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“Greater Israel”: A Not So Hidden Ambition
Supporters of Zionism, atheist and religious alike, generally rely on two points of religious dogma to validate the occupation of Palestine: the idea that followers of Judaism are “God’s chosen people”, to the exclusion of all others; and the idea that God “gave” the “children of Abraham” all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates rivers. The borders are vaguely and contradictorily defined in multiple places in the Torah (Old Testament).
The concept of “Eretz Israel” (Hebrew “Land of Israel”, with the connotation of expansionism that “Greater Israel” implies in English) is based on a merger of religious fundamentalism and modern political ethno-nationalism, whereby ancient texts are used to justify a modern military expansionist state.
Military invasion attempts into South Lebanon since October 2024, along with recurrent calls for expanding the entity’s border by occupation leaders, have revived contention over long-entrenched Zionist territorial ambitions in the region. The shameless display of a map that engulfs Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and parts of Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia spotted on the sleeves of occupation soldiers is hardly symbolic, nor exclusive to fringe elements of settler society. The concept of ‘Greater Israel’, long dismissed by “Israelis” and their supporters as a conspiracy theory promoted by paranoid Arabs and anti-Semites, verily captures the essence of Zionism as an expansionist settler-colonial movement with biblical, territorial claims that extend from the Nile to the Euphrates.
LEFT-RIGHT DIVIDE
There is a common misconception that attributes the expansionist behavior of the Israeli entity to the most extreme factions of its society, represented by ultranationalist settlers. These are the ones who hold beliefs from biblical scriptures, whom are often caught on camera harassing and killing Palestinians, stealing their homes, burning their olive trees, and destroying crops and killing herds, all under the full protection of the Occupation Army (IOF) of course. However, to limit the occupation’s aggressive aspirations to conspicuous right-wing extremists is a misreading that leads to the prevailing tendency to appeal to left-right, or religious-secular, nuances within the Zionist entity. This deceptive framing is especially popular among Western liberals.
The public “Israeli” attitude towards its internal affairs does, however, reflect a polarity. The culture is characterized by a religious-secular divide, which involves ongoing debates over the status of religion, the character of the entity as a “Jewish state”, and its territorial borders. This left-right dichotomy exists over a range of internal issues concerned with political and socio-economic questions. However, when it comes to the colonial-expansionist identity of the entity, that dispute most certainly dissolves, and makes no difference to those on the receiving end of its terror.
“Israeli” leaders from across the political spectrum have collectively and directly contributed to the military occupation of Palestine, creeping into more territory by the day, in a steady, consistent and systematic manner since the very establishment of the entity. To clarify, it is not only the likes of Daniela Weiss, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich whose aspirations are problematic, and dangerous, and “extreme”.
To name just a few, the first Prime Minister of the occupation state, the ‘secular’ David Ben Gurion, who led the largest socialist- Zionist party, was also a chief architect of the 1948 Nakba. It was Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, the founder of the Labor Party, who occupied the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai desert, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem following the 1967 Six Day War. The most ‘moderate’ of them all, Yitzhak Rabin, hailed as ‘a peacemaker,’ actually accelerated land theft in the West Bank, and when asked, “what is to be done with the Palestinian population?” he responded with a hand gesture motioning to ‘drive them out!’
Most importantly, these leaders did not emerge from a vacuum; they were brought to power by “Israeli” voters, who also showed overwhelming support for the ongoing genocide against Gaza. Back in November 2023, only 3% of Israelis were in favor of a permanent, “unconditional” ceasefire. The annihilation of Gaza unifies the settler state left and right alike.
FROM THE NILE TO THE EUPHRATES
The possibility of establishing a Zionist entity in Uganda, Argentina or the Sinai Peninsula was initially considered towards the end of the 19th century by Theodore Herzl, the founding father of Zionism. However, the idea that a Jewish entity must spread across the so-called ‘historic biblical land of the Jews’ in Palestine took precedence.
In his 1898 diaries, Herzl mentions a discussion with Max Bodenheimer, another notable figure of the Zionist movement and his close associate, who suggests that a ‘Jewish State’ should extend “from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates”, an idea which Herzl approved to be ‘in part excellent’. In his 1896 pamphlet, Der Judenstaat, Herzl envisions an Israeli entity that would set out as follows: “the northern frontier is to be the mountains facing Cappadocia in Turkiye; the southern, the Suez Canal’. He also points out that it would serve as a “wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism”.
It’s worth mentioning that Herzl’s legacy still reverberates powerfully across the entity today, to the extent that the Knesset passed the Herzl Law as recently as 2004. The Herzl Law makes it mandatory for all Israelis to study his work in order to “structure the state of Israel, its goal and image in accordance with his Zionist vision”.
Rabbi Fischmann, a member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine who assisted in drafting “Israel’s” Declaration of Independence, explained at the U.N. Special Committee of Enquiry on 9 July 9, 1947 that “the Promised Land was quite a large one:, from the river of Egypt, up to the Euphrates”, and that “the promise was given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, about 4000 years ago and it was reaffirmed to Moses”.
There is no shortage of examples of Zionist leaders expressing their ambition of establishing a “Greater Israel”, but it is important to keep one thing in mind: The Zionist movement underwent many phases, and Zionist ideologues’ opinions about the exact definition of ‘a greater Israel’ and the ideal delineation of its borders fluctuated throughout the years.
ONGOING COLONIZATION OF PALESTINE
Given the constraining circumstances surrounding Zionist colonization in its early days, Zionist expediency understood that to gain leverage, a temporary compromise between its grandiose territorial ambitions, and its immediate instrumental needs, was required.
The Zionist movement was willing to come to terms with less territory at first, in exchange for a ‘state’ with political sovereignty. However, its determination to seize more when a ripe opportunity came along was never abandoned, as a comparison of historic and present-day maps reveals.
In 1948, the Zionist state stole 78% of Palestine. Ever since, new rounds of aggression and expansion have been implemented in an unfettered manner. Since 1967, 100,000 hectares of Palestinian lands have been stolen. In the first months of the genocide in Gaza alone, Israel stole 1,270 hectares of Palestinian land.
In fact, records of evidence show that through exercising patience, the colonial occupation has patiently been playing the long game, gradually bringing more Palestinian land under its control by the day. To claim otherwise – that Israel will remain indefinitely satisfied with dominating only a fragment of the land that it maintains belongs to the Jewish people – would be absurd. In fact, this was accurately expressed in 1937 by Ben Gurion, a central figure in the founding phase of the colonial entity, who also served as its first Prime Minister for almost 15 years “a partial Jewish State is not the end, but only the beginning…’’, and “we shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today, but the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them”, implying that Israel should never settle for any limitations concerning its borders. This is precisely why, up until the present day, Israel has failed to define its borders.
