Demonstration reality-check from Roy Edroso

Trying to see through the fog of slogans aroun the Israel-Gaza War

Roy Edroso earlier this month gave a great first-hand account of a pro-Palestinian demonstration he attended that I think is a good model for evaluating protests, which can be complicated and are (usually) not at all the same thing as a carefully choreographed presentation:

So it was as an outsider that I marched — not with the natural affinity I’d had at the anti-Trump marches. But my interest wasn’t quite as detached as what I’d had for the pro-Trump marches, either. If these people were responding to a political program, parts of which I couldn’t share, they were also responding to oppression and slaughter. Jaded as I am, I can’t be completely detached from that. …

At McPherson Square, I saw dozens of marchers pause to pray, laying their keffiyehs and Palestinian flags out in front of them on the grass to bow upon. There were kids playing in the park, elderly folks lounging on benches. There were also gestures of solidarity — one guy with two simple signs: “Glory to the martyrs” (outline of Palestine) and “Hasta la victoria siempre” (Puerto Rican flag). I saw a Satmar family, the men with beards, in long coats, white stockings, and round fur hats, the boys with payos in vests, all carrying anti-Zionist signs. (There were also plenty of secular Jews for Palestine.) Throughout, the call-and-response “from the river to the sea” chant — go fight with Rashida Tlaib about it if you think it’s a “To Serve Man – it’s a cookbook!” thing. One thing is certain: You’re going to have to do something with these people besides continue to try and obliterate them.¹ [my emphasis]

Since I’m old enough to remember the Six Day War - from TV in the US and then way too young to really make any sense of it - I’ve been hearing various takes on the Israel-Palestine controversies for as long as I can remember. But like most people, my focus has also been sporadic, generally more around crisis events and major negotiations.

So when a crisis like the current Israel-Gaza War blows up, I have to do a bit of catch-up on the various slogans and nuances that active partisans and governments focus on intensely year-in and year-out. With the Russia-Ukraine War, there are governments and various diaspora groups that have been nursing their preferred narratives for years on that subject. But even though Ukrainians have been around for centuries, the current independent nation of Ukraine didn’t come into existence until 1991.

Since then, Americans and most everyone else east of Lviv first started learning where Ukraine is on the map in 2014 around the Euromaidan events and Russia’s seizure of Crimea and other Ukrainian territory that year. It wasn’t until Russia’s full-blown invasion in 2022 that Ukraine became an instant icon of Freedom and Democracy and part of Our Side in a New Cold War. And even a lot of Americans can now find it on a map. But the polemics have been mostly between “we should support Ukraine more” and “we should support Ukraine less.”

Emotional and political engagement around Israel-Palestine has been much more widespread in the US and Europe for a long time. And since the policies of the State of Israel and its supporters toward Palestinians especially since 1967 have guaranteed that there are recurring wars and major disruptions there again and again and again, there are well-established narratives and the Israeli government is very good about utilizing them and quickly adapting them to the latest crisis.

To be clear: this is not bad or good in itself. It’s what states do. It’s what people taking partisan positions on wars or civil conflicts do. But it takes some effort to keep up.

X/Twitter is in seriously poor shape. But this helpful set of tweets (X-es?) showed up on my feed today illustrating how confusing the current public debate can be.

I’ve been to a lot of protests and have even organized a few myself. (And I’ll modestly say that I was pretty good at it when I was in practice.) So I’m not inclined to hyperventilate over protest slogans unless its something obviously obnoxious like, say, “Jews will not replace us.”

On the other hand, “from the river to the sea” is now so scandalous that Germany is trying to ban its use and the House of Representatives takes the phrase as something verboten for Members of Congress?

I agree with Rashida Tlaib's take on the slogan "from the river to the sea," which Mark Tessler links to the PLO's proposal for a "secular democratic state" in all of what's now Israel and the occupied territories.² Aaron David Miller, the former diplomat and foreign policy wonk who knows way more about this issue than I ever will, still argues that the nationalist feelings on both the Israeli-Zionist side and the Palestinian side are so strong that they could not make a single state function. But it is also hard to see how the massive settlement policy in the West Bank could be unwound in a two-state solution.

Still, the options for a stable peace are pretty much limited to three: two states, a single democratic secular state, or a single undemocratic Jewish state with a soon-to-be-Palestinian majority. For the US to seriously push for its own current official position, a two-state solution, looks like the most likely way to get some real movement on a substantive solution going.

The lone Palestinian American in Congress linked that tweet to another one that explained what she said she meant by "from the river to the sea" — which refers to from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, or the land between the bodies of water that includes Israel.

"From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate," she tweeted Friday. "My work and advocacy is always centered in justice and dignity for all people no matter faith or ethnicity."³

In 2021, “a group of scholars in the fields of Holocaust history, Jewish studies, and Middle East studies” issued the Jerusalem Declaration On Antisemitism⁴ to address issues raised by a prominent 2016 definition of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). At the moment, the fact that it precedes the current Israel-Gaza War is particularly helpful.

The Jerusalem Declaration states in its Preamble:

The IHRA Definition includes 11 “examples” of antisemitism, 7 of which focus on the State of Israel. While this puts undue emphasis on one arena, there is a widely-felt need for clarity on the limits of legitimate political speech and action concerning Zionism, Israel, and Palestine. Our aim is twofold: (1) to strengthen the fight against antisemitism by clarifying what it is and how it is manifested, (2) to protect a space for an open debate about the vexed question of the future of Israel/Palestine. [my emphasis]

It addressed issues also raised by today’s effort by Netanyahu and his supporters to label any criticism of Israel’s acts during the current war as antisemitic. They provide this video explainer, as well⁵:

Starting after 11:55 in the video, Moshe Zimmermann of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on particular considerations surrounding German discussions of antisemitism.

The Declaration lists five types of criticisms of Israel that it takes to be antisemitic, including: “Holding Jews collectively responsible for Israel’s conduct or treating Jews, simply because they are Jewish, as agents of Israel.”

And it lists five examples of such criticisms that it does not consider on their face to be antisemitic, including the one Congresswoman Tlaib has taken such flak for defending:

Criticizing or opposing Zionism as a form of nationalism, or arguing for a variety of constitutional arrangements for Jews and Palestinians in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. It is not antisemitic to support arrangements that accord full equality to all inhabitants “between the river and the sea,” whether in two states, a binational state, unitary democratic state, federal state, or in whatever form. [my emphasis]

Another category of criticism it puts in this latter category:

It is not antisemitic to point out systematic racial discrimination. In general, the same norms of debate that apply to other states and to other conflicts over national self-determination apply in the case of Israel and Palestine. Thus, even if contentious, it is not antisemitic, in and of itself, to compare Israel with other historical cases, including settler-colonialism or apartheid. [my emphasis]

1. Edroso, Roy (2023): Somebody else's troubles: On the march, from the fringe. Roy Edroso Breaks It Down (Substack) 11/06/2023. (Accessed: 2023-16-11).

2. Johnson, Myesha (2023): Tlaib's defense of Palestinian chant prompts Jewish Democrats to call for retraction. Detroit News 11/05/2023. <https://eu.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2023/11/05/rashida-tlaibs-defense-of-palestinian-chant-prompts-dana-nessel-to-call-for-retraction/71461987007/> (Accessed: 2023-06-11).

3. Ibid.

4. The Jerusalem Declaration On Antisemitism. <https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/> Accessed: 20223-16-11)

5. JDA - Full conversation. JDA 2021 YouTube channel 05/25/2023. (Accessed: 2023-16-11).