AMSTERDAM 

Jewish journalist Martin Gak, who resides in Germany, said the ongoing chaos in the Middle East stems from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s push to realize the “Greater Israel” project and transform the country into a dominant regional power.

Speaking to Anadolu, Gak criticized Israel's aggressive actions in the region as illegitimate and deeply destabilizing.  

-Nothing to do with self-defense’

Commenting on Israel’s recent attacks, Gak stated: “This has absolutely nothing to do with self-defense. I wouldn't even call this a preemptive attack. This is just preemptive destruction and extermination.

“So obviously, if you completely devastate the entire region, at least in principle, there would be no instruments for response or defense.”

He warned that Israel’s conduct, while not necessarily anti-Jewish, is giving rise to increasingly anti-Israel sentiment across generations, saying: “The Israelis were talking about specifically Netanyahu, his coalition and the right of Israel. There is a Left that is generally content with the Israeli borders, even if that includes an expansion into the West Bank and Gaza.

“But I think that there is a general territorial interest ... To be quite honest, the plan is much, much bigger than the theological design of greater Israel.”  

‘Russian playbook of complete destruction’

According to Gak, Israel is now operating in the Middle East using tactics similar to those of Russia. He said: “If you look at Gaza, if you look at what happened in southern Lebanon, the images should be very reminiscent of Grozny in the second Chechen war.

“And I think that this, or Aleppo, after the Russian bombing, after the Russians came in on the side of Assad. So, I think that what we're seeing is a Russian playbook of complete destruction.”

He pointed to what he sees as unchecked and unaccountable power, saying: “This is geared to do, along with this sort of flaunting of impunity of Israelis going to different places and showing themselves in broad daylight, flaunting the fact that nobody can touch them, even as they're massacring thousands of children and women and elderly and men and so on. It's essentially to show that there is ... unbound and unrestricted power.”  

Like US, Russia, and China —'unbounded power’

Gak argues that Israel’s ambitions now exceed the biblical idea of “Greater Israel,” instead mirroring global superpowers. “Any kind of break to that power, much in the way that you have in the US ... we have seen what that means in Afghanistan. We have seen what that meant in Iraq. We have seen what that meant for many, many years throughout Latin America.”

He added: “It's essentially an absolutely uncontrolled and unbounded power with no regard whatsoever for international law or any kind of parameters or any of the principles on which we build the post-war legal order.

“I think that we have seen exactly this kind of thing with Russia. Russia has gone into Ukraine pretty much in the same spirit, and Russia has gone into Chechnya with the same kind of spirit, and it has actually deployed in the same form.”

“We have not seen exactly the same thing with China ... if you look at the situation with the Uyghurs in the north, then you have something quite similar in a way, which is the construction of political realities on the ground with absolutely no regard for international law.”  

Dangerous figures in Netanyahu’s coalition

Gak called out far-right Israeli ministers like Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who openly speak of the Greater Israel project.

“Netanyahu is concerned mainly about himself, and he's a man that essentially has no sense of honor, so he will do whatever he can to keep himself afloat," he said, adding that Netanyahu would have to pay the price for having them in his Cabinet, "which essentially means oiling the gears that would actually push a greater Israel narrative and 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 might well go all the way to sort of parts of Syria that would take parts of Egypt. I mean, we're talking about really a cancerous account of nationalism and expansionist, as we probably have not seen since, you know, Nazism.”  

‘Semifinal: Iran, Final: Türkiye’

Gak warned that the most dangerous groups in Israel today are those who see everything they perceive as a threat as a target for attack — a worldview he calls one of “global security.”

“There are voices in Israel who are saying that the semifinal ... is against Iran, and then they will play the final against Türkiye. So the conversation is not at all about the biblical map of Hebraism.

“Wherever they see a potential liability or security vulnerability, these people are demented enough to actually raise the possibility of war even there.”

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 that thinks that Jews should look like the Maccabees, like going around with swords and shields. So those are dangerous.”