In a report in the Globe and Mail by Renata Brito And Matthew Lee of the Associated Press in Jerusalem, Vice President JD Vance criticized Israel’s Parliament after a vote passed a motion to encourage Israel to annex the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinians seek the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for a future independent state. Israeli annexation of the West Bank would all but bury hopes for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians – the outcome supported by most of the world. (Brito & Lee, n.d.)
Analysts like Amichai Cohen, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, say that a “de-facto annexation of very large parts” of the West Bank is already underway, referring to the growing number of Israelis living in settlements in the Palestinian territory – even without any law supporting annexation.
In 2021, the Palestinian-American writer Yousef Munayyer argued that those who saw genocidal ambition in the phrase, (From the River to the Sea), or indeed an unambiguous desire for the destruction of Israel, did so due to their own Islamophobia.
It was instead, he argued, merely a way to express a desire for a state in which “Palestinians can live in their homeland as free and equal citizens, neither dominated by others nor dominating them”. (Boffey, 2023)
The context and the intent is key.
The founding charter of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party trolls: “Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” (Boffey, 2023)
Amichai Stein writing in the Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Netanyahu has declared there will be no Palestinian state west of the Jordan river even as he was weighing annexation.
One of the sources noted that there was no detailed discussion of what exactly Israel might annex, but rather deliberations over several options - one of which is the annexation of the Jordan Valley. (STEIN, 2025)
In the Ponder Patterns blog, Thursday, September 25, 2025, the post entitled Trump Canada and Greenland presented some parallels between Trump expansion threats and the history of Lebensraum.
The German geographer Friedrich Ratzel first introduced the term Lebensraum in his 1897 book Politische Geographie (Political Geography). According to Ratzel, a nation-state should become self-sufficient by acquiring resources and territories in order to maintain independence and thrive internationally.
Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904) was a German scientist and geographer. He is regarded as the “father” of political geography, which acquired popularity in the 19th century. Ratzel relied on the Darwinian theory of evolution and stated that the characteristics of different nationalities were determined by their geographical environment.
Inspired by Darwin’s evolution theory, Ratzel compared the state to a living organism. He claimed that young states needed territories to sustain themselves, just like a living organism needs nutrients to grow. Just as organisms are bound to their environments, Ratzel believed states were also tied to their geographic locations.
Ratzel argued that the development of all species, including humans as a race, was influenced by their ability to adapt to geographical circumstances; those who successfully adapt to one location naturally migrate to others. Thriving species strive to expand the territory they occupy. This concept of territorial expansion was linked to the idea of Lebensraum—living space.
Three key foreign policy goals of lebensraum were established:
Belief that borders of states were not fixed.
Certain races were inherently superior and needed more territory to expand and thrive.
Lebensraum is utilized to ideologically justify the invasion of foreign territory. Expansion is necessary to accommodate the needs of racially superior people who need vast territories of the rich in resources. (Cussans, 2025)
Byline Supplement is a reader-supported publication covering populism and the global rise of the far right. An article, published Feb 19, 2025, concludes that Trump Isn't Joking About Lebensraum. Trump's plans for Greenland, the Panama Canal, Canada and Mexico aren't just idle talk. A senior US insider tells us what to expect.
Trump might appear to be joking, or playing coy about his intentions with Mexico, Panama, Greenland, and Canada. But he’s not. He plans on military action against cartels, and he is dead serious about acquiring the canal, plus Greenland, and annexing Canada. His “jokes” are just thinly veiled desires. Militarily, he could accomplish all of these. Hanging on to them is another matter.
His plans rely on a lot of the same calculi employed by the Germans leading up into World War II, and the Russians before their invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. Even if he doesn’t set off a massive conflict, it will result in the US becoming a nuclear armed pariah state. Unlike Germany and (to a lesser extent Russia), the US will have a plethora of ways to anesthetize sentiments in NATO countries that use some of the same social media platforms as the US public. (Trump Isn't Joking About Lebensraum., n.d.)
In William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Queen Gertrude protests "The lady doth protest too much, methinks". The phrase is used to suggest that excessive or agitated denials can imply guilt. Does the protest of JD Vance over the West Bank, attempt to hide Trump’s ambition for expansion of his influence in the region?
References
Boffey, D. (2023, October 31). 'From the river to the sea': where does the slogan come from and what does it mean? The Guardian. Retrieved October 24, 2025, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/from-the-river-to-the-sea-where-does-the-slogan-come-from-and-what-does-it-mean-israel-palestine
Brito, R., & Lee, M. (n.d.). Vance criticizes Israel’s parliament vote on West Bank annexation, calls move ‘political stunt’. Globe and Mail. Retrieved October 23, 2025, from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-israel-hamas-gaza-ceasefire-us/
Cussans, T. (2025, May 13). What Is “Lebensraum” and Why Did Hitler Promote It? TheCollector. Retrieved October 24, 2025, from https://www.thecollector.com/what-is-lebensraum-why-hitler-promoted/
STEIN, A. (2025, September 21). Benjamin Netanyahu: No Palestinian state west of the Jordan. The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved October 24, 2025, from https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-868295
Trump Isn't Joking About Lebensraum. (2025, February 19). Byline Supplement. Retrieved October 24, 2025, from https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/trump-isnt-joking-about-liebensraum
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