ESSAY: The theology of security — how Israel justifies its "zone" empire with no withdrawal horizon

Introduction: On June 25, a declaration of eternity in uniform

A promotion ceremony as geopolitical stage

On June 25, 2026, at an officers' promotion ceremony in the Negev, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz made statements that, by their brutal clarity, deserve to be taken seriously: "Israeli forces will remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza without time limit," Katz declared. "We will remain in the security zone in southern Lebanon for as long as necessary," Netanyahu added. And, in a formulation that sounds as much like a personal pledge as a state policy: "As long as I am Prime Minister, we will maintain the security zone in Lebanon."

These statements are not improvised remarks made under the emotion of a ceremony. They are deliberate, calculated, and have been repeated over several weeks by the same officials in different contexts. They represent what deserves to be called a doctrine of permanent presence — a political and strategic philosophy that justifies the indefinite continuation of Israeli military presence in the sovereign territories of third-party states, with no horizon of negotiated withdrawal.

Three theaters, one logic: mapping the "zone" empire

According to data published by the Associated Press and analyzed by the Carnegie Middle East Center, Israel occupies land in three distinct configurations in June 2026. In Lebanon: a "security zone" of 608 square kilometers in the south of the country, where more than one million Lebanese cannot return to their villages. In Syria: an expansion beyond the Golan into "buffer zones" totaling approximately 235 square kilometers according to the UN, in violation of a 1974 ceasefire agreement. In Gaza: approximately 194 square kilometers of territory under Israeli military control, with Netanyahu declaring his intention to control 70 percent of the Strip. In total, an area exceeding 1,000 km² — larger than many of the world's capital cities.

This is not an accidental occupation. It is a policy. And it rests on philosophical, security-based, and — in certain Israeli political circles — theological justifications that deserve rigorous critical examination. That is the purpose of this essay.

The security justification: the rampart argument

The buffer as doctrine: from Kissinger to Netanyahu

Netanyahu's central argument for maintaining Israeli forces in the "security zones" is simple and recurring: these zones prevent hostile armed groups from approaching Israeli civilian communities directly. In southern Lebanon, the zone prevents Hezbollah and its "remnants" — as Netanyahu calls them — from approaching Galilee. In Syria, it protects Druze communities and the hills overlooking northern Israel. In Gaza, it enables the dismantling of Hamas's military infrastructure.

This argument is not without empirical foundation. South Korea has maintained a "demilitarized zone" since 1953. Cyprus has had a green line since 1974. Buffers have historically played a role in reducing immediate friction between opposing forces. What distinguishes the Israeli situation from these precedents: the complete absence of any negotiated framework, any agreement between parties, or any time horizon. The Israeli zones in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza were created unilaterally, are maintained unilaterally, and their existence is justified by a definition of "security" that only one party defines.

The security paradox of permanent presence

The fundamental paradox of the Netanyahu doctrine is this: every day of Israeli military presence in these zones generates new friction, new casualties, new grounds for hatred and resistance that feed precisely the security threats it claims to contain. Le Monde's report of June 25, 2026 notes that "Israel has continued to conduct airstrikes in southern Lebanon every day since the ceasefire was renewed last week." A ceasefire that Jerusalem honors in its official documents but not in its daily military actions.

This contradiction — proclaiming a ceasefire while maintaining daily military pressure — illustrates a doctrinal pathology: the belief that security can be achieved through permanent military domination, without ever having to negotiate a lasting order with local actors. The history of military occupations since 1945 — in Algeria, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq — uniformly suggests that this belief is an illusion paid for in blood, on both sides.

The doctrinal justification: security, territory, and the right to self-defense

"No country would be asked to do otherwise": the universality argument

Netanyahu used a revealing formulation in his June 2026 declarations: "No country would be asked to act otherwise." This universality argument — "any other state would do the same thing in our situation" — is rhetorically powerful and factually partially correct. States have maintained security zones after conflicts, particularly when facing armed non-state threats. Turkey maintains a military presence in northern Syria against Kurdish forces it considers terrorists. The United States maintained bases in Iraq well after the defeat of the Islamic State.

But these precedents do not automatically justify Israeli policy, for one fundamental reason: they operate in different legal and political contexts, with different levels of international support and grounding in Security Council resolutions. Israel's military presence in Lebanon explicitly contravenes UN resolutions demanding the withdrawal of foreign forces from Lebanese territory. The presence in Syria violates the 1974 ceasefire agreement. Claiming that "any country would do the same" is factually incorrect: most states respect, at least formally, international legal frameworks even when they consider them insufficient.

