'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.'

 

At a time when expressions of support for the Palestinian cause are facing criminalisation at utterly unprecedented levels across Europe Witnessing  extraordinary restrictions being imposed on virtually all expressions of solidarity: Palestinian flags and kuffiyeh scarves are being banned and protest rallies are being systematically prohibited. I draw attention to the slogan “From the river to the sea.Palestine will be free  ” a  refrain that can regularly be heard :at pro-Palestine rallies across the world.

For Palestinians and pro-Palestinian campaigners.the phrase has been a popular rallying call for decades, signifying what they believe is their right to peacefully return to the land that is now Israel. About 700,000 Palestinians, approximately 85% of the Arab population, were expelled or forced to flee in 1948, when Israel declared independence after the United Nations voted to divide Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. In the 1967 war, Israel expanded the territory under its control and has since occupied the Gaza Strip and West Bank. It has blockaded Gaza since 2007, after Hamas took control of the strip.  

But the phrase has been the subject of global controversy, with some seeing it as antisemitic or even dangerous, especially after it was adopted by Hamas..Many Israelis and supporters of Israel have claimed that the chant effectively calls for genocide and implies the destruction of Israel.  In mid-October, police in Vienna banned a pro-Palestine protest on the basis of the chant, claiming it was a call to violence.  And while London's Metropolitan Police said they would not be arresting protesters who chanted the slogan at a pro-Palestine protest over the weekend, the UK Home Secretary has publicly stated that she believes police should intervene, suggesting that the chant is an "expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world" and recently called the slogan a “staple of antisemitic discourse.”, 

Despite the slogans controversy, the origins of which go back to the 1940s. The chant the river refers to is the Jordan River which lies to the east of the West Bank and Israel while the sea is the Mediterranean Sea, on the west. The area in between consists of 7 million Palestinians who live under Israeli rule.  The entire land between the river and the sea used to be historically Palestine.  Upon the conclusion of the British Empire’s mandate over historic Palestine, the United Nations put forth a proposal to divide the region into separate Jewish and Palestinian states. The plan, which saw 62 per cent of land going under Israeli control, was rejected by Arab leaders. 

Once the British left, the Nakba, or “cataophophe” took place that resulted in more than 700,000 Palestinians being displaced. In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was formed with the aim of representing the Palestinian people and their national aspirations..In the late 1960s, the PLO put forward a visionary idea of Arab-Jewish coexistence in one democracy, arguing for Israel and the Occupied Territories to become “one secular, democratic state of Palestine” based on one person, one vote, where Arabs, Jews, Muslims and Christians would enjoy full equality.

The chant  refers to and  acknowledges the fact that nowhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean sea .do Palestinians enjoy full and equal rights, and the slogan means that Palestinians will be free one day to go back to their homes and lands that were stolen from them during the Nakba. They will be free again and not prisoners.

The outrageous and deeply inflammatory intervention from Suella Braverman. offers no help whatsoever to the tragic currently unfolding in Gaza.Yes. ' From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.' is a call for the end of the ethno-supremacist state of Israel but no, it is  not a call for the death or suffering of any Jewish person.Calling for an end to this oppressive system is not antisemitic, rather it is an invitation for Palestinians and Jews alike to imagine themselves as free and equal in this land, liberated from the oppressive power relations that prevail today. Rather than criminalizing the slogan, the British government should be working toward this aspirational future. And the first step is recognizing the present reality for what it is.. Palestinians wanting an end to the occupation is not anti semitic and people supporting Palestinians  currently facing genocide is not antisemitism and expressing solidarity with Palestinians is not hateful.    

'“From the river to the sea represents a political manifesto increasingly recognised around the world: justice for all Palestinians in historic Palestine and in exile. and also' means that Palestinians will be free to live in all of modern Israel, Gaza and West Bank. in freedom and equality/ No different from what Israeli Jews want. So, a a unitary state with equal rights in Palestine-Israel is the obvious compromise. Unless one side refuses to share,

In these  perilous times in Israel-Palestine. with Israel’s retaliatory bombing of Gaza  wreaking destruction on the already besieged strip and killing a ballooning number of civilians. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to escalate their attacks on Palestinians., '“From the river to the sea”serves to remind us of  the fragmentation of Palestinian land and people by Israeli occupation and discrimination. who  since 1948 have been divided in a myriad of ways by Israeli apartheid policy.

There are Palestinian refugees denied repatriation because of discriminatory Israeli laws.There are Palestinians denied equal rights living within Israel’s internationally recognized territory as second-class citizens. There are Palestinians living with no citizenship rights under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank. There are Palestinians in legal limbo in occupied Jerusalem and facing expulsion. There are Palestinians in Gaza living under an Israeli siege. All of them suffer from a range of policies in a singular system of discrimination and apartheid, a system that can only be challenged by their unified opposition. All of them have a right to live freely in the land  liberated from all  forms of occupation discrimination, and oppression,  from the river to the sea.