their wartime decisions intersected with imperial strategies in ways that produced lasting consequences. In attempting to escape one system of rule, they entered another that proved far more disruptive.

History becomes clearer, not weaker, when all actors are examined honestly. The Palestinian crisis emerged from overlapping decisions, alliances, and miscalculations. Ignoring any part of that story only limits our understanding of how the present came to be.

When Borders Blur: The Vision of Greater Israel and What It Means for the Region

Israel’s ever-shifting borders reveal a deeper logic: the idea of Greater Israel. Drawing on historical Zionism, modern settlement policy and Islamic-prophetic interpretations advanced by Dr Israr Ahmed, this blog unpacks what lies ahead for Palestinians and the wider Middle East.

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Introduction

Did you know that Israel has never fully defined its borders? Most nations show on official maps exactly where their sovereignty begins and ends—but Israel does not. Its borders with Egypt and Jordan were first drawn as armistice lines after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, later formalised through peace treaties in 1979 and 1994. But its boundaries with Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and the West Bank remain vague or unrecognised. Even within Israel itself, there is no official map showing clearly agreed national boundaries.

This ambiguity is not accidental. As long as Israel’s borders aren’t set in stone, they can continue to shift. This is the story of a borderless project—the Zionist vision of Greater Israel—and what it means not just for Palestinians, but for the entire region.

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1. The Origins of the Idea

For more than a century, Zionist leaders have pressed for the establishment of a Jewish state that stretches far beyond the territory Israel controls today. In the late 1800s, early Zionist thinkers debated bold visions for a homeland.

• Theodor Herzl, the Austrian-Hungarian founder of modern Zionism, imagined borders stretching from the Euphrates in Iraq to the Nile in Egypt.

• Zeev Jabotinsky, a Russian-born ideologue tied to the Likud tradition, foresaw Israeli sovereignty on both sides of the Jordan River.

In 1947, Zionist leaders accepted the UN partition plan that proposed two states—one Palestinian, one Jewish—but this was a tactical move. David Ben‑Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, emphasised that this was only a first step toward achieving control over all of what he envisioned as Greater Israel. His strategy: secure international recognition for part of the land, then build military strength to take the rest. And that is precisely what unfolded.

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2. Expansion Through War and Facts on the Ground

In 1948, Israel expanded far beyond the UN partition lines during the Nakba: Zionist militias expelled over 750,000 Palestinians and destroyed or depopulated more than 400 villages.
In 1967, Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula. While it later returned the Sinai to Egypt after the 1973 war, the other territories remained under its control.

Since then, expansion has continued—not always through open war, but through “facts on the ground”: settlements, outposts, military zones across the West Bank that are illegal under international law but practically irreversible. The number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has grown from a few thousand in 1967 to more than 800,000 today—and the past year marked the largest expansion yet.

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3. From Fringe Vision to State Policy

For a long period, despite gradual expansion, most Israeli leaders publicly distanced themselves from the explicitly “Greater Israel” formula—so as not to provoke neighbouring Arab states with whom they sought normalization. But radical settler groups such as Gush Emunim (founded in the 1970s) never abandoned the vision—they tied settlement expansion to religious destiny.

Today, Israel’s government is widely considered the furthest-right in its history. Extremist ministers such as Itamar Ben‑Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have placed territorial expansion at the heart of their platforms. Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently embraced the idea of his generation carrying forward a “historic and spiritual mission”. This alignment of ideology and state power means the idea of Greater Israel is no longer a fringe fantasy—it is entering the mainstream.

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4. Dr Israr Ahmed’s Prophetic View

Dr Israr Ahmed, a prominent Pakistani Islamic scholar, offered a distinct angle rooted in Islamic eschatology: he argued that the pattern of expansion and control he observed in Israel corresponds with Hadith-predictions about the end-times.

• He links the movement of certain territories and their removal from Muslim hands to the narrative in Hadiths where specific lands will be reclaimed or lost in the lead-up to final days. (See his speeches “Greater Israel, The Jewish Plan for the Middle East!” and “The Greater Israel Plan? Pakistan’s Role”.) YouTube+3SoundCloud+3YouTube+3

• According to him, the ambiguous borders of Israel and its ability to redefine territorial control are signs of a bigger prophetic arc still unfolding.

• He warns that the Muslim world’s inaction in the face of settlement, occupation and expansion plays into this larger script of transition and transformation.

• For example, one lecture mentions: “All these countries are present in the Hadith that they will get out of the hands of the Muslims, whom the Jews include in Greater Israel, Syria…” facebook.com

While his reading is interpretative rather than universally accepted in the Islamic tradition, it offers a deeply felt lens from which many in South Asia apprehend the geopolitical shifts in Israel-Palestine.