The prior demilitarization argument: the impossible condition

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer framed the withdrawal condition particularly clearly on June 25: "Any redeployment of IDF forces comes after, not before, the demilitarization of southern Lebanon and the disarmament of Hezbollah." This formulation establishes a sequence — demilitarization first, withdrawal second — that appears reasonable at first glance. But it actually creates a condition that the Israeli military presence itself makes impossible to meet.

Why? Because Hezbollah will not disarm under direct military occupation — no armed resistance movement, throughout the entire history of conflicts, has voluntarily surrendered its weapons to an occupying power that maintains its armed presence on the territory. The condition of prior demilitarization before Israeli withdrawal is structurally an unsatisfiable condition under current circumstances. It looks less like a serious policy than like a ready-made justification for permanence.

The geostrategic dimension: control of high ground and regional dominance

Beaufort, Golan, Rafah: the logic of strategic heights

To understand the deep strategic justification for the Israeli zones, one must look at the geography. The Beaufort ridge in Lebanon, the Golan heights in Syria, the Philadelphia border corridor between Gaza and Egypt — these positions have real, measurable military value. Controlling the high ground means controlling sight lines, firing corridors, approach vectors. The IDF is trained to think in terms of terrain dominance, and in the topographies of Israel and its neighbors, plateaus and ridgelines hold undeniable military value.

But the geostrategic argument has a limit that Israeli military planners themselves acknowledge privately: the value of physical positions diminishes progressively in a war of drones, precision missiles, and cyberwarfare. Controlling a ridge 2 km from the border protects you against a ground assault. It does not protect you against a precision missile fired from 200 km away, nor against an armed drone with a guided warhead, nor against a cyberattack on your critical infrastructure. The doctrine of physical security zones is partly an inheritance of 20th-century military thinking applied to a 21st-century combat environment.

The Syrian question: the most contested case

Among the three zones, it is perhaps the Israeli presence in Syria that raises the most difficult doctrinal questions. The fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 led Israel to expand its military footprint beyond the Golan heights it had controlled since 1967, toward buffer zones in Syrian territory proper — in explicit violation of the 1974 ceasefire agreement. Syrian interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa has asked Israel to withdraw from these zones. Jerusalem refuses.

The Israeli justification for the presence in Syria is explicitly linked to the protection of the Druze — an ethno-religious minority present on both sides of the border with historical ties to Israel. "We will protect our Druze brothers, and we will never abandon them," Netanyahu declared. This humanitarian argument is not devoid of sincerity — but it is also particularly convenient for justifying a military presence that strategic planners would have sought anyway for reasons of controlling Syrian terrain against Iran.

The domestic political dimension: Netanyahu and his constraints

A Prime Minister governing under the pressure of his furthest-right allies

To understand the 2026 Netanyahu doctrine, one cannot skip an analysis of his domestic political constraints. The Netanyahu government is a coalition that includes far-right parties — notably those of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir — whose vision of Israeli geographic space is explicitly expansionist. Smotrich has publicly claimed that Palestinians "do not exist"; Ben Gvir campaigns for Israeli resettlement in Gaza. These coalition partners exert constant pressure for military conquests to translate into permanent territorial acquisitions.

Netanyahu himself is not ideologically equivalent to these partners — he is fundamentally a pragmatic nationalist rather than an ideologue of "Greater Israel" in the biblical sense. But his political survival depends on these partners, which means that strategic decisions are filtered through their political imperatives as much as through purely security-based calculations. "As long as I am Prime Minister" — Netanyahu's personal framing for the Lebanon presence — is revealing: it ties policy to an individual rather than to a state strategy, which is an institutional weakness as much as a declaration of strength.

American pressure and its limits

President Donald Trump publicly claimed he could "solve problems with Netanyahu very quickly." The reality of June 2026 contradicts that optimism: Katz explicitly declared that Israel would not withdraw from southern Lebanon "even if the United States asked it to." This public refusal to comply with the potential demand of the American ally is remarkable in the history of US-Israel relations. It illustrates the limits of American leverage over an Israeli government that knows its domestic electoral support is more decisive to its survival than pressure from Washington.

The United States nonetheless holds real leverage: military aid ($3.8 billion annually in security assistance), diplomatic cover at the Security Council, and essential weapons supplies. But the effective use of these levers would entail a domestic American political cost that neither Trump nor any other recent American president has been willing to pay. The special relationship between Washington and Jerusalem has thus evolved into one in which the American partner guarantees resources without conditions, while the Israeli partner retains total freedom of action.

