Greater

On June 14, the United States and Iran agreed to a framework to end their war. The Strait of Hormuz is to reopen, the bombing of Lebanon is to end and – most importantly – the killing is to stop. After more than 100 days of war that killed thousands, including Iran’s most senior leaders, and pushed the world economy to the brink, even a fragile truce feels like first light.

Let us welcome it, but also let us understand it. To grasp why this war happened, and the string of wars before it, we must name their common cause. That cause is “Greater Israel” – not the country of Israel but an idea of it – a terrible one. The idea of “Greater Israel” has been the cause of wars in Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

It holds that Israel should stretch over all of historic Palestine – from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea – and to parts of neighbouring countries as well.  According to United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a fundamentalist Protestant whose geopolitical compass is set by biblical texts from 500 BC, “Greater Israel” stretches from the Nile to the Euphrates. Last summer, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu professed to be “very” attached to a vision of “Greater Israel” that, he said, takes in the Palestinian territories and neighbouring Arab lands.

This absurd and dangerous doctrine has two parents. The first are secular hardliners like Netanyahu who say that Israel must control all the land from the river to the sea to be safe, and damn the eight million Palestinians in the way.

The second is the Jewish supremacist creed of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir that God gave the land to the Jews alone: There is, in Smotrich’s words, “no such thing as a Palestinian”. Asked recently how Israel should answer its collapsing global standing, Smotrich vowed Israel would not relinquish military control of the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanese or Syrian territory: “We won’t commit suicide to make them happy.”

“Greater Israel” is paranoia, megalomania and religious zeal braided into a single programme. The doctrine should have been repudiated on its first airing decades ago. Instead, it has driven Israel’s foreign and military doctrine for three decades – and has survived until today because Netanyahu has taken the US for a ride.

He has done it with two American constituencies: Jewish Zionists who love Israel and will forgive it anything and Christian Zionists who love the prophecy of the End Times and the Second Coming of Christ more than they love any living Palestinian or, for that matter, any living Israeli.

Delusion has led on to delusion, and the road has run from one war to the next.  We are 30 years into this fiasco now.

The war on Iran was simply the latest “Greater Israel” fantasy. The government of 90 million people was to be toppled in a single, glorious day. Of course, it did not happen. Israeli and American bombs killed Iran’s leaders on February 28, but that did not deliver the promised collapse. It resulted instead in thousands of dead, a choked Strait of Hormuz and a global oil shock.

We have seen this film before. The Israel-US plan to bring down President Bashar al-Assad in Syria was also meant to be quick, one or two years at the most. Instead came a dozen years of carnage, fed by a covert war armed and financed by the CIA with Israel’s ardent backing. The result was an ancient country reduced to rubble. The promised one-day victories always become decade-long graveyards.

US President Donald Trump has been battered by joining the “Greater Israel” delusion, and he knows it. The new agreement with Iran is his escape valve, a way out of a fatuous war that was never his to win.

That is precisely why Israel’s “Greater Israel” politicians are trying to strangle the new agreement in the cradle, for peace with Iran is a defeat for “Greater Israel”. Even after the deal was sealed, Israel has continued to bomb Lebanon, killing 47 people in a single day on Friday and another 32 on Saturday hours after a Lebanon-Israel ceasefire took effect.

Here is the deeper truth: “Greater Israel” is not saving Israel. It is killing it. The friction now visible between Trump and Netanyahu is only the surface. Beneath it lies the collapse of Israel’s standing throughout the world. According to a recent Pew opinion survey, the world now holds an overwhelmingly unfavourable view of Israel. In the US, Israel’s indispensable patron, six in 10 adults view it unfavourably.

A state that makes itself hated by the world, and by its only protector, is not pursuing security. It is threatening its own survival to feed a delusion.

So the way to peace in West Asia is to stop “Greater Israel”. End the war on Iran, stop the genocide in Gaza and halt the strangulation of the West Bank. Most importantly, do the thing the doctrine forbids, which is to create the State of Palestine as the 194th United Nations member state alongside the State of Israel on the 1967 lines with genuine security for both countries and a regional framework to guarantee it, which should include Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon and Syria.

