On June 15, 2026, Curt Mills of The American Conservative appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room and claimed that Israel is occupying Lebanon as part of a “Greater Israel Project” — a supposed plan to conquer Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia.

This claim is false. There is no Greater Israel Project. No Israeli officials advocate for it. No movement exists. No battle plans have been drawn up.

In fact, Israel’s track record points in the opposite direction. Over the past half-century, Israel has voluntarily given up enormous amounts of territory it won in defensive wars:

• Sinai Peninsula — Returned to Egypt in the 1979 peace deal, representing over 90% of the land Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War that Egypt started.
• Gaza — In 2005, Israel expelled every Jew, handing full control to the Palestinians. They elected Hamas, and Israel received rockets and the October 7 massacre in return.
• Judea and Samaria — Partial withdrawals under the Oslo Accords.
• Lebanon — A full withdrawal in 2000.

In total, Israel has withdrawn from over 93% of the territories it held after 1967.

As for Lebanon specifically, Israel has entered it repeatedly — not to conquer territory, but to protect Israeli civilians from the PLO and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terror group that deliberately embeds itself in Lebanese civilian areas and attacks Israel continuously. Israel has never annexed, or even attempted to annex, any part of Lebanon.

What Israelis Actually Want to Annex

What many Israelis want to annex is Judea and Samaria, the heartland of Israel and the Jewish people. It’s where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are buried; where King David was born and ruled; where the First and Second Temples stood. Jews have lived there continuously for nearly 4,000 years, and the very word “Jew” derives from “Judea.” No one is as indigenous to the region as Jews.

Many also argue for annexing Gaza. Besides being within the borders of biblical Israel, it is imperative for Israel’s security. Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza showed that the idea of an independent Palestinian state is not viable. October 7th illustrated that the Palestinians will use any territory they receive as a base for launching attacks on Israel.

Those proposed annexations are very different from a fantasy plan to conquer half the Middle East.

The Bible Verse That Started the Myth

So where does the “Greater Israel” conspiracy theory come from? Largely from a single Bible verse, selectively quoted.

Propagators of the myth point to Genesis 15:18, in which God promises Abraham’s descendants a land stretching “from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates.” They argue this proves Israel intends to seize Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia.

But this interpretation collapses the moment you keep reading.

As Rabbi Pesach Wolicki explains, the Book of Exodus — just one book later — describes the Israelites leaving Egypt and entering the wilderness between the Nile and the Euphrates. If Genesis 15:18 defined the full extent of the Promised Land, the story would already be over. They’d already be there.

Later, in Numbers, two tribes — Reuben and Gad — ask to settle on the eastern bank of the Jordan River, still well within the Nile-to-Euphrates region. Moses rebukes them harshly for discouraging the Israelites “from crossing over to the land which the Lord has given them.” If they were already inside the Promised Land, why the rebuke?

Even Moses himself dies on the eastern bank of the Jordan, having never entered the Promised Land — despite standing geographically between the Nile and the Euphrates.

The Bible’s own narrative makes clear that Genesis 15:18 cannot mean what the conspiracy theorists claim.

What the Bible Actually Describes

Numbers 34:1–12 gives a precise, detailed account of the land God promised. It covers most of modern Israel, Judea and Samaria, Gaza, parts of southern Lebanon, a slice of southwestern Syria, and a narrow strip of northeastern Sinai. It says nothing about the bulk of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, or the Euphrates basin.

The Book of Joshua reinforces this. The territory Israel actually conquered encompasses modern Israel, parts of Judea and Samaria, the Negev, Galilee, and portions of northern Jordan — nowhere near the Nile or the Euphrates. Even the “remaining lands” God tells Joshua to conquer are limited to coastal Philistine cities, parts of Lebanon, and the Golan Heights region.

Taken together, the biblical narrative — its laws, journeys, tribal boundaries, and historical accounts — describes a Promised Land that closely resembles the borders of modern Israel, not a pan-Middle Eastern empire.

Could someone raise theological questions about how to reconcile Genesis 15 with these later, more specific passages? Absolutely. That’s a valid internal debate for biblical scholars. But it has nothing to do with geopolitics, and it provides zero evidence that Israel harbors plans to conquer its neighbors.

The “Nile to Euphrates” phrase appears exactly once in a covenantal context. Everything else in the Bible tells a far more specific and bounded story — one that gives no support whatsoever to the Greater Israel myth.

Bottom Line

The “Greater Israel Project” is a lie built on a cherry-picked Bible verse. Curt Mills is recycling one of history’s oldest conspiracy theories — that Jews harbor secret plans for domination — repackaged in geopolitical language for audiences who won’t fact-check them. This is a country that has surrendered over 93% of the land it won in wars launched against it, and the reward for that restraint is being accused of plotting to conquer half the Middle East based on a single, context-free Scripture quote. It’s a lazy, dishonest, and ugly accusation — and anyone with twenty minutes and a Bible could see straight through it.

Sources

Israel Truth Network, Tucker Carlson, JNS, Jewish Virtual Library, Israel Truth Network, Times of Israel, Rabbi Pesach Wolicki, Genesis 15, Exodus 13, Numbers 32, Numbers 34, Deuteronomy 34, Joshua 13, The Interactive Bible