The international law dimension: zones, occupation, and the Geneva Conventions

Why "security zones" have no recognized standing in international law

The term "security zone" used by the Israeli government to describe its military presence in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza has no recognized legal status in international law. Under international humanitarian law and the law of military occupation — notably the 1907 Hague Convention and the 1949 Geneva Convention IV — what matters is not the terminology used by the occupying power, but the fact of effectively exercising control over a territory whose population has not consented to that presence.

On that basis, Israeli military positions in southern Lebanon, Syria, and parts of Gaza meet the criteria for military occupation under international law. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006) has long required the withdrawal of foreign forces from Lebanon. The 1974 ceasefire agreement on the Golan establishes precise limits to Israeli presence in Syria. These legal frameworks are not opinions — they are binding international commitments.

The erosion of norms and its consequences for the world order

The question raised by the Netanyahu doctrine goes beyond Israeli or Palestinian interests alone: it touches the legal architecture of the international order. If a UN member state can indefinitely maintain a military presence on the territory of three neighboring states, without a negotiated legal framework, unilaterally invoking "security imperatives" that it defines itself, then the principle of territorial sovereignty — the foundation of the UN Charter — loses a substantial part of its substance.

This precedent is not theoretical. It is being actively exploited by other actors: Russia invoked "security imperatives" to justify its invasion of Ukraine. China invokes "vital interests" for its claims in the South China Sea. Turkey invokes "counter-terrorism" for its operations in Syria. Each of these cases differs in its details, but all operate in a space where the erosion of sovereignty norms — regardless of who erodes them — weakens the international order that Israel itself needs for its own legitimacy.

Gaza in 2026: the logic of the civilian-free zone

Millions displaced and a population reduced to survival

In Gaza, the "security zone" doctrine has taken its most dramatic forms. The Israeli army controls approximately 194 km² according to estimates by the Israeli human rights organization Gisha — a significant portion of the Strip's territory. More than 2 million people have been concentrated in parts of the territory since the 2023 operations began, in conditions documented by numerous humanitarian organizations as lacking the minimum requirements of human dignity.

Netanyahu has declared his intention for the IDF to ultimately control 70 percent of Gaza. Minister Katz stated that 200,000 Lebanese residents "will not return" to areas of southern Lebanon occupied by Israel. These declarations are the documentation of a policy: creating depopulated zones under Israeli military control, with no return horizon for their populations.

The Philadelphia Corridor and its implications for Egypt

The question of the "Philadelphia Corridor" — the border strip between Gaza and Egypt — illustrates the regional dimension of the Netanyahu doctrine. Israel insists on maintaining a permanent military presence in this corridor, arguing it is essential to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza. Egypt, which views this presence as a violation of its 1979 peace agreement with Israel, firmly opposes it.

This dispute with Cairo — one of the only Arab states with which Israel maintains official diplomatic relations — reveals how deeply the "permanent zones" doctrine creates friction not only with Israel's adversaries but also with its potential regional partners. Egypt is an essential pragmatic ally in managing the Gaza crisis. Keeping it out of any decision-making over its own border is a strategic error whose long-term consequences could prove severe.

The theological and ideological dimension: beyond security

"Greater Israel" as a horizon for a faction of the government

If Netanyahu's official justifications remain security-based and pragmatic, it would be naive to ignore the deeper ideological dimension structuring part of the current Israeli government. For Smotrich, for Ben Gvir, and for a significant faction of the ruling coalition, the military conquests of 2024-2026 are not temporary and contingent: they represent the fulfillment of a vision of the "Land of Israel" that includes Judea, Samaria, and potentially parts of Lebanon and Syria as defined in certain interpretations of ancient religious texts.

This dimension must not be exaggerated — Netanyahu himself is not a theocrat and reasons in terms of strategic pragmatism. But it cannot be ignored either, because it exerts real pressure on the government's concrete decisions. When Netanyahu says his government will "protect the Druze brothers" in Syria, he does so knowing that for his coalition partners, this protection is also a step toward a broader Israeli presence in the region.

American Ambassador Huckabee and the convergence of biblical readings

A remarkable geopolitical element of June 2026: the American ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a fundamentalist evangelical pastor, publicly declared that "Greater Israel" extended "from the Nile to the Euphrates" — a direct reference to Old Testament texts. This statement by an official American representative — the highest-ranking US diplomatic official in Israel — is remarkable for its incompatibility with international law and for the convergence it reveals between certain American evangelical currents and the Israeli far right.

