What prevents Israel from expanding into other countries?

Question

The image shows how Jewish people expanded in the region. However Palestinian people left the land due to war and killing (they emigrated). It seems with some simple mathematical calculation, the few green spots in the map will be vanished in a year or two or three.

Because Israel wants to have a Jewish state my question is whether there are official documents, articles, speeches, etc., saying that Israel will continue to expand into other countries, such as Lebanon, Jordan or Syria? Especially since those countries now have such weak armies, expanding there would be easier.

Is there something can prevent Israel from expanding another countries like it did in Palestine?

Palestinian loss of land 1946 to 2000

Just one point: in the literature used by the International community as well as in the political language, there is not the word "expanding". It is very clear: Whether the land belongs to a country or not; if not, then it is "occupation" and not expansion. — Saeid, Jul 24 '14 at 11:14
The last time they were threatened, they expanded. So, I guess the answer to what is stopping them is the fact that their Arab neighbours are weak and likely won't attack Israel. Israel was willing to give the land back, before they needed to defend themselves against Arab troops amassing on their border, "On 19 June 1967, the Israeli cabinet voted to return the Golan to Syria in exchange for a peace agreement." And Gaza, "In 1994, Israel granted the right of self-governance to Gaza through the Palestinian Authority" — user1873, Jul 25 '14 at 03:05
@user1873 the point of the image is palestins land are shrinkin and it seems through time theyll be no land , and in 1967 is different circumstances now and now isreal is forcing palestinian to leave from gaza , what will prevent to that for another contries? — Moudiz, Jul 25 '14 at 14:33
@Moudiz, yes 1967 is a different circumstance than now. After the Six-Day War, Israel has been losing land, not gaining it. They were attacked by those other countries (Jordan, Egypt, Syria, etc.) and picked up new territory. Since 1967 they have been giving it back. As long as those.countries don't attack them again, I don't see Israel trying to expand. You might as well ask, What is to stop Israel from being pushed off the Middle East? — user1873, Jul 25 '14 at 15:32
"What prevents Isreal to expand to other countries?" = the same thing that prevents any other country from expanding into other countries. A mix of geography, politics, international law, militaries, etc, etc. — , Jul 25 '14 at 22:24
@Moudiz - "isreal is forcing palestinian to leave from gaza" - that's a lie. Israel is forcing Palestinians to get out of specific houses that house terrorist tunnels, so those tunnels can be destroyed. Or weapons caches so those can be destroyed. If 100% of those weapons and tunnels were out in the open and NOT hidden on purpose among civilian population in violation of Geneva convention, Israel wouldn't even come NEAR a single civilian in Gaza. Or if those tunnels and rockets weren't there in the first place, Israel wouldn't even care about Gaza. Like it doesn't care about Egypt nowadays — user4012, Jul 27 '14 at 19:04

score 14 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:54

First, I want to point out (as user1873 did in the comments) that that map is not an accurate representation of the historical geography of the conflict.

In image one, the green land was not Palestinian, but Ottoman and then British. In the 19th century, Palestine was a part of the Ottoman empire, but after Britain defeated the Ottomans in World War I, it became part of Britain's Mandate of Palestine.
Palestinians rejected an offer to draw the borders according to the second map. After Britain withdrew from Mandatory Palestine, the UN proposed that as a partition plan. The Jews accepted that plan, but the Palestinians rejected it.
In the third map, the green areas belonged to Jordan and Egypt. After Israel declared independence, all surrounding Arab nations invaded Israel at once. Israel won, signing armistice agreements with its neighbors. These agreements defined temporary borders, giving the West Bank to Jordan and Gaza to Egypt.
The fourth map is almost accurate, but a little out of date. In 1993, Israel granted Palestinians sovereignty over land for the first time in the Oslo Accords. These agreements defined areas of Palestinian sovereignty in much of the West Bank and Gaza. But in 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza entirely. The final map is slightly inaccurate because it still has Israel occupying part of the Gaza strip. However, that is no longer the case.

In short, the image should not plot any areas as green until the final map, as it wasn't until 1993 that the Palestinians held sovereignty over any land.

The fact that the map is inaccurate suggests that your prediction is incorrect. Israel is not going to take over all Palestinian land within a few years. In fact, the trend has been moving in the opposite direction. Israel's peace offers to the Palestinians have become progressively more generous, giving the Palestinians more land. Over time, the Palestinians have been offered access to more land in final settlement offers, not less.

You also asked why Israel would or would not expand into other countries. There are a few reasons for this. First, it does not want to. Israel has enough demographic problems controlling Palestine, which is why Israel has consistently offered to give Palestinians land in exchange for peace. West of the Jordan River, around half of the population is Jewish and half is Arab. If Israel kept those areas, it would have to choose between being a Jewish and a democratic country. Capturing other Arab areas would only exacerbate Israel's demographic problems.

Furthermore, Israel has peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan. These peace agreements defined the borders between the countries and ended the conflict between them. Israel also borders Lebanon and Syria. Though Israel does not have peace agreements with these countries, it has no motivation to capture their territory. In fact, Israel withrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, which it had occupied as an attempt to combat terrorism coming from Hezbollah. Israel had also offered the Golan Heights (which it captured from Syria in the Six Day War) back to Syria several times in exchange for peace.

Your question is premised on the assumption that Israel's goal is to capture more land, but its history and peace offers indicate the opposite. Rather than capturing land, Israel has a policy of giving up land in exchange for peace agreements from its neighbors.

+1 excellent answer. Covers the historical inaccuracys very well, as well as the loss in Israeli land instead of expansion in recent years. — user1873, Jul 25 '14 at 23:28
@user1873 I did that in a few locations. Let me check for places where the links could be improved. — Publius, Jul 26 '14 at 00:19
@Avi it all started with sysk-bico agreement. the countries didnt choose there borders. france and britain did that for a reason. isreal prefer peace with palestenian or arab contries , peace is better for isreal and bad for arab contries. when isreal 'created' all the arab people refused it. and wanted to elimnate it, but all the world support isreal because they want to have a jews land. so to conince people that isreal is not bad they make peace with it. do you why hamas have missles and tunnels ? — Moudiz, Aug 01 '14 at 08:44
@user1873 isreal goal is to convince arab people that you can live with isreal as its normal if a jew land exists with arabic countries. As I said before its not the arabic people who choosed to have a jew country next to them. ( I am not sure about that but there was relegious between musslims and jews at era of prophet muhammad) there was an arabic country exists before creating isreal. its like going to vatican and removing its people and declaring a jew state.isreal doenst want palestenian have a powerful country,it will threat the existence of isreal.they dont want powerfl arab country — Moudiz, Aug 01 '14 at 08:55
@Moudiz, interestingly enough, the Arab countries didn't want a powerful Palestinian country either back in 1967. The Syrian ambassador to the UN noted that their was no such thing as "Palestine," it was merely southern Syria. — user1873, Aug 01 '14 at 13:01
@user1873 its somehow confusing what you said. can you send me an offcial link of the speech ?. maybe the embassador meant that palestenian is part of syria , therefor his dinying the syks bico agreement. — Moudiz, Aug 01 '14 at 13:21

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 08 '18 at 14:40

However the Palestinian people left the land due to war and killing.

Just like the Jewish people left Judea & Samaria around two millennia ago due to 'war'and 'killing'.

Actually, they were deliberately dispersed by imperial Roman power after a failed rebellion.

These days it's known as ethnic cleansing.

Likewise the Palestinians by the proto Israeli state and after it's state formation. This is why they commemorate this dispersal as the Nakba.

What prevents Israel from expanding into other countries?

2 Answers2