THE LITANI RIVER
If we consider our current situation, one year into the genocide in Gaza, Israel is attempting to create a “buffer zone” in South Lebanon, something it has incessantly attempted to do since its inception: in 1948, as well as 1978, 1982-2000 and 2006. Amid its current inability to deter Hezbollah from launching attacks against it in support of Gaza, Israel has been seeking to change the status quo by pushing the resistance away from Lebanon’s southern border, and beyond the Litani specifically. Historically, the Litani River has always held strategic importance for Zionist ambitions.
The Litani, the longest river in Lebanon, stretches 170 kilometers southward from the Beqaa Valley, flows along the eastern front of Lebanon’s mountain range, and diverts sharply westward towards the Mediterranean Sea, north of Tyre. Historical documents revealing Zionist plans to take control of it date back as far as prior to the establishment of the entity. Its importance is due to it being a vital water source, along with the fact that its surroundings are of military-strategic value.
The head of the World Zionist Organization, who would later become the occupation state’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, put forward a map for a proposed Jewish colony at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. The map he presented fell short of the land guaranteed in accordance with ‘God’s Promise’, from the Nile to the Euphrates. Rather, the proposed borders were drawn according to geopolitical calculations to dominate water resources in the region, incorporating:
“First the whole of Mandated Palestine … secondly, southern Lebanon, including the towns of Tyre and Sidon, the headwaters of the River Jordan on Mount Hermon and the southern portion of the Litani River… thirdly, on the Syrian front, the Golan Heights, including the town of Quneitra, the River Yarmuk and El-Himmeh Hot Springs … fourthly, on the Jordan front, the whole of the Jordan Valley, the Dead Sea and the Eastern Highlands up to the outskirts of Amman, running southwards along the Hejaz Railway to the Gulf of Aqaba, leaving Jordan with no access to the sea; fifthly, on the Egyptian front, from EI-Arish on the Mediterranean in a straight southerly direction to the Gulf of Aqaba”.
The priority of accessing water resources was also articulated in a 1919 letter Weizmann sent to David Lloyd George, Prime Minister and head of the British delegation, in which he wrote:
“The whole economic future of Palestine is dependent upon its water supply for irrigation and for electric power, and the water supply must mainly be derived from the slopes of Mount Hermon [Golan Heights], from the headwaters of the Jordan, and from the Litani River in Lebanon”
It wasn’t until 1967 that Israel would partially fulfill its aspiration of controlling more territory and dominating water resources by occupying the Syrian Golan Heights, East of the Jordan River, as well as the Sea of Galilee, also known as ‘Lake Tiberias,’ —but not the Litani River. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was quoted saying that “Israel had achieved provisionally satisfying frontiers, with the exception of those with Lebanon.” The idea of occupying South Lebanon was enthusiastically adopted by Moshe Dayan as well as Ben Gurion, and was also referred to in the diaries of Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett.
Ben Gurion’s conviction of an Israel with the Litani as its northern border was noted in a book he published in 1918. This idea would remain an essential part of his vision for the entity for years to come, as would the idea of redrawing the borders by fragmenting Lebanon to allow for the establishment of a Christian state with with the Litani as its southern border managed by ‘Israel’.
Zionist plans to annex the region or expand its control over it are not a thing of the past – on the contrary, they always tend to resurface. Established in 2024, a group called “The South Lebanon Movement” has been advocating for the colonization of South Lebanon.
HEGEMONY THROUGH DISRUPTION
Zionist expansionism does not only manifest as direct occupation and control of territory. When the entity abstains from or is unable to claim land, it makes use of other cost- effective tools to spread its hegemony.
This was best articulated in a notorious article that recently resurfaced entitled “A Strategy For Israel In The Nineteen Eighties” published in 1982 in the quarterly Kivunim – a journal of the Department of Information of the World Zionist Organization that encapsulates the Zionist ideology. The piece was written by journalist and senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official Oded Yinon, who precisely advocated for a strategic divide-and-rule plan to fragment the region in Israel’s favor:
“Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short-term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today”.
This describes, in great detail, the current track on which the Levant is heading, confirming the premise of this strategy which was laid out forty years ago. More recently in 2002, then- former president Netanyahu testified before US Congress in fervent favor of “taking out Saddam” by invading and destroying Iraq. This was not about regional peace — remember that a large part of Iraq is contained in “Greater Israel” — the goal was fragmenting and weakening all nations contained within the land of “God’s promise”. Therefore rather than being cohesive nations, the fragmentation of these historically diverse states into sectarian and ethnic groupings, where sub- state identities are exacerbated and mired in conflict, makes them more vulnerable to “Israeli” hegemony, and less capable of projecting power and coordinating action against it. This creates the ideal grounds for submission to the entity’s greater plans. In that case, even if a “Greater Israel” isn’t physically achieved, it will at the very least still be capable of imposing its supremacy over the region.
CONCLUSION
It requires no extensive amount of research to identify from “Israel’s” behavioral pattern, along with statements issued by its officials, that its appetite for expansion is far from quenched. We are witnessing this appetite in real-time. The trajectory of this entity, since its illegitimate establishment in 1948, is self-evident to those of us who have been experiencing its brutality daily. It makes no difference whether it is driven by biblical scriptures associated with the return of “God’s chosen people to the promised land” and the fulfillment of messianic prophecies, or rooted in pragmatic secularism, linked its current territorial occupation, conspires to annex more land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, or conquer the entire area, from the Nile to the Euphrates, the supremacy engrained in its very foundation makes it a danger that cannot be overstated. Equally dangerous are the misleading attempts to dismiss awareness of its territorial ambitions and muddy its imperialistic nature.
Failure to address the extent to which these expansionist ideas are inscribed indelibly in their settler-colonial project will have detrimental implications. Even the so-called “two- state solution”, always a distraction from recognizing the fundamental illegality of the occupation, is an illusionary mantra that has been rejected by the “Israeli” regime itself, which is colonizing more land by the day with full support from the West. This support for “Israel’s” manifest destiny is echoed in the shocking 2019 presidential declaration that the Syrian Golan Heights, invaded by Israel in 1967, were to be recognized as part of the Zionist state. As sitting senior ministers within the occupation government openly declare their intent to invade and colonize Lebanon and Syria, what is to stop their US-backed armies from furthering their goals of occupying the entire region from Jordan to Iraq?
When IOF soldiers wear a “Greater Israel” badge on their uniform, signaling their aggressive intentions towards the whole region, we must believe them.
