History of the slogan “From the river to the sea”
JVL Introduction
Adam Johannes presents a short history of the slogan “from the river to the sea…” and its vicissitudes through different phases of the Palestine liberation movement and elucidates its meaning.
He writes:
“From the river to the sea” is a recognition that apartheid began in 1948 when Israel was created through the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It is no call for genocide.
To call for the destruction of Israel as an apartheid state is not a call for the destruction of Jews living there, any more than the call for the destruction of apartheid in South Africa was a call for the destruction of white people.
This article was originally published by Voice of Wales on Thu 26 Oct 2023. Read the original here.
From The River To The Sea: The True History Of A Famous Slogan For Palestine
Adam Johannes looks at the history of one of the movement’s most well known slogans, its call for a one state solution and its aspirations for lasting peace.
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The phrase ‘from the River to the sea’ is found in Scripture (Dt 11.24), one of the texts cited by ‘Greater Israel’ Israelis – including Likud, and today, of course, Bezalel Shmotrich. He denies the existence of Palestine altogether. The idea of ‘the promised land’, and the fantasized borders, is one of the oldest ideologies of dispossession, and still a real force – not least amongst Christian Zionists.
Yasser Arafat was known to say one thing to his Western audience and another to his Arab/Muslim one. The same with FATAH. However, one might like to dress this up, the fact remains HAMAS is proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK.