The op-ed used spurious Biblical justifications to lay claim to the southern Lebanese city of Sidon [Getty]
The right-wing Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post has published an op-ed piece saying that the south of Lebanon is actually “northern Israel”.
The article, which appeared on the website on Sunday, was written by Michael Freund, who served as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s deputy director of communications between 1996 and 1999.
It argued that the border between Israel and Lebanon was “entirely artificial” and created by “European colonialists” who “whimsically drew lines on maps over a bottle of brandy in smoke-filled rooms”.
“Historically speaking, southern Lebanon is in fact northern Israel, and the roots of the Jewish people in the area run deep,” Freund alleged.
He quoted the Bible to back up his claim, mentioning verses which said that the northern border of the ancient land of Canaan was at the southern Lebanese city port of Sidon, and a blessing by the Israelite prophet Jacob to his son Zevulun, saying that he will live by the sea and “his border will extend towards Sidon”.
He claimed that Zevulun’s tomb in Sidon “was a place of pilgrimage for Jews from throughout the region” and that there were other tombs of revered Jewish figures in southern Lebanon.
Freund added that God promised the “Land of Israel” to the biblical patriarch Abraham in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, which is today heavily bombed by Israel.
Since its inception, the Zionist movement has used Biblical justifications to lay claim to Palestine and other areas of the Middle East.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed or displaced as a result, ever since the creation of Israel in 1948 and the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine.
Israel’s current campaign against Lebanon, which dramatically escalated on September 23 this year, has killed at least 3,516 people since October 2023 and displaced at least 1.3 million more.
Israeli settler organisations have previously called for the expulsion of south Lebanon’s current inhabitants and the establishment of settlements there, publishing maps showing southern Lebanese villages with Hebrew names.
A settler group has even published advertisements in Israel for the sale of property in southern Lebanon.
