"From the river" to political correctness (Netanyahu/Likud version): Comma-dancing over a protest slogan
The (linguistic) fog of war
Remember “Freedom Fries”? That was one of the dorkier manifestations of Patriotic Correctness demanded by Iraq War fans in the United States two decades ago.
For the Israel-Gaza War, we have fainting spells over the protest chant, “From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free.” Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was formally censored by the House of Representatives in part because she refused to condemn the phrase.
I forget who it was from whom I picked up the phrase “comma-dancing” over hair-splitting conservative hissy fits over this or that phrase or label. But it fits.
The German Interior Ministry headed by Social Democrat Nancy Faeser just declared it is banning the slogan:
In the wake of [its ban on] Hamas, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community has also banned the anti-Israel slogan "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free" (In German: "Vom Fluss bis zum Meer "), which is known as code for the eradication of the State of Israel. The ban on the extermination slogan was issued last Thursday together with the ban on the terrorist organization "Hamas" in a comprehensive decree that includes other symbols, signs and tirades that are now banned.1
The German and Austrian legal systems work somewhat differently than the US system in that they can legally forbid designate the use of certain public statements that are judged to have connections to criminalized organizations. Such prohibitions have to be legally grounded and are subject to court review.
But this kind of legal and political comma-dancing can get very tricky.
It also creates verbal fog around the actual policy options that have to be considered if the relevant international actors want to establish some kind of lasting peace in Israel-Palestine. There are two fundamental options, known as the two-state solution (a Palestinian state in what is now the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza, and present-day Israel in its current borders), and a one-state solution (with what is now Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank combined into a single nation).
Omer Bartov has some very-well-informed thoughts on this theme, including the two-state/one-state options2:
The one-state solution could take two basic forms. One is to add the West Bank and Gaza to the current territory of Israel by simply absorbing it into the current state of Israel, which defines itself officially as a Jewish state. The other would be to create a state that includes the current Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank on a basis that does not discriminate in its public functions between citizens based on their religion, aka, a secular state.
Either of those two versions of a one-state solution assumes a state “from the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea.” That’s just what it would be.
Most of the international community supports a two-state solution, which calls for the partition of the land. To many, though, decades of Israeli settlement expansion have made the reality of a two-state solution impossible.
Right-wing Israelis have blurred the lines between Israel and the West Bank, where half a million people now live in settlements. Many in the Israeli government support the annexation of the West Bank, and official government maps often make no mention of the “green line” boundary between the two.
And the original platform of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party, Likud, published a version of the slogan, saying that between the sea and the Jordan River, “there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”3 [my emphasis]
That Likud slogan could be easily worked into a rhyming English-language chant, as well.
The Times of Israel reports:
Israeli politicians have also used the phrase to describe the entire area, although more rarely. In 2020, right-wing lawmaker Gideon Saar, an ally-turned-rival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said, “Between the Jordan River and the sea there won’t be another independent state,” meaning a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Religious Zionist politician Uri Ariel said in 2014, “Between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea there will be only one state, which is Israel.”
Netanyahu, who also opposes Palestinian statehood, has favored the phrase “west of the Jordan,” which refers to the same territory.4 [my emphasis]
If the history actually matters at this point, Lauri Kellamn notes, “By 2012, it was clear that Hamas had claimed the slogan in its drive to claim land spanning Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.“5
So Hamas does use the slogan. Ben Burgis observes:
It’s true that Hamas uses “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and similar slogans. But the phrase predates Hamas and is also widely used by advocates of a single democratic state with equal rights for Israeli Jews, Palestinian Muslims and Christians, Thai and Indian guest workers, and everyone else who lives there. …
You can argue it’s tactically unwise to use a slogan that can be misinterpreted — but you can’t (honestly) deny that this is what [Congresswoman Tlaib] means by it.6 [my emphasis]
Nimer Sultany of the London School of Oriental and African Studies argues, ““It’s important to remember this chant is in English and it doesn’t rhyme in Arabic, it is used in demonstrations in Western countries. … The controversy has been fabricated to prevent solidarity in the West with the Palestinians.”7
Karoun Demirjian and Liam Stack provide this background on the phrase:
The decades-old phrase has a complicated back story that has led to radically different interpretations by Israelis and Palestinians, and by Americans who support them.
“The reason why this term is so hotly disputed is because it means different things to different people,” said Dov Waxman, a professor of Israel studies at the University of California in Los Angeles, adding that “the conflicting interpretations have kind of grown over time.”
The phrase “from the river to the sea” — or in Arabic, “min al-nahr ila al-bahr” — dates to the dawn of the Palestinian nationalist movement in the early 1960s, about a quarter century before Hamas came into existence. It gained popularity within the Palestine Liberation Organization, or P.L.O., as a call for returning to the borders under British control of Palestine, where Jews and Arabs had both lived before the creation of Israel as a Jewish state in 1948.
The slogan reflects the geography of that original claim: Israel spans the narrow stretch of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. But the phrase’s popularity persisted even as territorial claims shifted, after the P.L.O. entered peace negotiations in the 1990s, formally recognizing Israel’s right to exist and coming to governance through the creation of the Palestinian Authority.
For many Palestinians, the phrase now has a dual meaning, representing their desire for a right of return to the towns and villages from which their families were expelled in 1948, as well as their hope for an independent Palestinian state, incorporating the West Bank, which abuts the Jordan River, and the Gaza Strip, which hugs the coastline of the Mediterranean.8 [my emphasis]
But part of the political “fog of war” is comma-dancing over what particular phrases and slogans mean. It has not always been made quite so official as a House censure of a Member of the US Congress or banning the phrase in Germany.
„From the River to the Sea“ – Innenministerium verbietet antiisraelische Parole. Die Welt 10.11.2023. <https://apnews.com/article/river-sea-israel-gaza-hamas-protests-d7abbd756f481fe50b6fa5c0b907cd49> (Accessed: 2023-12-11). My translation from German.
"From the River to the Sea": Omer Bartov on Contested Slogan & Why Two-State Solution Is Not Viable. Democracy Now! YouTube channel 11/10/2023. (Accessed: 2023-12-11).
Kellamn, Laurie (2023): ‘From the river to the sea': Why these 6 words spark fury and passion over the Israel-Hamas war. AP News 11/11/2023. <https://apnews.com/article/river-sea-israel-gaza-hamas-protests-d7abbd756f481fe50b6fa5c0b907cd49> (Accessed: 2023-12-11).
Sales, Ben (2023): ‘From the river to the sea’: The slogan that led to Rashida Tlaib’s censure, explained. Times of Israel 11/08/2023. <https://www.timesofisrael.com/from-the-river-to-the-sea-the-slogan-that-led-to-rashida-tlaibs-censure-explained/> (Accessed: 2023-12-11).
Ibid.
Burgis, Ben (2023): “From theRiver tothe Sea” Is a Call for Democracy and Equality. Jacobin 11/09/2023. <https://jacobin.com/2023/11/from-the-river-to-the-sea-palestine-equality-one-state-rashida-tlaib-censure> (Accessed: 2023-09-11).
Marsi, Federica (2023): ‘From the river to the sea’: What does the Palestinian slogan really mean? Al Jazeera 11/02/2023. <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/2/from-the-river-to-the-sea-what-does-the-palestinian-slogan-really-mean> (Accessed: 2023-12-11).
Demirjian, Karoun & Stack, Liam (2023): In Congress and on Campuses, ‘From the River to the Sea’ Inflames Debate. New York Times 11/09/2023. <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/us/politics/river-to-the-sea-israel-gaza-palestinians.html> (Accessed: 2023-12-11).