Greater Israel
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Greater Israel is the name John Kiriakou gives to what he takes to be the Israeli government's actual territorial objective, and he is explicit that he reads it as sincere rather than rhetorical.

"I think the Israeli government really believes that it can expel every Palestinian, starting in Gaza, and once Gaza is pacified, they can move to the West Bank, where these operations are still ongoing," in places such as Jenin and outside Bethlehem.

The timescale he attributes to it is what distinguishes his reading from a claim about the current war: "even if it takes another hundred years or 200 years, I think they really believe that they can expel every single Palestinian and take all the land."

The condition that makes it viable, on his account, is political rather than military: "because they know there's not going to be pushback from the United States. They don't care about what any other country says, but I think that they really believe that there won't be pushback from the United States, and they're going to continue on with this policy."

The domestic constraint he does see

Against that he sets the one pressure he thinks American coverage underrates: "the degree to which Israeli citizens are now objecting to ongoing military operations." He points to a demonstration in Tel Aviv of several hundred thousand people, "it was gigantic. Israel doesn't have that many people", and to reservists "tired of being called up constantly to go to Gaza and fight ... tired of the expense ... tired of the deprivation," and "embarrassed by the crimes against humanity and war crimes that the Israelis are committing."

He qualifies it immediately: "I will admit to you, unfortunately, that that's still a minority view in Israel, but it's growing."

The 2026 assessment

By the time of the 2026 Iran war, John Kiriakou treated the project as openly avowed rather than alleged. It had been dismissed as conspiracy theory "up until a few years ago," he was told, and "it's all out in the open now."

His evidence is Netanyahu on camera stating that it was his lifelong ambition, "this has been 40 years in the making for me, a dream for me, the war with Iran", on the reasoning that Iran was the last obstacle to realising it. Kiriakou adds Turkey as the second, citing Naftali Bennett.

His forecast is nonetheless negative: "I don't see them succeeding. There are too many Arabs. There are too many Muslims. There are too many people who oppose this naked Israeli aggression." He also declines to read America's own wars as instruments of the project, see the seven countries argument.

See also

- Benjamin Netanyahu
- Famine in Gaza
- Bezalel Smotrich
- The Arab states and the Gaza war