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5. Consequences and the Road Ahead

This convergence of ideology, strategy, and prophecy has real-world implications:

• Israeli soldiers have been photographed wearing “Greater Israel” patches in the war in Gaza.

• Senior Israeli politicians have publicly called for the removal of Gaza’s population and replacement with settlers.

• Some voices even invoke Nazi-Germany’s Lebensraum doctrine—“living space”—to justify expansion into southern Lebanon and Syria.

• In the West Bank, new settlement approvals are designed to cut the territory into non-contiguous fragments—effectively ruling out a viable future Palestinian state.

• Because Israel never formally defined its borders, every war, land-grab or bombing has the potential to redraw control — each “fact on the ground” inches Israel closer to turning Greater Israel from ideological ambition into reality.

• And every time the global community averts its gaze, permits violations, or fails to enforce international law, Israel’s leadership becomes more emboldened. History shows expansionist powers won’t stop unless compelled to.

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6. Personal Reflection (Karachi-Voice)

Living in Karachi, hearing about these distant border shifts, it’s easy to feel removed—yet the ripples come our way too. The silence in global fora, the recalibrated alliances in the Gulf, the changing map of refugees and migration—all tie into this story of un-defined borders and expansive ambition. If peaceful borders are the foundation for sovereign states, then ambiguous borders are the foundation for ongoing conflict.

As a writer rooted in South Asia, I notice the same logic re-emerging in other contested zones: ambiguity, power-vacuum, incremental fact-making, and the silence that lets big ideas sneak into policy. The Gaza war is not just a local demand; it is being shaped by a vision of statehood, land, prophecy, and rhythm of history.

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7. Call to Action

• Map-makers, policymakers and global institutions: ask who draws the lines when lines don’t exist?

• For Muslim thinkers and South Asian intellectuals: consider how prophetic readings like Dr Israr’s shape popular awareness and policy engagement.

• For civil society and global media: pay attention to “facts on the ground”, not just the cease-fires—because they prefigure the next map.

• And for readers: when borders blur, ask whose vision is being made real, and what human cost lies behind the lines we don’t see.

Israel: From Ethno-Supremacy to Ethno-Fascism?

 

“Israel is less a state and more a failed experiment in ethno-supremacy, which in the context of the ongoing genocidal slaughter in Gaza, has morphed into ethno-fascism.”

This powerful statement captures a sentiment many people are struggling to articulate in the face of Gaza’s devastation. But what does it mean? And why are some critics framing Israel not as a democracy under strain, but as a failed project rooted in ethnic domination?

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The Origins of Ethno-Supremacy

When Israel was founded in 1948, it was celebrated in the West as a miracle: a homeland for Jews after centuries of persecution and the Holocaust. But for Palestinians, this same event was the Nakba (“catastrophe”), when over 700,000 people were expelled from their homes.

From the very beginning, Israel was not designed as a neutral state of all its citizens. Instead, it was anchored in Jewish nationhood. Citizenship, land rights, and immigration laws overwhelmingly favored Jews, leaving Palestinians in permanent second-class status.

Critics call this ethno-supremacy—a political system where one ethnic group’s rights are elevated above all others.

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Gaza: Where Supremacy Turns to Slaughter

Fast forward to today. Gaza is the ultimate expression of this imbalance. A strip of land home to 2.3 million Palestinians—half of them children—blockaded for nearly two decades, cut off from free movement, jobs, healthcare, and even clean water.

Israel justifies military assaults as “self-defense,” but to outsiders, the images tell another story: flattened neighborhoods, bombed hospitals, starving families, and mass graves. International observers, from UN experts to human rights groups, increasingly use the word genocide.

Here, the charge of “failed experiment” takes shape. A state that sustains itself only through the dispossession of another people is not stable governance—it is endless war.

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From Supremacy to Fascism

The leap in the comment—from ethno-supremacy to ethno-fascism—is significant. Fascism is not simply about nationalism. It’s about enforcing ethnic purity through authoritarianism, militarism, and repression.

• Israel has shifted sharply to the far right, with leaders openly calling for Gaza to be “erased.”

• Palestinian citizens within Israel face escalating discrimination, surveillance, and political silencing.

• Dissenting Jewish Israelis are increasingly branded “traitors.”

For critics, this isn’t just nationalism gone wrong. It looks like an ethno-fascist state in real time—where domination of one group over another is upheld by overwhelming force, ideology, and fear.

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The Human Angle

Behind the heavy political language are real people. A Palestinian mother in Rafah who has buried two children doesn’t use the term “ethno-fascism.” She just says: “We have no safe place.”