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{
"article":
{
"title" : "“Greater Israel”: A Not So Hidden Ambition",
"author" : "Sarah Sinno",
"category" : "essays",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/greater-israel-ambition",
"date" : "2024-11-01 13:13:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/greater-israel-fig-2-thumb.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Supporters of Zionism, atheist and religious alike, generally rely on two points of religious dogma to validate the occupation of Palestine: the idea that followers of Judaism are “God’s chosen people”, to the exclusion of all others; and the idea that God “gave” the “children of Abraham” all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates rivers. The borders are vaguely and contradictorily defined in multiple places in the Torah (Old Testament).",
"content" : "Supporters of Zionism, atheist and religious alike, generally rely on two points of religious dogma to validate the occupation of Palestine: the idea that followers of Judaism are “God’s chosen people”, to the exclusion of all others; and the idea that God “gave” the “children of Abraham” all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates rivers. The borders are vaguely and contradictorily defined in multiple places in the Torah (Old Testament).The concept of “Eretz Israel” (Hebrew “Land of Israel”, with the connotation of expansionism that “Greater Israel” implies in English) is based on a merger of religious fundamentalism and modern political ethno-nationalism, whereby ancient texts are used to justify a modern military expansionist state.Military invasion attempts into South Lebanon since October 2024, along with recurrent calls for expanding the entity’s border by occupation leaders, have revived contention over long-entrenched Zionist territorial ambitions in the region. The shameless display of a map that engulfs Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and parts of Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia spotted on the sleeves of occupation soldiers is hardly symbolic, nor exclusive to fringe elements of settler society. The concept of ‘Greater Israel’, long dismissed by “Israelis” and their supporters as a conspiracy theory promoted by paranoid Arabs and anti-Semites, verily captures the essence of Zionism as an expansionist settler-colonial movement with biblical, territorial claims that extend from the Nile to the Euphrates.LEFT-RIGHT DIVIDEThere is a common misconception that attributes the expansionist behavior of the Israeli entity to the most extreme factions of its society, represented by ultranationalist settlers. These are the ones who hold beliefs from biblical scriptures, whom are often caught on camera harassing and killing Palestinians, stealing their homes, burning their olive trees, and destroying crops and killing herds, all under the full protection of the Occupation Army (IOF) of course. However, to limit the occupation’s aggressive aspirations to conspicuous right-wing extremists is a misreading that leads to the prevailing tendency to appeal to left-right, or religious-secular, nuances within the Zionist entity. This deceptive framing is especially popular among Western liberals.The public “Israeli” attitude towards its internal affairs does, however, reflect a polarity. The culture is characterized by a religious-secular divide, which involves ongoing debates over the status of religion, the character of the entity as a “Jewish state”, and its territorial borders. This left-right dichotomy exists over a range of internal issues concerned with political and socio-economic questions. However, when it comes to the colonial-expansionist identity of the entity, that dispute most certainly dissolves, and makes no difference to those on the receiving end of its terror.“Israeli” leaders from across the political spectrum have collectively and directly contributed to the military occupation of Palestine, creeping into more territory by the day, in a steady, consistent and systematic manner since the very establishment of the entity. To clarify, it is not only the likes of Daniela Weiss, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich whose aspirations are problematic, and dangerous, and “extreme”.To name just a few, the first Prime Minister of the occupation state, the ‘secular’ David Ben Gurion, who led the largest socialist- Zionist party, was also a chief architect of the 1948 Nakba1. It was Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, the founder of the Labor Party, who occupied the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai desert, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem following the 1967 Six Day War. The most ‘moderate’ of them all, Yitzhak Rabin, hailed as ‘a peacemaker,’ actually accelerated land theft in the West Bank, and when asked, “what is to be done with the Palestinian population?” he responded with a hand gesture motioning to ‘drive them out!’2Most importantly, these leaders did not emerge from a vacuum; they were brought to power by “Israeli” voters, who also showed overwhelming support for the ongoing genocide against Gaza. Back in November 2023, only 3% of Israelis were in favor of a permanent, “unconditional” ceasefire3. The annihilation of Gaza unifies the settler state left and right alike.FROM THE NILE TO THE EUPHRATESThe possibility of establishing a Zionist entity in Uganda, Argentina or the Sinai Peninsula4 was initially considered towards the end of the 19th century by Theodore Herzl, the founding father of Zionism. However, the idea that a Jewish entity must spread across the so-called ‘historic biblical land of the Jews’ in Palestine took precedence.In his 1898 diaries, Herzl mentions a discussion with Max Bodenheimer, another notable figure of the Zionist movement and his close associate, who suggests that a ‘Jewish State’ should extend “from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates”5, an idea which Herzl approved to be ‘in part excellent’. In his 1896 pamphlet, Der Judenstaat, Herzl envisions an Israeli entity that would set out as follows: “the northern frontier is to be the mountains facing Cappadocia in Turkiye; the southern, the Suez Canal’6. He also points out that it would serve as a “wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism”7.It’s worth mentioning that Herzl’s legacy still reverberates powerfully across the entity today, to the extent that the Knesset passed the Herzl Law8 as recently as 2004. The Herzl Law makes it mandatory for all Israelis to study his work in order to “structure the state of Israel, its goal and image in accordance with his Zionist vision”.Rabbi Fischmann, a member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine who assisted in drafting “Israel’s” Declaration of Independence, explained at the U.N. Special Committee of Enquiry on 9 July 9, 1947 that “the Promised Land was quite a large one:, from the river of Egypt, up to the Euphrates”, and that “the promise was given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, about 4000 years ago and it was reaffirmed to Moses”9.There is no shortage of examples of Zionist leaders expressing their ambition of establishing a “Greater Israel”, but it is important to keep one thing in mind: The Zionist movement underwent many phases, and Zionist ideologues’ opinions about the exact definition of ‘a greater Israel’ and the ideal delineation of its borders fluctuated throughout the years.ONGOING COLONIZATION OF PALESTINEGiven the constraining circumstances surrounding Zionist colonization in its early days10, Zionist expediency understood that to gain leverage, a temporary compromise between its grandiose territorial ambitions, and its immediate instrumental needs, was required.The Zionist movement was willing to come to terms with less territory at first, in exchange for a ‘state’ with political sovereignty11. However, its determination to seize more when a ripe opportunity came along was never abandoned, as a comparison of historic and present-day maps reveals.In 1948, the Zionist state stole 78% of Palestine. Ever since, new rounds of aggression and expansion have been implemented in an unfettered manner12. Since 1967, 100,000 hectares of Palestinian lands have been stolen13. In the first months of the genocide in Gaza alone, Israel stole 1,270 hectares of Palestinian land14.In fact, records of evidence show that through exercising patience, the colonial occupation has patiently been playing the long game, gradually bringing more Palestinian land under its control by the day. To claim otherwise – that Israel will remain indefinitely satisfied with dominating only a fragment of the land that it maintains