Several weeks before the Israeli assault on the Qatari capital, US Special Envoy for Syria and Lebanon Ambassador Tom Barrack had said that Tel Aviv believes the Sykes–Picot borders as meaningless during an interview with Mario Nawfal. “In Israel's mind, these lines that were created by Sykes-Picot are meaningless. They will go where they want, when they want, and do what they want to protect the Israelis and their border.”
After the assault on Doha, Tel Aviv showed that Ambassador Barack was right. It will do whatever it wants, wherever it wants; its battlefield is no longer confined to territories where it has boots and tanks on the ground- any site its air force can reach is a potential target. It thereby extended its airspace beyond its immediate borders, going beyond the ring of states that share a border with historic Palestine on the Sykes–Picot map, striking deep into the Arab world and beyond (previously striking deep inside Iran) and sending a new, far-reaching geo-strategic message.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel’s political and military elite have been seeking to impose new geopolitical conditions on the region. Driven by ideological, demographic, and territorial ambitions, the aim is to expand the borders of the Israeli entity geographically and militarily. On the ideological front, this ruling elite is open about its determination to reclaim control over the West Bank and Gaza Strip because they are the “Biblical lands” of Judea and Samaria. That is, they are openly seeking to reassert geographical control over the entirety of historic Palestine and territories on its borders that are considered strategic: from southern Lebanon (Upper Galilee) to the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
On February 4, 2025, US President Donald Trump made vague comments about Israel’s size. His remarks came a few months after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had, at a press conference on September 3, 2024, presented a map of Israel that included the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Then, on August 14, of this year, Netanyahu presented a map of “Greater Israel” that disregards every norm of international relations. Through his political positions and military actions (most recently the bombing of a state that had been playing a mediating role), Netanyahu is seeking to exempt his country from obligations under international law and compliance with UN Resolutions, which it has never committed to since its founding, notably those tied to the two-state solution. Israel has not even respected the borders that the Sykes–Picot Agreement had drawn before it was founded.
The ruling Israeli elite insists on opposing a Palestinian state. It plans to annex the West Bank and regards the occupied Syrian Golan as part of its territory. Israel refuses to withdraw from the five positions it occupies in southern Lebanon, and it is preventing residents from returning to their villages on Lebanon’s southern border. It seemingly has no interest in the US-Lebanese roadmap for Hezbollah’s disarmament and the implementation of the ceasefire agreement. In practice, it is nibbling away at territory while confining demography in the West Bank, and carrying out genocide in Gaza. All its actions show that it is moving ahead with its project to expand its borders at the expense of Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian geography.
Geographical expansion, “expanded Israel,” has become tied to the expansion of Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza and its strikes in Syria and Lebanon, where there is growing fear that Israel could decide to wage another war under the pretext that it is destroying Hezbollah weapons and implementing UN Resolution 1701. This would entail expanding military operations south and north of the Litani River, and possibly refusal to withdraw from territories under the pretext of protecting Israel’s security, even if this comes at the expense of Lebanese and Syrian sovereignty.
Accordingly, through the assault on Doha and its other actions, Tel Aviv has announced that it will not be bound by UN Resolutions and international law or the Sykes–Picot Agreement. It is redrawing the regional map, geographically and strategically, in line with its security needs, even at the cost of international stability.
