Opinion | Stop shifting the goalposts for Zionism

Since 2022, the global political theater has been outraged at Russia’s offensive on Ukrainian borders — so why have the goalposts shifted for Israel? Is Israel not doing the same thing?

Israel has repeatedly demonstrated intent of border expansion. It has recently unleashed terror on Lebanon, engaging in yet another full-scale war.

On Oct. 13, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon tweeted that three platoons of Israeli soldiers illegally crossed the Blue Line, an internationally recognized border line set by the United Nations in 1978. In the recent encroachment, the UNIFL reported two Merkava tanks forcibly broke through the outpost’s Blue Line gate, firing rounds at peacekeeping soldiers and inflicting respiratory and gastrointestinal complications from smoke entering the camp. Additionally, a “critical” UNIFL mission to Meiss ej Jebel, a southern Lebanese village, was blocked by IDF soldiers.

This is the second reported instance of IDF attacks on international peacekeepers — Israel attacked Irish peacekeepers at the Blue Line on Oct. 10.

While it fires upon international peacekeepers, the Israeli Occupation Force is also carpet bombing villages and densely populated Beirut. The Lebanon Health Ministry estimates that over 2,000 Lebanese civilians have been killed since Oct. 7, 2024, 127 of whom were children. 

Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu told Lebanese civilians to “save” Lebanon from Hezbollah “before it plunges into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.”

In other words, Netanyahu threatened the genocidal hammer onto the civilians of Lebanon for not fighting against Hezbollah, an armed resistance group formed in the 1980s in face of Israeli aggression. Not only is Netanyahu seemingly proud of the Gaza destruction, he’s willing to leverage the hundreds of thousands of dead Palestinians as a scare tactic against the Lebanese.

In addition to Lebanon, Syrian officials have reported civilian casualties from Israeli missiles that came from the direction of the Golan Heights, a region Israel illegally occupies. By international law, the Golan Heights belong to Syria, but Israel has occupied 70% of the territory since seizure in 1967. A United Nations observer force created a ceasefire buffer zone in 1974, but Israel annexed the territory in 1981. Only the United States has recognized this illegal encroachment.

On Oct. 13, Israel proposed a “ceasefire” agreement, asking Lebanon, a sovereign state, to disarm Hezbollah and grant Israeli forces free reign in its territories. In no world would the resistance agree to stand down nor would a sovereign state grant its intrusive neighbor the license to operate with impunity within its borders. Knowing these terms are preposterous, Israel merely proposed the agreement for it to be rejected, giving excuse to continue its aggression.

This villainy should come as no surprise — as Palestinian scholar Muhannad Ayyash notes in his aptly titled article, “Israel is a settler colony, annexing native land is what it does.” In other words, Israeli expansion is on brand for an ethnostate founded on the violent displacement of the indigenous Palestinian people. Settler colonies are built off of a fervent process of land usurpation, whereby native inhabitants are forcefully removed and settlers claim sovereignty over the land — think the United States of America and Canada with Turtle Island.

Israeli politicians evidence these desires. On Oct. 11, Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich claimed that Israel would slowly envelop all Palestinian territories in addition to Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. 

“It is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus,” Bezalel said. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared this colonization plan, known as “Greater Israel,” at the UN last year. “Greater Israel” is a reconstruction of the biblical Kingdom of Israel from 3,000 years ago — the map shows a future of the region without Palestine, akin to Smotrich’s statement.

Using colonial rhetoric, Netanyahu likened Israel as a divine force able to give a “blessing” to the Middle East, in face of the “curse” of the region — Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, or the “Axis of Resistance,” the armed resistance to settler colonialism in the region. Netanyahu poised Israel as a saving grace to the region despite its conflicts with its neighbors. 

This white supremacist ideology exists from Israel’s top brass to its soldiers and settlers. In a video posted by Middle East Eye, an Israeli soldier is recorded saying, “And we will drive them out from our land, because this is our land, and Lebanon is our land and Gaza is our land. And there is no way we won’t drive them out, these ones, who desecrate day by day the Temple Mount and Jerusalem and every place they touch. We will expel them from here … Let’s finish the job, we want to finish the job.”

As a settler colony of European descendants, Israel forcibly dispossessed Palestine with the assistance of Britain with 1917’s Balfour Declaration, showing its roots in white supremacy.

As such, Israel’s structural violence knows no bounds, because Israel is backed by the largest white supremacist state — the United States of America.

Two weeks ago, during the vice presidential debate, Democratic nominee Tim Walz emphasized this commitment to Israel when he declared that “The expansion of Israel and its proxies is an absolute, fundamental necessity for the United States.” As the largest settler colony in the world, the U.S. aids and abets Israel’s colonial exploits and desires, funding and arming the state for its own regional ambitions, namely geopolitical control and hegemony in a region hostile to U.S. and Western interests.

For years, Palestinians have pleaded with neighboring Arab states for help against the occupation. Since Oct. 7, 2023, Palestinians have condemned these Arab states for their lack of material aid and assistance. Instead, due to U.S. intervention and destabilization, these neighbors relinquished control over the region to the United States, fearing their power. With regimes controlled by the U.S. and Israel, Arab states are at the mercy of the global superpower and its Middle East watchdog, who is ready to beat its neighbors into submission

Let us remember that in the plan for Greater Israel, these neighboring Arab states have lost their sovereignty and borders to Israel. In other words, should the Israeli dream come to fruition, these states would cease to exist. Israel’s wanton colonial interests have gone unchecked for far too long. Syria, Lebanon and Palestine will be free without the charade of global politics. 

Jake Vasilias writes about the environment, politics, and sports. Write to him at jpv25@pitt.edu