belongs to the Jewish people – would be absurd15. In fact, this was accurately expressed in 1937 by Ben Gurion, a central figure in the founding phase of the colonial entity, who also served as its first Prime Minister for almost 15 years “a partial Jewish State is not the end, but only the beginning…16’’, and “we shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today, but the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them”17, implying that Israel should never settle for any limitations concerning its borders. This is precisely why, up until the present day, Israel has failed to define its borders.THE LITANI RIVERIf we consider our current situation, one year into the genocide in Gaza, Israel is attempting to create a “buffer zone” in South Lebanon, something it has incessantly attempted to do since its inception: in 1948, as well as 1978, 1982-2000 and 2006. Amid its current inability to deter Hezbollah from launching attacks against it in support of Gaza, Israel has been seeking to change the status quo by pushing the resistance away from Lebanon’s southern border, and beyond the Litani specifically. Historically, the Litani River has always held strategic importance for Zionist ambitions.The Litani, the longest river in Lebanon, stretches 170 kilometers southward from the Beqaa Valley, flows along the eastern front of Lebanon’s mountain range, and diverts sharply westward towards the Mediterranean Sea, north of Tyre. Historical documents revealing Zionist plans to take control of it date back as far as prior to the establishment of the entity. Its importance is due to it being a vital water source, along with the fact that its surroundings are of military-strategic value.The head of the World Zionist Organization, who would later become the occupation state’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, put forward a map for a proposed Jewish colony at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. The map he presented fell short of the land guaranteed in accordance with ‘God’s Promise’, from the Nile to the Euphrates18. Rather, the proposed borders were drawn according to geopolitical calculations to dominate water resources in the region, incorporating:“First the whole of Mandated Palestine … secondly, southern Lebanon, including the towns of Tyre and Sidon, the headwaters of the River Jordan on Mount Hermon and the southern portion of the Litani River… thirdly, on the Syrian front, the Golan Heights, including the town of Quneitra, the River Yarmuk and El-Himmeh Hot Springs … fourthly, on the Jordan front, the whole of the Jordan Valley, the Dead Sea and the Eastern Highlands up to the outskirts of Amman, running southwards along the Hejaz Railway to the Gulf of Aqaba, leaving Jordan with no access to the sea; fifthly, on the Egyptian front, from EI-Arish on the Mediterranean in a straight southerly direction to the Gulf of Aqaba”.19The priority of accessing water resources was also articulated in a 1919 letter Weizmann sent to David Lloyd George, Prime Minister and head of the British delegation, in which he wrote:“The whole economic future of Palestine is dependent upon its water supply for irrigation and for electric power, and the water supply must mainly be derived from the slopes of Mount Hermon [Golan Heights], from the headwaters of the Jordan, and from the Litani River in Lebanon”It wasn’t until 1967 that Israel would partially fulfill its aspiration of controlling more territory and dominating water resources by occupying the Syrian Golan Heights, East of the Jordan River, as well as the Sea of Galilee, also known as ‘Lake Tiberias,’ —but not the Litani River. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was quoted saying that “Israel had achieved provisionally satisfying frontiers, with the exception of those with Lebanon.” The idea of occupying South Lebanon was enthusiastically adopted by Moshe Dayan as well as Ben Gurion20, and was also referred to in the diaries of Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett21.Ben Gurion’s conviction of an Israel with the Litani as its northern border was noted in a book he published in 191822. This idea would remain an essential part of his vision for the entity for years to come23, as would the idea of redrawing the borders by fragmenting Lebanon to allow for the establishment of a Christian state with with the Litani as its southern border managed by ‘Israel’.Zionist plans to annex the region or expand its control over it are not a thing of the past – on the contrary, they always tend to resurface. Established in 2024, a group called “The South Lebanon Movement” has been advocating for the colonization of South Lebanon24.HEGEMONY THROUGH DISRUPTIONZionist expansionism does not only manifest as direct occupation and control of territory. When the entity abstains from or is unable to claim land, it makes use of other cost- effective tools to spread its hegemony.This was best articulated in a notorious article that recently resurfaced25 entitled “A Strategy For Israel In The Nineteen Eighties” published in 1982 in the quarterly Kivunim – a journal of the Department of Information of the World Zionist Organization that encapsulates the Zionist ideology. The piece was written by journalist and senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official Oded Yinon, who precisely advocated for a strategic divide-and-rule plan to fragment the region in Israel’s favor:“Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short-term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today”26.This describes, in great detail, the current track on which the Levant is heading, confirming the premise of this strategy which was laid out forty years ago. More recently in 2002, then- former president Netanyahu testified before US Congress in fervent favor of “taking out Saddam” by invading and destroying Iraq. This was not about regional peace — remember that a large part of Iraq is contained in “Greater Israel” — the goal was fragmenting and weakening all nations contained within the land of “God’s promise”. Therefore rather than being cohesive nations, the fragmentation of these historically diverse states into sectarian and ethnic groupings, where sub- state identities are exacerbated and mired in conflict, makes them more vulnerable to “Israeli” hegemony, and less capable of projecting power and coordinating action against it. This creates the ideal grounds for submission to the entity’s greater plans. In that case, even if a “Greater Israel” isn’t physically achieved, it will at the very least still be capable of imposing its supremacy over the region.CONCLUSIONIt requires no extensive amount of research to identify from “Israel’s” behavioral pattern, along with statements issued by its officials, that its appetite for expansion is far from quenched. We are witnessing this appetite in real-time. The trajectory of this entity, since its illegitimate establishment in 1948, is self-evident to those of us who have been experiencing its brutality daily. It makes no difference whether it is driven by biblical scriptures associated with the return of “God’s chosen people to the promised land” and the fulfillment of messianic prophecies, or rooted in pragmatic secularism, linked its current territorial occupation, conspires to annex more land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, or conquer the entire area, from the Nile to the Euphrates, the supremacy engrained in its very foundation makes it a danger that cannot be overstated. Equally dangerous are the misleading attempts to dismiss awareness of its territorial ambitions and muddy its imperialistic nature.Failure to address the extent to which these expansionist ideas are inscribed indelibly in their settler-colonial project will have detrimental implications. Even the so-called “two- state solution”, always a distraction from recognizing the fundamental illegality of the occupation, is an illusionary mantra that has been rejected by the “Israeli” regime itself, which is colonizing more land by the day with full support from the West. This support for “Israel’s” manifest destiny is echoed in the shocking 2019 presidential declaration that the Syrian Golan Heights, invaded by Israel in 1967, were to be recognized as part of the Zionist state. As sitting senior ministers within the occupation government openly declare their intent to invade and colonize Lebanon and Syria, what is to stop their US-backed armies from furthering their goals of occupying the entire region from Jordan to Iraq?When IOF soldiers wear a “Greater Israel” badge on their uniform, signaling their aggressive intentions towards the whole region, we must believe them.REFERENCES Farber, S. (2020). A Zionist State at Any Cost. Jacobin. Retrieved from: https:// jacobin.com/2020/04/david-ben-gurion-state-at-any-cost-review ↩ Shipler, K. (1979). Israel Bars Rabin From Relating ‘48 Eviction of Arabs. New YorkTimes. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/23/archives/israel- bars-rabin-from-relating-48-eviction-of-arabs-sympathy-for.html ↩ JP Staff (202). Most Israelis support humanitarian pause, but only if hostages released – poll.The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved from: https://www.jpost.com/israel- news/article-772623 ↩ Erakat, N. (2019). Justice For Some: Law and Question in Palestine. Standford University Press. ↩ Herzl,T. (1960).The complete diaries ofTheodor Herzl (R. Patai, Ed.; H. Zohn, Trans.). Herzl Press. ↩ United Nations General Assembly Thirty Second Session (1977). New York. Retrieved from: https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/nl7/803/48/pdf/nl780348.pdf ↩ Herzl, T. (1896) The Jewish State. Leipzig and Wien: M. Breitenstein’s Verlags- Buchhandlung ↩ Abuhazeira, O. (2007). Herzl Day. YNet News. Retrieved from: https://www. ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3393335,00.html ↩ United Nations General Assembly (1947). Special Committee on Palestine: Verbatim Record of the Twenty Fourth Meeting. Jerusalem Palestine. Retrieved from: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-210700/ ↩ Sayegh, F. (1965). Zionist Colonialism in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization. Retrieved from: https://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/ DOC12_scans/12.zionist.colonialism.palestine.1965.pdf ↩ Galnoor, I. (2009).The Zionist Debates on Partition (1919-1947). Israel Studies, 14(2), 74–87. Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30245854?read- now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents ↩ Haddad, M. (2020). Palestine and Israel: Mapping an Annexation. Al Jazeera. Retrieved from: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/6/26/palestine-and-israel- mapping-an-annexation ↩ Israel’s Occupation: 50Years of Dispossession (2017). Amnesty International. Retrieved from: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/06/israel- occupation-50-years-of-dispossession/ ↩ Imbert, L. (2024). Israel grabs largest tract of West Bank land in three decades, Le Monde. Retrieved from: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/07/06/ israel-grabs-largest-tract-of-west-bank-land-in-three-decades_6676844_4.html ↩ Sayegh, F. (1965). Zionist Colonialism in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization. Retrieved from: https://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/ DOC12_scans/12.zionist.colonialism.palestine.1965.pdf ↩ Bar-Zohar, M. (1977). Ben-Gurion: A Biography. NewYork: Delacorte Press. ↩ Chomsky, N. (1984). The Fateful Triangle: the United States, Israel and the Palestinians, Montreal: Black Rose Books. ↩ Sayegh, F. (1965). Zionist Colonialism in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization. Retrieved from: https://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/ DOC12_scans/12.zionist.colonialism.palestine.1965.pdf ↩ United Nations General Assembly Thirty Second Session (1977). New York. Retrieved from: https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/nl7/803/48/pdf/nl780348.pdf ↩ Israel in Lebanon (2009). Al Jazeera. Retrieved from: https://www.aljazeera. com/news/2009/8/12/israel-in-lebanon ↩ Rokach, L. (1985) Israel’s SacredTerrorism: A Study Based on Moshe Sharett’s Personal Diary and Other Documents. Belmont, Massachusetts: Association of Arab American University Graduates ↩ Ben Gurion, D. & Ben Zvi,Y. (1918). EretzYisrael in the Past and Present. New York: Poale Zion Palestine Committee. ↩ Shlaim, A. (2001).The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. W. W. Norton & Company ↩ OLJ (2024). Who is this ‘small group’ of Israelis who dream of colonizing southern Lebanon? L’Orient Le Jour. Retrieved from: https://today.lorientlejour. com/article/1410033/who-is-this-small-group-of-israelis-who-dream-of-colonizing- southern-lebanon.html ↩ Matoi, E. (2024). Greater Israel: an Ongoing Expansion Plan for the Middle East and North Africa. Middle East Political and Economic Institute. Retrieved from: https://mepei.com/greater-israel-an-ongoing-expansion-plan-for-the-middle- east-and-north-africa/ ↩ Yinon, O. (1982). A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties. Kivunim. Retrieved from: https://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/A_strategy_for_Israel_in_the_Nineteen_ Eighties.pdf ↩ "
}
,
"relatedposts": [
{
"title" : "From Sabra & Shatila to Gaza: The UN’s Century of Failure and the Rise of Alternatives",
"author" : "Collis Browne",
"category" : "essays",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/from-sabra-and-shatila-to-gaza",
"date" : "2025-09-16 10:47:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/2025_9_16_UN_Genocide_1.jpg",
"excerpt" : "On the 43rd anniversary of the massacres committed under Israeli authority at Sabra and Shatila camps in Beirut in 1982, a United Nations Commission Of Inquiry has concluded, as would any rational observer, that Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza since October 2023.",
"content" : "On the 43rd anniversary of the massacres committed under Israeli authority at Sabra and Shatila camps in Beirut in 1982, a United Nations Commission Of Inquiry has concluded, as would any rational observer, that Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza since October 2023.This is not news. It could, however, be a turning point, . The UN’s declaration cracks open the conservative West’s long-standing wall of denial about the genocidal intentions and actions of the U.S.–Israel military machine. What happens next matters.A Century of Genocidal IntentFor those who have been watching Palestine with clarity long before 2023, this genocide is not an aberration — it is the project itself. From its inception, every major Zionist leader and Israeli politician has openly articulated the goal of erasing the Indigenous people of Palestine, whether through forced expulsion or mass murder.More than a hundred years of speeches, policies, and massacres testify to this intent. The so-called “War on Gaza” is simply the most visible and livestreamed stage of an ongoing colonial project.The UN’s Empty WordsIs this UN report different? The UN has made declarative statements for decades with no action or enforcement. In 1975, the UN declared Zionism is racism, citing the “unholy alliance” between apartheid South Africa and Israel. Yet Zionists continued to enjoy privileged status across Western institutions. Since 1967, the UN has passed resolution after resolution denouncing illegal Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land. Still, the theft continues unchecked. In December 2022, the UN General Assembly demanded Israel end its “unlawful presence” in the Occupied Territories within one year. That deadline expires this week, September 18, 2025. Israel has ignored it completely, as expected — with no consequences. Declarations without enforcement are not justice. They are fig leaves for impunity.What Good Is the UN?The Geneva Convention obliges all states to intervene to stop and punish genocide. Yet no country has deployed forces to resist Israel’s military slaughter in Gaza. No sanctions. No accountability.If the UN cannot stop one of its own member states from carrying out genocide in full public view — in “4K” as the world watches live — then what is the UN for?The Rise of AlternativesThe cracks are widening. The government of China has announced a new Global Governance initiative, already backed by dozens of countries. Without illusions about its motivations, the concept paper at least addresses three of the UN’s structural failures: Underrepresentation of the Global South — redressing centuries of colonial imbalance. Erosion of authoritativeness — restoring the credibility of international law. Urgent need for effectiveness — accelerating stalled progress on global commitments like the UN’s 2030 Agenda. The question is not whether the UN will reform. It is whether it can survive its own irrelevance.Toward a New Global OrderFrom Sabra and Shatila to Gaza, the UN has failed to prevent — or even meaningfully resist — genocide. Its reports and resolutions pile up, while the graves in Palestine multiply.If the international body tasked with “peace and security” cannot act against the most televised genocide in history, then the world has to ask: do we need a new United Nations? Or do we need to build something entirely different — a system of global governance that serves the people, not the powerful?"
