Defense & Security
Greater Israel: Trump and Netanyahu's race to the abyss
Image Source : Shutterstock
by Pierre Firode
First Published in: Mar.18,2025
Mar.31, 2025
Share Article
The plans of the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel can only weaken the Hebrew State's last regional allies. The expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza -which the breakdown of the truce by Israeli forces on 17 March is intended to provoke- could lead, by a domino effect, to the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power in Egypt, while the annexation of the West Bank could have the same consequences in Jordan.
The warmongering policy of the Netanyahu government has profoundly altered the strategic balance of power in the Middle East in favour of the Jewish state. Operation ‘Iron Swords’ in Gaza has considerably reduced the military capabilities of Hamas, which is said to have lost between 15,000 and 20,000 men and almost all its leaders. Hezbollah, decapitated, deprived of thousands of fighters and of its anchorage points south of the Litani river, is no longer able to maintain a sufficient threat to dissuade Israel from directly attacking its Iranian sponsor. And the collapse of Bashar Al-Assad's regime has completed the Iranian-led ‘axis of resistance’.
Against this backdrop of a reversal of the strategic balance of power totally in Israel's favour, the Netanyahu government, spurred on by its radical wing embodied by Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, could consider ‘settling’ the Palestinian question once and for all. To do so, he would have to continue the process of colonising the West Bank and force the Palestinians to abandon the Gaza Strip, in line with Donald Trump's announcements. Assured of the support of the White House, with no regional adversaries capable of standing up to him militarily, Netanyahu could, driven by a certain hubris, lay the foundations for the realisation of a ‘Greater Israel’ extended to Gaza and the biblical ‘Judea-Samaria’, that is the West Bank.
Nevertheless, this apparently beneficial dynamic for Israel could, in the medium and long term, position the Hebrew State in a strategic impasse, seriously compromising its security and its chances of building a lasting peace with its neighbours.
The resumption of the colonisation process in the West Bank has two very dangerous consequences for Israel: the rise of Hamas in the West Bank and a total discrediting of the Palestinian Authority set up after the 1993 Oslo agreements. Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, demonstrations against the Palestinian Authority have become such a common occurrence that the regime of Mahmoud Abbas can only hold on to power at the cost of increasingly violent repression. In this context, it is hard to see what could prevent Hamas from taking power in the West Bank, which would open up a new front and a colossal new security challenge for Tsahal.
The creation of a ‘Greater Israel’, over and above the legal and moral issues it would raise, seems all the more dangerous for the security of the Israeli state as it would weaken two neighbouring regimes which, until now, have contributed as much as possible to regional stability: Jordan and Egypt.
The weakening of Jordan's indispensable partner
In addition to weakening the Palestinian Authority, i.e. its only Palestinian partner and interlocutor, Israel's policy of relaunching the colonisation of the West Bank could cause a political earthquake in Tel Aviv's other partner: Jordan.
The Hashemite kingdom, where almost 60% of the population is descended from Palestinians who fled the Nakba in 1948-1949 and the Israeli conquests after the Six-Day War in 1967, has been living with the rhythm of pro-Palestinian riots since Since 7 October 2023, Jordan has been evolving in sync with pro-Palestinian riots, which express the solidarity of the Jordanian street with the Palestinians, but also echo a sharp criticism of King Adballah's policy of rapprochement with the Jewish state since the Wadi Araba agreements signed by his father Hussein with Yitzhak Rabin in 1994.
In fact, Jordan plays an active role in Israel's security by fighting terrorism and the establishment of Hamas in the refugee camps of Zarqa, Baqa, Jabal Al Hussein and Jerach. It also plays a fundamental strategic role in opposing Iran: Iranian missiles and drones all flew over Jordanian skies during the major attack carried out by Iran in April 2024, and Jordanian anti-aircraft defences helped to thwart the Iranian attack.
This strategic position between Israel and the Persian Gulf via southern Iraq explains in particular the installation of Western bases such as Azraq, where European (French and German in particular) and American aircraft and air defence equipment are stationed. In the event of a massive Israeli air offensive against Iran's nuclear programme, Jordanian airspace would play an essential role, as it would be an obligatory route for Israeli aircraft on their way to Iran.
However, Likud's policy continues to undermine this precious ally for Israel, by strengthening the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition force to the Hashemite monarchy.
Organised around the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the Jordanian branch of the Brotherhood movement is tolerated by the authorities and has achieved impressive electoral success: after the legislative elections in September 2024, the IAF became the main political force in the Jordanian parliament, winning 31 seats out of 138. This success is all the more spectacular given that the Jordanian electoral system only allows list voting at national level to fill 38 seats, the other 100 being reserved for local notables loyal to the regime and allocated via ballots organised in constituencies where the parties are not represented.
The result of last September's Jordanian elections was therefore a veritable tidal wave for the Brotherhood. This phenomenon is essentially explained by the mobilisation of the electorate around the theme of support for Gaza, of which the numerous demonstrations that have shaken Jordan are another symptom.
In this context, what would be the consequences for the Hashemite kingdom of stepping up settlement on the West Bank? The massive influx of Palestinian refugees would obviously strengthen the FIA, which is particularly well rooted in the Palestinian diaspora. This situation is all the more explosive in that the descendants of Palestinian refugees, despite having been granted Jordanian nationality, act as a veritable diaspora and refuse to cut ties with their country of origin. The very spectacular demonstrations that took place in the country during the last two weeks of April 2024 are the most recent proof of this.