An Israeli father in Tel Aviv, terrified of rocket fire, might say: “We just want to live without fear.”

And yet, the structure of the conflict means that one side has power, weapons, and international backing, while the other side lives under siege. The imbalance of suffering is what drives the use of words like “genocide” and “fascism.”

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The Bigger Question

So, is Israel a failed state—or a state succeeding in the worst way possible? That depends on perspective. For those who see it as a democracy for Jews alone, it is “working.” For Palestinians, and for critics of ethno-nationalism worldwide, it is proof that a state built on supremacy cannot last without devolving into open cruelty.

The tragedy unfolding in Gaza is not just about politics. It is about the very soul of what a state should be: a place that protects its people, not a fortress of domination that destroys others.

Netanyahu’s Greater Israel Vision Alarms Saudi Arabia and the Region

 Credit: Based on coverage from The Kim Iversen Show.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly connected himself with the long-debated concept of “Greater Israel.” His remarks have provoked a sharp response from Saudi Arabia, which condemned his expansionist vision as a threat to peace and sovereignty.

Background
The idea of “Greater Israel” is not new. It is drawn from interpretations of the Hebrew Bible which claim that God promised the land between the Nile and the Euphrates to the Jewish people. Over time, this vision has been displayed by some Zionist groups on flags, IDF uniform patches, and maps in Israel. The envisioned borders would stretch far beyond present-day Israel, covering the Sinai Peninsula, all of Lebanon, most of Syria, large sections of Iraq, and even parts of Saudi Arabia.

Trigger Event
During a recent appearance, Netanyahu was asked if he identified with this vision. His answer was clear: “Very much.” This statement shocked Arab leaders, particularly in Riyadh.

The Saudi Response
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a strong condemnation. It rejected the “Greater Israel” vision, called it an expansionist plan, and reaffirmed Palestinians’ legal right to an independent state. The statement also warned that Israel’s ongoing violations threaten both regional and international peace. Yet despite the strength of the words, Saudi Arabia is unlikely to take real action, as Israeli missiles and bombs are not aimed at them—for now.

The Larger Vision
Observers note that once Israel consolidates control over Palestinian land, it may turn to Lebanon and Syria, where conflicts have already destabilized the states. Expansion into Egypt and Saudi Arabia could follow. The belief in Greater Israel is treated by some as a religious prophecy, and Netanyahu himself has admitted to identifying with it.

Voices in Washington
In the United States, Senator Lindsey Graham has called for unconditional support for Israel. Speaking passionately, he said Israel is surrounded by enemies, that if it wanted genocide it could commit it but has not, and that Christians must defend Israel or risk God’s punishment. He praised Donald Trump for supporting Israel, even calling October 7th the worst day for Jews since the Holocaust. For Graham, the argument is simple: Israel is the good side, and America must stand with it.

Alternative Testimony
Yet others disagree. Mother Stephanopoulos, the sister of broadcaster George Stephanopoulos, has lived in the Holy Land for years. She told Tucker Carlson that Christians were often safer in Lebanon and Syria than under Israeli control. She recalled the 2002 siege of Bethlehem, long before Hamas came to power, when Israeli forces surrounded the Church of the Nativity for 40 days. Food and medicine were blocked, civilians bled to death without treatment, and both children and adults were shot by snipers.

One 16-year-old altar boy, Johnny Talgia, was killed while playing soccer. Another child, 12-year-old Christine Sada, died when Israeli soldiers fired on her family car. Stephanopoulos said these stories reflect the daily suffering of Palestinian Christians and Muslims alike, yet their resilience remains unbroken.

Historical Precedent
This is not the first time Israel seized land. Egypt lost the Sinai Peninsula in 1967, only to regain it after years of pressure and negotiation. Lebanon and Syria have both experienced repeated Israeli incursions. Each conflict fuels the belief that the expansion will not stop at Palestine’s borders.

Significance
The controversy reveals two competing truths. On one side are Israeli leaders and their supporters in Washington, who frame unconditional backing of Israel as a religious and strategic duty. On the other are Palestinians, Arabs, and even local Christians who testify to the violence, humiliation, and destruction tied to these policies.

The stakes are high. If “Greater Israel” is more than rhetoric, then the entire Middle East could face renewed waves of destabilisation. As Netanyahu signals his identification with prophecy, and as U.S. leaders pledge blind loyalty, history warns that what begins as rhetoric often ends as reality.

Closing Statement
This debate is not about God. It is about land and power. Netanyahu’s words have made that unmistakably clear, and the world must decide whether to confront or accommodate the vision of Greater Israel.