}
,
{
"title" : "France in Revolt: Debt, Uranium, and the Costs of Macron-ism",
"author" : "EIP Editors",
"category" : "essays",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/france-in-revolt",
"date" : "2025-09-14 22:39:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Bloquons-Tout.jpg",
"excerpt" : "France is burning again—not only on the streets of Paris but in the brittle foundations of its political economy. What began as a mass revolt against austerity and public-service cuts has become a national convulsion: roads blocked, train stations occupied, workplaces shut down under the call to “Bloquons Tout” (Let’s Block Everything). The collapse of François Bayrou’s government is only the latest symptom. At the root of the crisis is a political project: Macronism—the steady, decade-long tilt toward pro-business reforms, tax cuts for the wealthy, and austerity by default—that has hollowed out public revenue and narrowed citizens’ options.",
"content" : "France is burning again—not only on the streets of Paris but in the brittle foundations of its political economy. What began as a mass revolt against austerity and public-service cuts has become a national convulsion: roads blocked, train stations occupied, workplaces shut down under the call to “Bloquons Tout” (Let’s Block Everything). The collapse of François Bayrou’s government is only the latest symptom. At the root of the crisis is a political project: Macronism—the steady, decade-long tilt toward pro-business reforms, tax cuts for the wealthy, and austerity by default—that has hollowed out public revenue and narrowed citizens’ options.Tax Cuts, Corporate Giveaways, and Rising DebtSince Emmanuel Macron took office in 2017, his administration rolled out a suite of pro-market reforms: the abolition of the broad wealth tax (ISF), replaced by a narrower property wealth tax (IFI); a sustained reduction of the corporate tax rate to about 25%; and a raft of tax measures framed as competitiveness fixes for companies and investors. Economists now estimate that Macron’s tax cuts account for a significant share of France’s rising public debt; his reforms helped widen deficits even before pandemic and energy-shock spending pushed them higher. Today France’s public debt sits near 113–114% of GDP, and ratings agencies and markets are watching closely. (Le Monde.fr)These policies did not produce the promised boom in broadly shared prosperity. Investment did not surge enough to offset lost revenue, and growth remained sluggish. The political consequence was predictable: when the state has less to spend, the burden of balancing budgets falls on cuts to pensions, healthcare, and social programs—measures that overwhelmingly hurt working-class and vulnerable communities. (Financial Times)Pension Reform, Social Fracture, and the Limits of ConsentMacron’s government pushed a controversial pension reform—raising the retirement age from 62 to 64—which sparked nationwide strikes and mass protests in 2023. The reform illustrated a defining feature of Macronism: when public consent falters, the state still presses forward with market-oriented restructuring, deepening social fracture and anger. The pension fight didn’t create the crisis so much as expose it. (Al Jazeera)Colonial Hangover: Uranium, Energy, and GeopoliticsFrance’s energy model has long rested on nuclear power—once a source of national pride for its emission-free nature, and geopolitical independence. Behind that story, however, is another: the colonial era’s extraction of uranium in places like Niger, where French companies (notably Orano/former Areva) secured resource access under unequal terms. As Niger reasserted sovereignty over its resources after the 2023 coup and pushed back on French access, the illusion of seamless “energy independence” began to crack. Losing preferential access to Nigerien uranium has widened France’s energy insecurity and amplified the fiscal squeeze: higher energy costs, the need to secure new supply chains, and political pressure to maintain subsidies for households. The politics of extraction are now returning home. (Le Monde.fr)Climate, Austerity, and the Moral EconomyAdd the climate emergency to the mix—record heatwaves, floods, and wildfires—and the picture becomes even more bleak. Infrastructure strain and rising costs of climate adaptation demand public investment, yet the government’s posture has been to trim and reprioritize spending to satisfy markets. In practice, that means the people least responsible for climate harm—low-income communities, migrants, and precarious workers—are asked to pay the price. The result is a moral and political rupture: climate vulnerability plus fiscal austerity equals radicalized grievance. (Financial Times)A Convergence of FailuresThis is why the current uprising cannot be reduced to a single grievance. It is the convergence of multiple failures: Economic: tax policy that favored the wealthy while starving the public purse; rising debt and cuts that fall on the poor. (Financial Times) Colonial: the unraveling of extractive arrangements that once propped up French energy and power. (Le Monde.fr) Ecological: climate shocks that amplify social need even as public services are stripped back. (Financial Times) The revolt has therefore drawn a broad constituency—students, unions, public-sector workers, and neighborhoods long marginalized by austerity. It is not merely a labor dispute; it is a crisis of legitimacy for a model of governance that privatized gains and socialized pain.What Macronism Tells Us About the Global MomentFrance is a cautionary tale for democracies worldwide. When political leaders prioritize tax breaks for capital and cut public goods to placate markets, they borrow political stability against the future. The bill eventually comes due—in rising debt, in weakened social cohesion, and in violent backlash. Where resource dependencies meet neoliberal retrenchment, the risk of social rupture grows.Three Questions for What Comes Next Will the French state return to a redistributive project—taxing wealth, reclaiming revenues, and investing in climate resilience—or double down on austerity? Can movements translate street power into institutional change that addresses colonial legacies (resource sovereignty) as well as domestic inequality? Will climate policy be woven into social policy—so that adaptation and justice go hand in hand—or will they remain separate priorities, deepening vulnerability? France stands at a crossroads: continue a model that funnels benefit to capital while exposing citizens to climate and economic shocks—or imagine a social contract rooted in redistribution, de-colonial resource politics, and ecological justice. The choice will not be made in the Élysée alone. It is being argued in the streets, in workplaces, and across borders where the costs of extraction were first paid.Everything is Political—and in France today, that truth has never been clearer."
}
,
{
"title" : "Nepal’s New Reckoning",
"author" : "Tulsi Rauniyar",
"category" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/nepal-reckoning",
"date" : "2025-09-11 18:11:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/nepal1-IMG_5694.jpg",
"excerpt" : "From September 8-11, 2025, a massive popular uprising has taken place in Nepal, forcing the resignation of the Prime Minister and much of the government. We present some description and first reflections on the protests and riots, which were sparked by a social media ban and anger over government corruption and nepotism.",
"content" : "From September 8-11, 2025, a massive popular uprising has taken place in Nepal, forcing the resignation of the Prime Minister and much of the government. We present some description and first reflections on the protests and riots, which were sparked by a social media ban and anger over government corruption and nepotism.September 8In the white glare of a late summer morning, the broad avenues of Kathmandu, Nepal’s modern capital, are usually thrumming with traffic and smog. But on this sweltering day, the streets were crowded with chanting protesters, all of them demonstrating against the government of KP Sharma Oli. The largest crowd by far was made up of Gen-Z youth, most in their twenties, many still in school and college uniforms.For Nepal, such eruptions aren’t new: generations have risen before—against Rana autocrats in the 1950s, against royal rule in 1990, against King Gyanendra’s coup in 2005—only to watch hard-won freedoms erode. But for many of the protestors I spoke to, this was likely their first gathering. Their mission, organised on Instagram, Facebook, and Discord, was grand. They had gathered to protest the dismal state of the country, where the powerful and their children lived in luxury while countless Nepalis laboured abroad in countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia, sending remittances home to sustain their families. They marched in loose coordination, some singing protest songs, others dancing to drumbeats, and many chanting slogans. Handmade signs bore slogans carefully daubed in black paint.The last straw had come days earlier when the government imposed a blanket ban on social media platforms, cutting off main channels through which young Nepalis expressed frustration and organised politically. Tensions were already high, fueled in part by viral chatter about “nepo-babies,” the young faces that have long been symbols of privilege fast-tracked into positions of power because of their family connections. For Nepal’s youth, social media became a stage to mock them, question their merit, and call out a system where politics often feels like a family business.As the protesters pushed past the barricades outside Parliament, the police unexpectedly fell back rather than delivering the usual baton charge. A few tear gas canisters hissed through the air, and a lone water cannon swept the crowd, but the confrontation seemed restrained. People snapped selfies amid the haze, their chants echoing off the old brick walls, and for a brief moment, it felt almost ordinary, as if the protest might remain just another turbulent day in Kathmandu.According to reports, a cluster of older men mumbled about storming Parliament, while a few young riders, adrenaline surging, tore recklessly through the crowd on motorbikes, shouting insults. Near the complex itself, the energy shifted, protesters began hammering at the outer walls, some scrambling up the gates as flames flickered near the main entrance. The Armed Police Force advanced, their body armour and riot shields glinting under the dimming light, first launching tear gas canisters, then rubber bullets. In moments, the demonstration’s creative, almost celebratory tone disintegrated. Rocks and debris flew back toward the police lines. Gunfire—allegedly live rounds—cracked above the din. Chaos engulfed Kathmandu’s political heart.Videos soon flooded social media of unarmed students in school uniforms bleeding from head wounds, men collapsing unconscious, and disturbing claims that security forces had even fired tear gas into hospital grounds and beat the injured. What began as students chanting against corruption was quickly slipping into something far more volatile.By nightfall, nineteen people were dead in Kathmandu—a toll that already exceeded the casualties from Nepal’s 2006 People’s Movement, which had taken nineteen days to claim thirteen lives. Hospitals across the capital struggled with hundreds of injured protesters, many still in school uniforms. Blood banks reported critical shortages as medical staff worked through the night, treating gunshot wounds and head injuries from what had begun, just hours earlier, as a peaceful demonstration. Across the rest of Nepal, deaths and injuries were also reported, though full numbers remain unrecorded as events continue to unfold.The scale of the violence was unprecedented in Nepal’s modern democratic history. Even during the monarchy’s final, desperate attempts to maintain power nearly two decades earlier, the state had not deployed lethal force with such devastating efficiency against its own citizens. For a generation that had known only the republic, however flawed, the sight of young people bleeding in the streets represented a profound rupture in their understanding of what their government was capable of.To understand why thousands of teenagers and twenty-somethings would brave tear gas and rubber bullets, one must consider a long history of frustrated hopes for reform. Nearly two decades after the civil war ended, Prachanda, the former Maoist insurgent, once seemed a beacon of change. Millions voted for him, hoping for a fairer voice for the marginalised, a more just Nepal. But hope gave way to compromise, personal gain, and the slow churn of the same familiar leaders. The constitution, progressive on paper, was watered down. A new constitution, progressive in Nepal’s historical context, was stalled and diluted, and subsequent elections delivered a familiar cycle. The same discredited leaders rotating through power, swapped like pieces on a chessboard, their promises of reform fading with each turn.Public services remain poor. Tax burdens are high. Corruption scandals implicating politicians, bureaucrats, and businessmen piled up like grim milestones in the failure of the state. For decades, Nepal’s elites had looted land, siphoned public funds, and promised reforms that never came, leaving ordinary citizens disillusioned.It is this long pattern of systemic rot that now fuels the anger spilling onto Kathmandu’s streets—the young protesters demanding, in word and in action, that Nepal finally deliver on the change that generations have been promised but never seen.September 9The smell hit you first—acrid smoke from burning tires laced with petrol, hanging in Kathmandu’s September air like a toxic fog. Dawn on September 9th brought no respite. If anything, the deaths of nineteen protesters had transformed grief into something more volatile. Thousands defied hastily imposed curfews, emerging into streets still lingering with smoke from the previous day’s violence. What had begun as a youth-led movement against corruption now metastasised into something broader and more destructive—an utter rejection of Nepal’s political establishment.The targets were systematic. Party offices, politicians’ residences, and government buildings all came under attack. By afternoon, thick columns of smoke rose across the Kathmandu Valley, and the tint in the sky shifted from clear blue to a smoky haze that hung over the entire capital. Tribhuvan International Airport suspended operations, diverting flights as the capital descended into chaos. In the newer ministerial quarters south of the city, helicopters shuttled back and forth, evacuating officials in what appeared to be a tacit admission that the government could no longer hold pressure.The political collapse was swift and total. Ministers resigned in cascading waves, following the home minister, who had tendered his resignation the previous evening. Opposition parliamentarians abandoned their posts en masse, demanding fresh elections. By three o’clock in the afternoon, even K.P. Sharma Oli, in his third stint as prime minister and renowned for his political durability, announced his resignation and fled to Dubai.But resignation could not restore order. As the day moved, things spiralled completely out of control.This was no longer the Gen Z protestors of the previous day. In their place, an unruly mob surged through the streets. Outside Singha Durbar, Kathmandu’s sprawling government hub, protesters smashed windows, looted buildings, and seized weapons from the police as they pushed deeper into the complex. In the chaos, prisoners were freed, fires consumed the President’s residence, the Supreme Court alongside Parliament, and police stations burned alongside shops. The line between symbol and target had vanished. In just forty-eight hours, Nepal had witnessed its bloodiest civil unrest in modern memory, and the civilian government had unravelled before the nation’s eyes.