In order to condemn Jordan's aid to Israel in its war against Iran and to express their solidarity with Hamas and the ‘axis of resistance’, Jordanians of Palestinian origin are mobilising in Hiraks, youth movements that have emerged in the post-Arab Spring context, condemning the monarchy's ‘compromises’ with Israel as much as rising prices and unemployment.
In this context, the King of Jordan finds himself forced to make his security partnerships with Israel invisible or even to reduce them, and could eventually withdraw from the 1994 Wadi Araba agreements, for fear of seeing social unrest rise and the Muslim Brotherhood inexorably gain in popularity. In the long term, the demographic and political rise of the Palestinian opposition to the Hashemite monarchy threatens the latter's vital prognosis and therefore Israel's security.
The return of the Muslim Brotherhood to Egypt and the risk of the collapse of the Al-Sissi regime
A similar reasoning can be applied to Egypt, where Marshal Al-Sissi's regime, in place since 2013, would not emerge unscathed from a massive influx of Palestinians from Gaza.
The implementation of the Trump plan and the displacement of the two million Gazans in Egypt would considerably strengthen the Muslim Brotherhood in a country where it already holds a majority in public opinion, as demonstrated by the success of Mohamed Morsi in the 2012 elections, and has remained so despite the severe repression it has been the target of since then.
By participating in the displacement of Gazans, the regime in Cairo would see itself accused by public opinion of participating in the Israeli colonisation of Gaza, which would lead to a reflex of solidarity on the part of the Egyptian street towards the Palestinians that the Egyptian military regime might not survive. As in Jordan, if Trump's plan for Gaza were to come to fruition, it is hard to see what could stop the Muslim Brotherhood from taking power in Egypt, even if it is currently operating clandestinely and organising itself primarily from abroad (Turkey and Qatar).
However, calling into question the 1979 Camp David agreements and the total remilitarisation of the Sinai are undoubtedly the first measures that would be taken by a government aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, whose anti-Zionism is one of its main guiding principles.
In addition to this security disaster for its southern border, Israel would see a new axis of resistance forming around it which, unlike the one currently led by Iran, would be Sunni, more rooted in regional nationalism and would bring together the major powers allied to the Muslim Brotherhood: Turkey, Qatar and HTC's Syria.
In this hypothetical context, Israel would be surrounded by enemy states and its survival would once again be threatened, as was the case in the early 1960s before the Six-Day War of 1967. The Trump plan would accentuate the spectacular gap between, on the one hand, an Arab street that is very hostile to the normalisation of relations with Israel and anxious to defend the Palestinian ‘Dar Al Islam’ and, on the other hand, Arab regimes that have become partners or even allies of Israel.
The inconsistencies of Trump's Middle East policy should be noted here: on the one hand, he intends to bring Israel closer to its Arab neighbours by extending the Abraham Accords of 2020 (which enabled the normalisation of relations between Israel on the one hand and Morocco, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Sudan on the other), while at the same time nurturing the breeding ground for insurrection on which the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood is developing. Ultimately, implementing the Trump plan would have disastrous consequences for Israel: turning the streets of Arab countries against their respective governments in a confrontation that could lead to a new Arab Spring under the banner of anti-Zionism.
In this respect, it is interesting to note that this scenario had already been anticipated by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the theorist of Al-Qaeda, at the time of the second intifada :
“The opportunity for the jihadist movement to lead the ummah in the jihad for Palestine is greater than ever, because all the secular currents which were outbidding the Palestinian cause and competing with the Islamic movement for the leadership of the ummah in this cause have discovered themselves, in the eyes of the ummah, by recognising Israel's right to exist, engaging in talks and complying with international decisions to liberate what remains of Palestinian territory - or what Israel is willing to give up (the only difference being the amount of crumbs Israel will leave to Muslims and Arabs).”
Trump and Netanyahu's plans: a disaster for Israel
In conclusion, Trump's and Netanyahu's ‘plans’ for Gaza and the West Bank are not just a breach of international law and do not just raise a moral debate. First and foremost, they appear to be a strategic aberration that could very quickly backfire like a boomerang on the Jewish state.
The definitive abandonment by Likud and its extremist allies of the two-state solution, and the resumption of the settlement process in the West Bank and possibly Gaza, are undermining Israel's Arab partners. They put an end to the process of normalisation pursued by Israel towards its neighbours since the Camp David agreements with Egypt in 1979 and could ultimately lead to a return to power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the destruction of the Jordanian monarchy, two partners essential to Israel's security.
This new anti-Zionist coalition led by the Muslim Brotherhood would be far more dangerous for Israel than the current Iranian-led resistance front. Unlike the Ayatollahs' regime, this new axis of resistance could strike Israel without using proxies, and maintain a climate of permanent insecurity on Israel's borders by hosting the rear bases of terrorist groups or militias fighting the Jewish state on its territory. The dream of a ‘Greater Israel’ remains an ideological chimera in which the security of the Israeli state could be the main victim in the long term.
First published in :
The Conversation
Pierre Firode
Associate Professor of Geography, member of the Interdisciplinary Laboratory on Mutations of Economic and Political Spaces Paris-Saclay (LIMEEP-PS) and of the Mediations Laboratory (Sorbonne University), Sorbonne Université.
