Okay! So, a few days ago, a pro-Palestinian picture came on my dash with the "river to the sea" slogan. This naturally led to me debating a lot of people in the comments, one of whom, @hvly asked me to back up my assertions with sources. I decided to do this in a separate post because a.) makes it easier to post a bunch of links, b.) the original artist took down the picture, and c.) I recently read how many on the pro-Palestinian side lack a lot of context on the conflict, so I figured this could serve as a general resource.
(Not linking to the original artist, but if he sees this, I do apologize if it seemed like I was attacking you, or if all the arguing just stressed you out. It was a cute picture and I trust that you didn't mean anything by it, but my point here is that a lot of well-intentioned people don't get the nuances of this issue.)
I'm not sure which of my arguments Hvly wanted evidence for, so I'll just try to be thorough.
Why is the "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" slogan anti-Semitic?
Because it is a call for the elimination of Israel. A two-state solution would involve Palestine and Israel in the space between the (Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea. If Palestine takes up that whole area, what happened to Israel and its 10 million inhabitants, 7 million of whom are Jewish? I don't think Palestine is gonna give them citizenship, in case the October 7th massacre didn't make that clear.
It's also worth noting that "will be free" is not the only variation on this chant. Especially early on, it was often "Palestine is Arab" or "is Islamic." Can't really deny that those are about excluding Jews (and/or Arab Christians, Druze, etc.)
Put another way: imagine if in the United States, we popularized the phrase "from the Canadian border to South America, the U.S. will be free!" Sounds great, right? Nothing wrong with freedom! But, wait...how do Mexico and Central America fit into this geography? And oh, yeah, the people promoting this slogan are the KKK, and the first draft was that the U.S. would be "white." Would you pooh-pooh a Hispanic person who found this kinda racist? Then why are Jews different?
I appreciate that many Westerners want this phrase to be about freeing Palestinians from Israel's supposed occupation (we'll get to that in a minute). But it's not. It's about killing Jews.
Are you sure? Has Hamas ever SAID they want to kill all Jews/Israelis?
Yes. Right here. Right after they killed, raped and terrorized them on a Jewish holiday.
It's also in their official charter. Contrast the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which calls for peace between it and its neighbors. (They declared war the day after it was signed.)
But isn't Israel trying to genocide the Palestinians too?
"Genocide" means that you're trying to kill every member of a race within a certain area. So if Israel wants to "genocide" the Palestinians, dropping pamphlets warning them to seek shelter seems like a poor strategy.
Israel is not trying to kill civilians. They're trying to kill Hamas—which, as established, does want to commit genocide. Unfortunately, this is urban warfare, and Hamas' strategy is to use Palestinian civilians as human shields. So yes, a lot of Palestinian civilians are dying. That doesn't make Israel the bad guy. At least 1.5 million German civilians died in World War II, but that doesn't mean the Allies were wrong to overthrow the Nazis, let alone that they were trying to "genocide" them.
But isn't Hamas only trying to throw off Israel's occupation?
Gaza hasn't been occupied since 2005. That was 18 years ago. A child born the day of the disengagement would now be in college, listening to people protest the non-existent occupation.
Israel didn't even withdraw due to a peace treaty; they had no promise that this would stop Palestinian terrorism. They withdrew in the desperate hope that it would bring peace. Instead, the Palestinians elected Hamas, which, as we've ascertained, wants to genocide all Jews.
What would a ceasefire mean?
In the short term, Israel would stop bombing Gaza. Good for the Palestinians, in theory. But Hamas would remain in power, and immediately start gathering strength again. Which means that within a few years, they'd attack Israel again, and there'll be another war, killing people on both sides.
Also, the 100+ Israeli hostages—including women and children—will remain in Gaza. After all, if Israel gives Hamas what they want for nothing, why should they send them back?
Anyway, that's all I have time for. If anyone still wants to argue, I'll be incommunicado until at least tomorrow night. Have a peaceful Saturday.