“This is not us,” the Gen-Z groups leading the movement, Hami Nepal, posted on their social media. “Our struggle is for justice, dignity, and a better Nepal, not for chaos and theft.”Only well into the night, the Army chief appeared, urging restraint and calm. The military would be deployed to restore order.September 10All this upheaval would have been unimaginable even a month ago.A heavy, almost unnatural silence hung over the city. Curfew had been imposed, the streets were empty, and the Army patrolled in rigid lines. The roar of burning tires, the chants that shook walls, and the smoke that had choked the air yesterday had faded, leaving only a lingering haze and the metallic tang of uncertainty. Sunlight struggled through the smog, casting the streets in a dim, uneasy glow. The city felt suspended, caught between yesterday’s chaos and whatever tomorrow might bring, and we awoke with nothing but questions and the weight of uncertainty pressing down on every corner.The Nepal Army still mans checkpoints across Kathmandu, its soldiers stationed at every major intersection. Any gathering of more than a handful of people is broken up, an officer steps forward, offers an unmistakable “move on,” and the cluster dissolves.Questions hung in the air with the smoke. Who would answer for the bloodshed? Who now held authority? And in the absence of clear leadership, how would life move forward? The deaths of more than thirty protesters could not go unanswered. Yet even among those who had demanded change, the scale of destruction stirred unease. Nobody could say who truly held power, or what would come next.The revolution’s fever has broken; now comes the harder, less visible work. The only institutions left standing, the Presidency and the Army, have invited Gen-Z representatives to the table to sketch a path forward. But even in these early overtures, the Army’s hand is visible, its preferences for who might lead flickering through measured, strategic negotiation.Gen-Z in Nepal remains unmoored, bound more by digital fluency than by shared leadership or vision. Amid the chaos of Discord debates and clashing ideas, the movement is experimenting with ways to assert influence in a leaderless uprising. On a bustling Discord server, young protesters held their own vote for an interim leader, selecting Sushila Karki, Nepal’s first female Chief Justice. The proposal followed an extensive discussion on the platform, lasting nearly five hours, where over 10,000 participants shared their opinions. The server buzzed with debate, dissent, and deliberation, a digital agora where ideas clashed and alliances formed, revealing both the potential and uncertainties of a leaderless uprising. Other names, such as Balen Shah, Kathmandu’s independent mayor who rose from rapper to reform-minded politician, and Harka Sampang, Dharan’s grassroots-focused mayor, also surfaced in discussions, signalling the generation’s appetite for leaders who break from the recycled elite and embody accountability, visibility, and boldness. Though no formal appointment has been made, these debates offer a glimpse of a generation seeking new pathways, negotiating authority and vision in real time.This is the third great convulsion to shake South Asia since 2022—after Sri Lanka and Bangladesh—prompting some observers to whisper of a ‘South-Asian Spring,’ a phrase that carries the echo of the Arab Spring’s long shadow. The Nepali youth-led uprising has even borrowed the aesthetics of dissent from Indonesia as protesters waved the Straw Hat Pirates flag from One Piece, an emblem that has become a shared shorthand for rebellion in both countries. In Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina’s government fell to similar youth-led protests just months earlier; in Sri Lanka, the 2022 uprising forced out the Rajapaksa dynasty. The same fault line ran across the region, crooked governments, restless citizens, and revolt spread across borders.Yet across and within these territories, the road ahead remains murky, the outcomes anything but certain. Bangladesh’s interim government struggles to reform entrenched systems. Sri Lanka’s new leadership has already retreated from promises that once stirred hope. These movements have excelled at toppling regimes but have struggled to build lasting alternatives.Nepal now faces the same daunting test its neighbours have confronted, struggling to turn a swell of popular fury into durable political reform rather than merely swapping one weary cadre of power brokers for another. Whether this generational uprising can finally crack the cycle of disappointment that has long defined South Asian politics, or whether it will join the list of movements that changed everything and nothing at all.September 11By Thursday morning, steady rain slicked Kathmandu’s streets, but the scars of upheaval were impossible to miss. Charred cars leaned against curbs, and the husks of looted buildings smouldered faintly under the drizzle. The capital was calm, almost eerily so, yet the quiet felt provisional, like a held breath. With the prime minister and his cabinet gone, Parliament effectively leaderless, and ministries shuttered, Nepal now stands without a functioning civilian government. The President and the Army, the only intact institutions, continue to act as de facto authorities, signalling interest in forming an interim arrangement. The old guard has vanished, leaving a power vacuum that multiple actors with competing interests are eager to fill. Political parties that seemed fractured just days ago are quietly regrouping, issuing statements of solidarity with Gen Z to distance themselves from their past complicity. Opportunists linger in the shadows, hoping to redirect the uprising’s momentum for personal gain. At the same time, misinformation spreads online, clouding clarity and amplifying confusion. Former Chief Justice Sushila Karki is seen as a frontrunner. Still, no consensus has been reached among protest groups, leaving the country in a state of suspended expectation.The old guard has vanished, leaving a power vacuum that multiple actors with competing interests are eager to fill. Political parties that seemed fractured just days ago are quietly regrouping, issuing statements of solidarity with Gen Z to distance themselves from their past complicity. Opportunists linger in the shadows, hoping to redirect the uprising’s momentum for personal gain. At the same time, misinformation spreads online, clouding clarity and amplifying confusion. After days of silence, Nepal’s President Ram Chandra Paudel issued a statement on Thursday assuring citizens that every effort is being made to navigate the crisis and find a way forward within the constitutional framework. Former Chief Justice Sushila Karki is seen as a frontrunner, but no consensus has been reached among protest groups, leaving the country in a state of suspended expectation."
}
]
}
