Dangerous, fanatical nonsense from Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid
JVL Introduction
That there are meshuggeneh rabbis who actually believe that God gave the Jews all the lands from the Nile to the Euphrates is no surprise.
That there are American Christian Zionists like Mike Huckabee, the US Ambassador to Israel who also assert it, is chilling but also not surprising.
But for Yair Lapid, secular middle class leader of Israeli opposition party Yesh Atid to support the expansion of Irael’s borders is something of a different order.
He does. He just said it. When pressed he reaffirmed it. How big should Israel be:
“The fact that we are in our ancestral land… Yesh Atid’s position is as follows: Zionism is based on the bible. Our mandate of the land of Israel is biblical. The biblical borders of Israel are clear… Fundamentally, the great, big and vast Israel, as much as possible within the limitations of Israeli security and considerations of Israeli policy.”
Liberal Zionism in Israel is dead. It’s all hot air and fantasy. There is now just Zionism: ethnocratic, messianic, expansionist, genocidal.
RK
PS: We also repost Michael Rosen’s poem, Promised Land, at the end of the article.
This article was originally published by Mondoweiss on Tue 24 Feb 2026. Read the original here.
Opinion Israeli ‘liberal’ opposition leader agrees with Mike Huckabee that the bible gives Israel the right to land from Egypt to Iraq
Mike Huckabee made headlines when he said Israel has a biblical right to land from Iraq to Egypt in an interview with Tucker Carlson. Israel supporters tried to dismiss the idea as nonsense, but Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid says he agrees.
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Thanks for publishing my poem. If people would like to read more of my poems about Gaza, then you’ll find them in ‘Words United’ published by Culture Matters. You can download it from their website or buy a copy. All profits go to MAP. You can also see me performing most of the Gaza poems (including this one) on my YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9JmFhvaxc1-LKM1hQ5k0Og