From the perspective of international law and political reality, Israel still exists today as an entity 'without officially recognized borders,' according to urban planning professor Rassem Khamaisi of Haifa University, in an interview with Al Jazeera's program Mawaqeen.
Khamaisi argues that the greatest threat to the expansionist settlement project is Palestinian demographics and population superiority. Despite Israel's military superiority, it faces a genuine dilemma rooted in Palestinian entrenchment on the land.
The academic sheds light on the inner workings of the expansionist project, explaining that the absence of Israeli borders is not a historical accident but a reflection of the essence of Zionist thought, which has differed since its inception on the central question: Where is the Land of Israel? What are its borders?
Between biblical narratives that see the land stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates and other pragmatic narratives that sought to define borders according to international decisions, an in-depth analysis of Israeli policies from before 1948 to the present reveals a systematic strategy to use land and demographics as tools in the ongoing conflict on all border fronts.
According to Khamaisi, Israel lives in constant fear due to natural Arab population growth, which threatens the expansionist Zionist project, especially in border areas (the periphery).
The Israeli security mindset fears what is known in geopolitics as 'irredentism'—that the Arab majority concentrated on the borders (as in the Galilee bordering Lebanon, the Triangle, or the Negev bordering Jordan and Sinai) might demand secession and join their neighboring national states if future conflicts erupt.
To confront this demographic nightmare, Khamaisi says Israel encourages young Jews from central cities to migrate to the periphery to support demographic balance, and supports ultra-Orthodox religious currents (Haredim), which have high fertility rates, settling them in their own towns on the edges of the West Bank and the Green Line (such as Beitar Illit, Modi'in Illit, and Safed, where 62% of residents are now Haredi).
Historically, Khamaisi explains, borders were not drawn based on the needs of local inhabitants but were subject to the influence of external powers (since 1906, through Sykes-Picot). However, the Zionist movement intervened forcefully in engineering these borders to ensure the survival of its future entity.
The Zionist compass was directed toward three goals: control of water resources in the north (Metulla, Banias, Hasbani, Tiberias, and Hula), access to the Mediterranean Sea, and connection to the Red Sea.
This early intervention explains the roots of the current conflict with Lebanon, according to Khamaisi. The Zionist movement historically ensured the inclusion of what were known as the 'seven Lebanese villages' within the borders of Palestine, despite them being villages with Lebanese ties under the French Mandate.
The repercussions of this border engineering are still evident today in ongoing disputes over the accuracy of maps, particularly in the Shebaa Farms area, which was theoretically resolved by UN Resolution 1701. In reality, however, Israel exploited the 1948 ceasefire to annex Lebanese villages and demolish part of them within its borders, leaving the northern front inflamed and liable to explode at any moment.
Perhaps the most prominent strategic manifestation of Zionist maps lies in the use of agriculture as a military tool—a point the urban planning professor elaborated on.
Although the early Jewish immigrants were from European cities, Zionist doctrine sanctified the agricultural village (kibbutz and moshav) at the expense of the city.
Khamaisi explains that the goal was not only food security; these agricultural settlements implemented a 'wall and tower' strategy (Homa and Migdal), intentionally planting them on the front lines with Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and the Gaza Strip. They were distributed demographically and geographically in an 'N' shape, starting from the far north at Mount Hermon, descending toward Hula, Tiberias, and Beit She'an, then wrapping around the coastal plain.
Khamaisi notes that this settlement spread created a fait accompli that the British Peel Commission relied on in 1937 to propose partition borders. 'Today, these settlements stand as advanced security defense lines,' which explains the ferocity of the current battles around the Gaza envelope and the northern borders.
Turning to the volatile scene in the West Bank, Khamaisi points out that the same foundational strategy is being applied in full force today. Israeli governments—particularly the far-right—use the weapon of settlement to dismember the West Bank and fragment its geography.
Khamaisi explains in the episode that the strategic goal of these settlement operations is clear and unambiguous: to prevent the possibility of establishing a geographically coherent and independent Palestinian state, and to thwart any chance of implementing the 'two-state solution.'
To achieve this, the state seizes 93% of the land (through laws confiscating absentee property, waqf lands, and 'dead lands' laws as applied to Bedouin Arabs in the Negev) and uses its control to create new settlement outposts while denying Arab communities any urban expansion, so that the areas of influence of local Arab authorities do not exceed 3% of the state's territory.
Khamaisi concluded his analysis by stating that policies of Judaization and displacement have failed to break the Palestinian human mass, and he affirmed that stability in the region depends on recognizing the Palestinians' right to live with dignity in their homeland, away from matrices of control, oppression, and spatial manipulation.