This convergence creates a political dynamic in which the constraints that Washington might exercise on Israeli territorial ambitions are weakened by shared ideological and religious commitments. It illustrates how deeply the "unwavering support" of certain American circles for Israel is not only strategic but also theological — which makes it particularly difficult to question within the American political system.

The alternatives that the Netanyahu doctrine forecloses

The Lebanese model and its realistic feasibility

Are there realistic alternatives to the doctrine of permanent presence? Observers have proposed several models. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), strengthened and given a more robust mandate, could theoretically serve as an interposition force that would allow a gradual Israeli withdrawal while maintaining a barrier against Hezbollah's rearmament. This option would require cooperation from both sides — including an Israel that has had little confidence in UN forces since the precedents of UNIFIL 1978.

The deployment of the Lebanese army in the south of the country — called for by Resolution 1701 — represents another option, contingent on international financial and material support to equip a Lebanese army that suffers from severe budgetary constraints. The United States, France, Italy, and other countries have a Lebanese army support program. Strengthening that program while negotiating a framework for gradual Israeli withdrawal would be theoretically possible — but would presuppose an Israeli political willingness to engage in a process whose outcome is not guaranteed.

Normalization as a possible and denied horizon

The prospect of broader normalization — modeled on the Abraham Accords that led to normalization with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in 2020 — existed, before the 2023-2026 events, in the form of a possible agreement with Saudi Arabia. That prospect is now suspended, and some analysts believe it is permanently foreclosed. The doctrine of permanent presence in several Arab countries makes it extremely difficult to pursue any normalization initiative with states in the region that have not yet established official relations with Israel.

This may be the heaviest strategic cost of the Netanyahu doctrine: not the resistance of the armed groups it keeps under pressure, but the growing impossibility of a negotiated settlement with the moderate regional actors who could serve as partners for a lasting peace. By choosing military domination over diplomatic negotiation, Israel risks winning tactical battles while condemning itself to an endless strategic war.

The mechanics of security zones: how a temporary measure becomes permanent

The historical precedent of the Lebanese "security zone"

History teaches that Israeli security zones have never been as temporary as proclaimed. Israel occupied southern Lebanon from 1978 to 2000 — twenty-two years — under the same argument of a security belt against PLO and then Hezbollah incursions. It took a forced withdrawal driven by Hezbollah's military attrition and international pressure to end that occupation. Today, in 2026, Israel has moved back into positions in southern Lebanon it had vacated twenty-six years earlier.

The logic is identical, but the context is different. In 2000, Israel withdrew under the pressure of an organized armed resistance. In 2026, after the 2024-2025 war that significantly weakened Hezbollah, Israel is returning from a position of strength, with no armed adversary capable of making the cost of occupation unbearable in the short term. This difference in the balance of power is fundamental to understanding why the Netanyahu government speaks of "indefinite zones" rather than withdrawal timelines.

Lebanon between crisis and impotence in the face of occupation

The Lebanese government, already financially exhausted and politically fragmented, finds itself in a position of total impotence against the continuation of Israeli presence in the villages of the south. Security Council resolutions 1559 and 1701, which demand the withdrawal of non-Lebanese forces from the territory, remain dead letters. Washington, which could exercise decisive pressure on Israel, has chosen silence on this specific dossier — a position that de facto encourages the maintenance of the occupation.

UNIFIL (the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) is theoretically present to monitor compliance with Resolution 1701. In practice, its soldiers observe Israeli positions they have neither the mandate nor the means to evacuate. This international institutional paralysis is the permissive condition of any prolonged occupation: when exit mechanisms no longer function, occupation becomes the norm.

International law facing denial: occupation as a fait accompli

What international humanitarian law says

Geneva Convention IV and the Hague Conventions strictly govern the obligations of an occupying power. They prohibit the transfer of the occupying power's civilian population into occupied territory, require the protection of civilians, and mandate temporary administration until a return to peace. These conventions formally apply to all territories under Israeli military control — Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon, positions in Syria — as the vast majority of international legal scholars recognize.

Israel systematically contests the applicability of these conventions to its situation, arguing that the territories in question were not part of a recognized sovereign state before their occupation. This legal position is rejected by the International Court of Justice, which in its 2004 advisory opinion on the wall in the West Bank, and more recently in its 2024-2025 orders concerning Gaza, reaffirmed the applicability of international humanitarian law across all these territories.