The Iran ceasefire makes the case in miniature: It was won not on the battlefield but through mediation. It became possible when Washington decided it wanted peace more than it wanted “Greater Israel’s” war.

Israel can survive, but not as “Greater Israel”, a disastrous idea that has marched it and the US from one war to the next.

The glimmer of hope today is real. Whether it becomes a true dawn depends on whether the US finally lets Palestine be born, and thereby lets Israel live. The Arab world and Iran need to keep insisting to the US that breaking with “Greater Israel” is the only path to lasting peace.

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday oversaw the White House swearing-in of the new Federal Reserve chair and said he would like Kevin Warsh’s help in stimulating the economy even as he tried to emphasize that the nation’s central bank would remain independent.

Trump spent months criticizing Warsh’s predecessor, Jerome Powell, for being reluctant to cut interests rates, with the Republican president arguing that lower borrowing costs would provide an economic boost. By taking the unusual step of holding the ceremony in the East Room and not the Fed, Trump made clear his pleasure that Warsh is now in charge.

The war with Iran has caused gas prices to spike, unsettled financial markets and driven inflation concerns across the economy. Those developments have led to recent doubts about whether Warsh might heed Trump’s calls and push the Fed to lower rates.

Still, Trump said he had faith that Warsh would prioritize a strong economy.

“Thankfully, unlike some of his predecessors, Kevin understands that when the economy is booming, it is, that’s a good thing,” the president said. Trump said it was not necessary “to go crazy. Just let it go. We want it to boom.”

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas administered the oath of office. Also on hand were House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Justice Brett Kavanaugh, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Cabinet members.

“I expect he will go down as one of the truly great chairmen of the Federal Reserve that we’ve ever had,” Trump said of Warsh.

Republican President Reagan swore in Alan Greenspan as Fed chair at the White House in 1987. Republican President George W. Bush attended the 2006 ceremony at central bank headquarters when Ben Bernanke became chair.

But having the event at the White House raises more questions about the Fed’s independence at a time when Trump has constantly sought to bend the independent central bank to his will.

Trump’s Department of Justice began an investigation into Powell and the Fed’s extensive building renovations. That drew backlash from lawmakers and the department scrapped the investigation. The Fed’s internal watchdog is now handling the matter. Powell’s term as chair ended last week, though he has opted to remain on the Fed board for now.

Trump made a point of saying during his remarks, “Honestly, I really mean this. This is not said in any other way: I want Kevin to be totally independent.”

“I want him to be independent and just do a great job,” Trump said. “Don’t look at me, don’t look at anybody. Just do your own thing.”

In the next breath, however, Trump said that “in the eyes of many, the Fed has lost its way in recent years” under his predecessor, Democratic President Biden. Trump also suggested that Warsh is looking to lead policies that promote “positive economic growth” and that doing so did not have to mean higher inflation.

Trump also noted that the stock market had risen Friday. “That means they like you,” he said of Warsh.

Warsh once harshly criticized Fed’s policies, including its low interest rate policies coming out of the pandemic, which he says contributed to the largest U.S. inflation spike in four decades in 2021-22. More recently, he has sometimes echoed Trump’s demands for lower rates.

Warsh says productivity gains from artificial intelligence will help the economy grow more quickly without spurring inflation, enabling the Fed to reduce borrowing costs. Many Fed officials, however, disagree that AI’s development will support rate cuts, especially because the technology has also been blamed for large-scale layoffs in the computer sector and other parts of the economy.

On Friday, Warsh promised “to lead a reform oriented Federal Reserve, learning from past successes and mistakes, both escaping static frameworks and models and upholding clear standards of integrity and performance.”

He told Trump that he believes “these years can bring unmatched prosperity that will raise living standards for Americans from all walks of life. And the Fed has something to do with it.”

Warsh further noted that the Fed’s mandate “is to promote price stability and maximum employment. When we pursue those aims with wisdom and clarity, independence and resolve, inflation can be lower; growth, stronger; real take home pay, higher and America … more prosperous.”

As he left the ceremony, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reinforced Trump’s message, predicting to reporters that Warsh will “do the right thing for inflation and growth.”

Weissert and Price write for the Associated Press.