[The] demands to create a buffer zone inside Lebanon, combined with [the] invasion of Syrian territory following the collapse of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime have expanded the conceptual map. As Israeli forces reached as close as 23 kilometers from Damascus, Israeli religious extremists began bringing back biblical rhetoric to describe their territorial ambitions.

In June, the […] daily Haaretz published a news article about an Israeli children’s books writer who had written a story about an Israeli children’s books writer who had written a story about an Israeli child called Alon who wants to go to Lebanon, saying that “Lebanon is ours,” and that he couldn’t yet go to Lebanon because “the enemy is still there.” Last Thursday, a group of religious Orthodox Israelis went to the summit of Mount Al-Sheikh in Syria, recently occupied by the Israeli army, and held a religious ceremony there, under the sight of Israeli soldiers.

Israel insists that its actions in Syria are temporary, aiming at preventing resistance groups from filling the vacuum in the south of Syria, created by the collapse of the Syrian army. The U.S. national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, both repeated the same […] argument, affirming that the U.S. will make sure that Israel’s presence in Syria doesn’t become permanent.

However, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights in 1967 was also said to be temporary. Israel administrated all the territories it occupied in 1967 through the Israeli army and its ‘civil administration’ body for years. It engaged in negotiations with Syria, Egypt, and the Palestinian leadership, all based on the premise that it would give these territories back.

Israel only withdrew from Egypt’s Sinai, on the condition stipulated in the 1979 Camp David peace treaty with Egypt, that the Sinai remains demilitarized, with no Egyptian army presence, except a minimum force at the border, and that it remains open for Israeli investment. Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip’s interior in 2005, only to impose a total blockade on it, and is currently driving Palestinians from its northern part while settlers advocate to establish settlements there. Israel annexed the Golan Heights and the eastern part of Jerusalem in 1981 and is currently preparing to announce the annexation of the West Bank.

With such a record, with the rise of religious nationalism in Israel, and with Israel’s actions in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria unchecked over the past year, and its current push into Syria, can anybody guarantee that the fantasy of a “Greater Israel” is only a fantasy in the minds of Israeli leaders? On the contrary, it appears the expansionist supremacist ideology fueled by religious fanaticism, currently making its way over dead bodies and the rubble of entire cities, is not only a bad memory of the colonial past.