The ICJ's opinion and its limited practical consequences

The problem with ICJ advisory opinions, such as the one requested by the UN General Assembly in 2024, is that they carry no direct enforcement power. They create a moral and political obligation, strengthen the argument of states seeking to sanction Israel, but do not automatically trigger coercive mechanisms. Washington, which holds a veto on the Security Council, blocks any enforcement mechanism.

This paradox — clear rules, a court confirming them, and a total inability to enforce them — is at the heart of the legitimacy crisis of the current international system. For the millions of people living under occupation, the gap between the law as stated and the law as applied is not an academic question. It is their daily life.

Civilians as an adjustment variable: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria

Gaza 2026: a population reconfigured by force

In Gaza in June 2026, the "buffer zone" established by Israel along the internal border covers approximately 20 percent of the territory of the enclave, according to OCHA estimates. This zone is officially depopulated, with systematic destruction of infrastructure across a strip several kilometers wide. Residents who attempt to return are turned back. Humanitarian organizations trying to gain access are blocked. The logic, as articulated by Israeli military officials, is to maintain a "tactical demographic void" to prevent any revival of armed activity.

This notion of a "tactical demographic void" is, from the standpoint of international law, a direct violation of the prohibition on forced displacement. But in official Israeli discourse, it is presented as a neutral security measure. This semantic shift — from expulsion to "security zone" — is precisely what specialized legal scholars denounce as the progressive normalization of an unlawful practice.

Southern Lebanon and southern Syria: the new permanent front lines

In southern Lebanon, villagers attempting to return to their homes below the Blue Line report being turned back by Israeli soldiers who tell them there is "no timeline" for their return. Villages such as Khiam, Marjayoun, and Bint Jbeil remain under direct Israeli military presence. In Syria, the positions taken on the heights of the extended Golan after the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 have been the subject of no withdrawal plan.

For displaced families, the reality is simple and brutal: their homes exist, their land exists, but they cannot access it. This situation — legal owners prevented from returning home by a foreign military force — is precisely the functional definition of an occupation, regardless of the terminology used by the occupying power.

A divided international community: supporters, critics, and calculated silence

The West between stated solidarity and growing unease

Western support for Israel officially remains intact, but it is fracturing at the edges. The United States maintains its diplomatic cover at the Security Council and its military assistance. But several European allies — notably France, Spain, Belgium, and Ireland — have hardened their language on Israel's international law obligations since early 2026. These countries' recognition of the Palestinian State in 2024 created an additional political obligation of consistency.

The United Kingdom suspended some of its arms export licenses to Israel — a symbolically important decision coming from a traditional ally. Germany, after months of hesitation, also introduced restrictions on certain military equipment. These measures remain insufficient to change the Israeli calculus, but they reflect a shift in European public opinion that governments can no longer entirely ignore.

The Global South and the fracture of multilateralism

In the Global South, the position is far sharper. South Africa, which brought the case before the ICJ, continues to lead the diplomatic charge against the occupation. Turkey has suspended its trade with Israel. Indonesia and Malaysia, Muslim-majority countries, have intensified their pressure within the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation). In UN forums, votes condemning Israeli policies are passing with ever-larger majorities.

This geopolitical fracture around the Palestinian question and Israeli occupations is a symptom of a deeper crisis in Western multilateralism. The West claims to defend a rules-based international order, but its inability to apply those rules to its own ally weakens the credibility of the entire international normative system.

The generational question: what will the Middle East look like in 2040?

The demographic factor as a ticking clock

Demographers specializing in the region estimate that by 2040, the Arab population living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean — including Arab Israelis, West Bank Palestinians, and Gazans — will exceed the Israeli Jewish population. This demographic reality is the central argument of those who hold that the policy of indefinite occupation is not only illegal but strategically self-destructive for Israel in the long term.

A new Palestinian generation is growing up under conditions of systematic humiliation: checkpoints, demolitions, displacement, economic blockade. This generation has not known the Oslo Accords era, no longer believes in bilateral negotiations, and looks to armed organizations as the only interlocutor to have demonstrated a real capacity for resistance. Continuing the occupation without a political horizon does not reduce radicalization — it fuels it.

