What Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli right really mean when they invoke ‘Greater Israel’ | Daniel Levy

The concept is about much more than acquiring territory, it is also about Netanyahu’s desire for Israel to become a regional superpower

• Daniel Levy served as an Israeli peace negotiator at the Oslo II talks and is president of the US/Middle East project

Much remains unclear about the significance and durability of the two-week pause in the US and Israel’s war on Iran.

But one aspect of the conflict remains as clear today as it was six weeks ago.

Donald Trump doesn’t have a plan.

Benjamin Netanyahu does.

Israel’s war aims were to maximally degrade the capacity of the Iranian state, achieving not so much regime change as state implosion.

Despite the ceasefire, Netanyahu has emphasised that this is “not the end of the campaign” and that Israel’s “finger is on the trigger” to resume combat.

A seasoned strategist, he has spent the second Trump administration seizing the opportunity of geopolitical fluidity to reach for his end goal: a Greater Israel.

Daniel Levy is a political commentator and the president of the US/Middle East Project.

He served as an Israeli peace negotiator at the Oslo II talks