Seyed Abbas Araghchis Op-Ed in Asharq Al-Awsat

The Illusion of ‘Greater Israel’ Is an Existential Threat and a Danger to International Peace and Security

On the eve of the Extraordinary Meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers, the gravest existential threat facing the region and the Islamic world weighs more heavily on the conscience of the world than ever. It is the Zionist entity that continues its relentless scorched-earth campaign in Gaza, committing horrific massacres against women and children, as well as repeatedly displacing the population. It has turned hunger and famine into a new tool of this genocide, food distribution centers into death traps for hungry women and children, underlining the fact that this is among the darkest humanitarian tragedies of the modern era.

This war on the Gaza Strip is not merely a fleeting military conflict or an ordinary humanitarian crisis: it is a systematic, full-fledged genocide explicitly intended to achieve ethnic cleansing amid the complicit silence of the United States and the West more broadly.

The crimes of the Zionist entity are by no means confined to Gaza. Its settlement expansion in the West Bank is accelerating, and armed settlers’ terror against Palestinians there is escalating. Alongside this annexation push, Israel is intensifying the Judaization of Jerusalem, constantly violating ceasefires with Lebanon, attacking Yemen’s infrastructure, and undermining the pillars of the Syrian state as it fuels domestic strife to divide the Syrian people. Iran became its newest target after the war that claimed the lives of more than one thousand of my compatriots. We must also mention the public statements of this entity’s leaders and their distorted maps of what they call the “Greater Middle East.” They are openly boasting about their expansionist intentions and threatening their neighbors, leaving no reason to doubt that this malignant tumor is spreading across the body of the region.

Its plans to fully occupy the Gaza Strip and forcibly displace its population to remote areas are nothing but another link in a chain of efforts to exterminate the Palestinian people. These actions, along with the statements issued by Zionist war criminals (many of whom are wanted by international courts), show that this artificial entity is intent on ethnic cleansing. Their goal is the total and irreversible erasure of Gaza and its political identity, as well as the Palestinian cause more broadly.

As it engineers tragedy, wages wars, and goes on unruly adventures in Gaza, Lebanon, and other parts of the region, the occupation is striving to tear Syria apart with its strikes on vital state infrastructure and the chaos it is creating in Sweida.

This raises an essential and decisive question: after Syria, which regional country will be targeted by Israel’s military aggression or occupation next? Can one even begin to see the limits of this entity’s insatiable expansionist ambitions?

The recent statements of this entity’s prime minister amid its expansionist and belligerent pursuit of a “Greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates” are not idle remarks. They explicitly and unequivocally lay out his political strategy: violating national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the security of independent states across the region. His inflammatory claims amount to a flagrant breach of the United Nations Charter and international law, exposing the entity’s schemes to dominate the Islamic world as a whole.

Through their cooperation and support for this criminal entity, certain Western powers (particularly the United States), are not merely complicit; they are posing a threat to peace and stability in the region and the world. US vetoes at the Security Council have paralyzed it, preventing the Council from fulfilling its duty to end Israel’s aggression and hold the perpetrators accountable.

This Extraordinary Meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation comes at a time when the situation in occupied Palestine is beyond catastrophic; there are no words for a humanitarian and moral tragedy of this magnitude. The statistics are shocking and shameful: over seventy thousand people, most of them women and children, have lost their lives or remain buried beneath the rubble that has accumulated over the past two years, and more than one hundred and seventy thousand people have been injured.

According to the United Nations, Israel kills an average of thirty-eight Palestinian children per day. Ninety percent of Gaza has become uninhabitable, and Israel has officially begun its campaign to militarily occupy the city and displace its homeless population to the south of the Strip.

Emboldened by overwhelming Western support, the prime minister of this criminal entity openly speaks of a mandate to establish “Greater Israel”- a sinister project that entails the occupation and annexation of Arab and Islamic lands.

Amid this state of affairs, illusions and complacency are not tenable. The Extraordinary Meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers must become a turning point. It must reflect and reinforce Islamic nations’ shared resolve to confront the insatiable ambitions of Netanyahu and his clique, and to put an end to their slaughter of innocents, their assaults on Islamic countries, and the pursuit of annexation. We cannot merely declare our solidarity with the Palestinian people or voice concerns. This meeting constitutes a genuine historical test for the Islamic Ummah; it might be a rare opportunity to build a regional and global front capable of standing against Israel’s aggression.

Beyond statements and condemnations, the meeting must build serious political and diplomatic momentum by forging a strong global coalition that forces the Zionist entity to immediately end its genocidal campaign and abandon its expansionist, separatist, and colonial projects.

The pursuit of legal accountability is equally essential. Cases must be followed up in international institutions, including the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, to prosecute the leaders of this criminal entity and impose comprehensive military and economic sanctions against it.

In parallel with these measures, a secure humanitarian corridor overseen by the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation must be established to ensure the immediate and unconditional provision of food, medicine, and fuel to the besieged population - this is an urgent moral and legal obligation.

The Islamic Republic of Iran regards this meeting as a necessary step toward a collective effort to develop and implement effective, urgent, and deterrent measures. As representatives of Islamic nations, we have a religious and humanitarian responsibility (as well as our legal obligations under the United Nations Charter, the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide, and the four Geneva Conventions of 1949) to endorse decisive and serious steps in support of our brothers and sisters in Gaza and the West Bank, halt the ongoing genocide, hold criminals accountable, and build a bulwark against the expansionist ambitions of this lawless entity threatening the Islamic world.

Hesitation or negligence will come at a devastating cost for the Islamic Ummah, as would falling for the empty promises of initiatives like the so-called “Abraham Accords”. Silence and inaction in the face of the atrocities and crimes committed by the Zionist entity - delaying confrontation with the Nazi-like policies and actions of today’s would-be Hitler - are not only a betrayal of the oppressed Palestinian people, but also the very foundations of morality, human civilization, and regional security.

The era of slogans, statements, condemnation, and concern is over. Now is the time for unity and solidarity, in both word and deed. The Islamic world must take decisive action and strengthen holistic cooperation and coordination. We must save innocent lives in Gaza and safeguard the Islamic world, as history will judge us.

Let us prove that the Islamic Ummah, at one of the most painful and decisive moments in its history, managed to defend the oppressed and restrain their oppressor.

The preservation of the Islamic world, the national security and sovereignty of the region’s states, and our sacred pursuit of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital all hinge on the bold and resolute decisions that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation must take in the face of the existential threat posed by this genocidal occupying power.