The alternative scenarios Netanyahu refuses to consider

Alternatives to indefinite occupation exist and have been discussed in diplomatic circles. The two-state solution, though weakened, remains technically viable according to most experts. An international transitional administration of Gaza, overseen by moderate Arab countries in coordination with the UN, has been explored. Progressive demilitarization mechanisms for southern Lebanon with international guarantees have been sketched out. All of these options have been rejected by the Netanyahu government — not because they are impracticable, but because they require a territorial withdrawal.

Netanyahu's refusal to even discuss these alternatives reveals that the occupation policy is not a pragmatic response to security threats. It is an ideological program: the conviction that the land must remain under Israeli control, not because security requires it, but because it is considered a historical and religious right. Naming this reality clearly is not antisemitism. It is political analysis.

Conclusion: The zone as fate — or as a choice?

What the doctrine reveals about the Israeli conception of history

The Netanyahu doctrine of "permanent presence in security zones" reveals a deep conception of history as a source of perpetual threats that only military power can contain. In this vision, peace is not an attainable state but a general direction never fully reached, and real security exists only in domination and control. This vision is not irrational given Israel's history — but it carries a fundamental blind spot: it cannot imagine a stable order that is not founded on permanent military superiority.

The essay requires insisting on a point here: it is not the security of Israel that is in question. It is the method. There are other ways to ensure Israel's security than the indefinite occupation of territories belonging to third-party states. These ways are more complex, more uncertain, and require a minimum of trust in diplomatic processes that history shows can produce results. The Camp David Accords with Egypt proved it. The Oslo Accords attempted it — insufficiently but sincerely.

Peace or zones: the question Netanyahu refuses to ask

The fundamental question that the permanent presence doctrine sidesteps is this: what does a lasting peace in the region look like, and what is the role of military power in establishing it? Netanyahu says "as long as necessary" — but never defines what "not necessary" would look like, the situation in which withdrawal would be justified. It is a doctrine without an end, without a success condition, without an exit horizon. It is a doctrine that can only conceive of the perpetuation of the present state of affairs.

This essay does not pretend to resolve the deep contradictions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its regional ramifications — they far exceed what a single article can encompass. But it does presume to ask clearly the question that the Netanyahu doctrine refuses to ask: is a permanent military presence in three different countries, with no negotiation horizon, viable in the long term? The history of modern military occupations provides an answer. It is not a cheerful one for anyone who hopes for peace.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency box

Position, bias, and method

This essay expresses opinions and analyses grounded in documented facts, but it does not claim absolute neutrality. My bias is as follows: I support Israel's security, its legitimacy as a state, and its protection against real armed threats. I simultaneously believe that the fundamental rights of populations under military occupation — Lebanese, Syrian, Gazan — deserve to be respected. These two positions are not contradictory for anyone willing to hold several complex truths at once. This essay is an attempt to demonstrate that.

The geographic data on occupied areas comes from experts at the Carnegie Middle East Center and the organization Gisha, as cited by the Associated Press. The statements by Netanyahu, Katz, and Mencer are drawn from verified journalistic sources: Le Monde, Al Jazeera, Times of Israel, Middle East Eye, Al Bawaba. I have no direct sources inside the Israeli government.

What I do not know and what I refuse to claim

I do not know whether a realistic diplomatic alternative to the doctrine of permanent presence exists under current conditions. I do not know whether a weakened Hezbollah would be willing to enter a disarmament process within a negotiated agreement. I do not know where the true internal red line lies within the Israeli government between ideological expansionism and security pragmatism. These fundamental uncertainties limit the scope of my conclusions — and I acknowledge them honestly.

What I refuse to claim: that Israeli policy is motivated solely by religious expansionist ideology, with no legitimate security considerations. That would be a dishonest simplification. The threats are real. The chosen responses are debatable. It is this distinction that this essay has attempted to maintain throughout its argument.

Sources

Primary sources

Al Jazeera — Netanyahu: 'We will remain in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza as long as required' — June 25, 2026

Le Monde — Israel vows indefinite military occupation of Lebanon, Gaza and Syria — June 25, 2026

Times of Israel — Netanyahu vows to maintain IDF presence in Lebanon even as issue rocks US-Iran talks — June 21, 2026

Ahram Online — Israel grabbed more land from Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon since 2023 — June 18, 2026

Secondary sources

JNS — Netanyahu touts war gains, rebukes critics of Gaza and Iran campaigns — June 24, 2026

Middle East Eye — Israeli forces to remain in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza 'without limit' — June 26, 2026

Al Bawaba — Netanyahu vows indefinite Israeli military presence in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza — June 25, 2026