Jewish journalist Martin Gak, who lives in Germany, said that the current chaos in the Middle East stems from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to realize the “Greater Israel” project and transform the country into the dominant regional power.
In an interview, Gak criticized Israel’s aggressive actions in the region as illegitimate and deeply destabilizing.
“This absolutely has nothing to do with self-defense. I wouldn’t even call this a preventive strike. This is simply preventive destruction and extermination,” he said about Israeli strikes, stating that it is obvious “that if you completely destroy the entire region, at least in principle, there would be no instruments for response or defense.”
He warned that Israeli behavior, although not necessarily anti-Jewish, is leading to growing anti-Israel sentiment across generations.
“Israelis spoke specifically about Netanyahu, his coalition, and the Israeli right. There is a left that is generally satisfied with Israel’s borders, even if that includes expansion into the West Bank and Gaza,” he said, expressing the view that there is a general territorial interest.
“To be completely honest, the plan is much, much bigger than the theological plan of Greater Israel,” Gak stated.
According to him, Israel is now acting in the Middle East using tactics similar to those used by Russia.
“If you look at Gaza, if you look at what happened in southern Lebanon, the images should very much resemble Grozny in the second Chechen war. And I think this is, or Aleppo, after the Russian bombing, after the Russians sided with Assad. So, I think what we are seeing is a Russian plan of total destruction,” he explained.
He pointed to what he sees as uncontrolled and irresponsible power, saying: “This is intended to show, together with this kind of boasting of Israeli impunity when they go to various places and display themselves in broad daylight, showing off the fact that nobody can touch them, even as they massacre thousands of children, women, the elderly, men, and so on. It’s essentially meant to show that there is… unlimited power.”
Gak claims that Israel’s ambitions now exceed the biblical idea of “Greater Israel,” instead reflecting those of a global superpower.
“Any breakthrough of that power, similar to what you’ve done in the United States (U.S.)… we saw what it means in Afghanistan. We saw what it means in Iraq. We saw what it meant for many, many years across Latin America,” Gak said, calling it “absolutely uncontrolled and unlimited force that does not respect international law or any parameters or any of the principles on which we build the post-war legal order.”
He believes that is precisely what we saw with Russia.
“Russia entered Ukraine with pretty much the same spirit, and Russia entered Chechnya with the same spirit and actually deployed in the same form,” he said.
Gak named far-right Israeli ministers, such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who openly speak about the “Greater Israel” project.
“Netanyahu is primarily concerned with himself, and he is a man who essentially has no sense of honor, so he will do anything he can to stay afloat,” he said, adding that Netanyahu will have to pay the price for their presence in his cabinet, “which essentially means lubricating the mechanism that would actually push the narrative of ‘Greater Israel’ and an expansionist project.”
According to Gak, these figures are exerting intense pressure on Netanyahu to act on expansionist plans.
“We’re not just talking about southern Lebanon. We’re talking about things that could potentially go as far as parts of Syria, and parts of Egypt. I mean, we’re talking about a truly cancerous version of nationalism and expansionism that we probably haven’t seen since Nazism,” he explained.
Gak warned that the most dangerous groups in Israel today are those that view anything they perceive as a threat as a target to attack – a mindset he calls “global security.”
“In Israel, there are voices saying the semi-final… against Iran, and then we’ll play the final against Turkey. So the conversation isn’t at all about the biblical map of Hebraism. Wherever they see potential responsibility or security vulnerability, these people are deranged enough to actually imagine the possibility of war even there,” he said.
Emphasizing that this ideology has nothing to do with Judaism, Gak concluded: “Judaism is essentially a religion of exile, right? Judaism is what you had in Istanbul, what you had in Toledo in Spain, what you had in Buenos Aires, what you had in Germany.”
“This is not Judaism. This is basically a bunch of lunatics who think Jews should look like Maccabees, like going around with swords and shields. So they’re dangerous,” he concluded.
