How a slogan became bigger news than the murder of babies in Gaza
JVL Introduction
WE have a problem, says Jonathan Cook, when establishment media organisations treat the chant “From the river to the sea” as more newsworthy than the reality of Israel killing men, women, children indiscriminately.
A chant expressing the aspiration that the land of Palestine shall be free – that all who live “between the river and the sea” shall enjoy equal rights and mutual respect – is treated as a call to throw the Jews into the sea.
Observer journalists recently tried to find a single demonstrator who believed this was the meaning of the slogan – and failed.
That doesn’t deter those who will do anything to distract from the reality of the murderous hate and aggression openly encouraged by leading members of the Israeli government.
They’d rather replace the actual genocidal experience we are witnessing with a manufactured but non-existent threat of a genocide of the Jewish people as a clear and present danger.
RK
This article was originally published by Middle East Eye on Mon 27 Nov 2023. Read the original here.
Israel-Palestine war: How a slogan became bigger news than the murder of babies in Gaza
The protest chant ‘From the river to the sea’ rejects not Israelis or Jews but the apartheid nature of Israel. This is why pro-Israel western politicians and media want to criminalise it
Loading article text…
Brilliant intro by RK.
I’ve only been challenged once, when I’ve written “from the River to the Sea”, my reply was, Israel has stolen Palestinian land between the River Jordan to the Mediterranean and that is what I thought the saying meant. From now on, I’ll still write the words, From the River to the Sea but I’ll add, Israel has bulldozed their Homes, Farms and Villages, beating or killing anyone that tries to stop them, I’ll also add, they’ve created the World’s largest Concentration Camp in Gaza and they frequently bomb it killing innocent Palestinians including children.
The BBC and other news outlets replication of the lobby’s spin about ‘are Jews safe in Britain?’ is quite a uniquely ethnically privileged form of provocation.
When BLM deaths repeatedly occur at the hands of the police no journalist asks where is safe for Black Britons?
After Blair & New Labour peddled its Militant Islam/Muslim collective guilt narrative, Bishopbriggs and Finsbury Park Mosques were firebombed by criminals that bought into this ethnic smear. Finsbury Park Mosque’s worshippers were also subjected to a further attack by van – killing one person and injuring 9 others.
82yr old Grandad Muhammad Saleem was murdered on his way back from Mosque and his killer planted bombs at 3 further mosques. Sikh Dentist Sandrev Bhramba suffered an attempted beheading incident at a supermarket for simply being mistaken for a Muslim.
And when headscarf wearing Muslim women were also being attacked in the street, journalists were not asking where is safe for Muslims?
Put simply the same western imperialist supporting corporate mouthpieces that refuse to treat Tony Blair victims as members of the human race, also deny that status to Palestinians, while privileging dubious Israel supporting claims of victimhood precisely because Israel, unlike Black/Brown humanity, is an asset to the growing violent dominance of western empire.
Most of the English establishment media is vile. It is fundamentally biased in wrong ways in so many subjects. Some of this is due to deep ignorance. We have establishment journalists who lazily repeat big lies. I often observe fundamental errors of fact. We have professional writers who are not even capable of absorbing freely available undisputed information. Some of the ignorance and trivialisation within the media is intentional. Much of the bias within the media is malign, such as the prevailing emphasis on destroying political choice, undermining what is the best for most of us and ever moving towards narrow vested interests with authoritarianism.
A fundamental tenet when defining racism is to rely on the members of that race to identify what they see as threatening or discrimination. If most Jews think that “from the river to the sea” is a racist hate chant, then it is! End of …….The fact is most Jews do think the marches are racist and the chants threatening, I do for one. Furthermore, it is disgraceful to mock a man who’s brother was murdered in the Hamas terror attack.
@Freddie – who says that racisms defined by peoples subjectivity, and can you elaborate on whats racist about marching for Palestine and the saying “From the River to the Sea” ? Not to dismiss peoples feelings, but that sounds a bit like its veering into a postmodern take. If you feel threatened by people saying and doing those things, how do you think Palestinians and other Arabs feel about the sentiments of Stuart Seldowitz ? Do you think his racist views impacted his professional conduct around the Middle East, or is it just a coincidence that he holds those views and the Middle East has been ravaged by Western imperialism ?
How are the pro-Palestinian marches racist Freddie ?
Only 3 white settler projects bucked the postwar decolonisation – Rhodesia, South Africa and Israel. All three were closely allied and practicing the same forms of segregationist apartheid oppression. Claims that current protests against apartheid Israel are anti-Semitic should be compared to the practices of boycott and picketing that were applied to Rhodesia and South Africa. Not only do the anti-Semitism claims made by apartheid Israel supporters NOT make any sense in comparison to protests movements against Israel’s other racist sister countries. They do NOT make any sense in comparison to BLM deaths at the hands of the police and mosques firebombed. Nor were there British Jewish versions of the Irish Catholic Guildford 4 or Birmingham 6.
Not all claims are made in bad faith. Sadly some people are being whipped into hysterical anxiety by the nonsense published by the Jewish Chronicle – a newspaper that possibly holds some sort of record for libels?
@ Freddie
As a rule of thumb, I’ve always considered subjective feelings (“that’s racist!”) about objective facts aren’t GOOD evidence by and of themselves. Objective, verifiable proofs are necessary.
I’m wondering, for example, what your evidence IS for assessing with any rigour what “most Jews” think about anything quite as new as the weekly pro-Palestinian marches?
You might have evidence from a professional polling organisation (eg MORI) but I doubt whether public opinion has settled yet (the marches are new events) and locating all sections of Jewish society to poll them might be technically difficult.
The pro-Palestinian marches include strong delegations from across the spectrums of religious and secular Judaism. As the pro-Palestinian marches have attracted up to 10 times the numbers of those supporting the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism march, it seems likely more Jewish people participated in and approve of the pro-Palestinian marches and chants than its CAA counterpart. Clearly they didn’t find the marches racist or the chants threatening.
‘Freddie”s 28 November post was deeply upsetting and depressing for me. The self-interested entitlement and unverified claims within it are deplorable. ‘Freddie”s smarmy twisted representation of the original article is so like that of the smarmy hypocritical establishment mass media and is so altogether unlike the factual objective manner of our colleagues in JVL.