Comment on Mod of multi large world comms goes on attack against multiple users
Keeponstalin@lemmy.world 2 days agoIt is an emancipatory slogan that calls for an end to apartheid and for equal rights.
Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine-Israel program at the Arab Center Washington D.C., has written extensively about the meaning of the slogan before and since Hamas’s attacks on Oct. 7, which led to Israel’s current bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
“It’s an expression of Palestinian nationalism and it’s an expression of a demand for Palestinian freedom or self-determination,” said Waxman. “I think Palestinian self-determination need not come at the expense of Jewish self-determination. Nor do I think Palestinian freedom has to be considered a threat to Jewish rights.”
Simply put, the majority of Palestinians who use this phrase do so because they believe that, in 10 short words, it sums up their personal ties, their national rights and their vision for the land they call Palestine. And while attempts to police the slogan’s use may come from a place of genuine concern, there is a risk that tarring the slogan as antisemitic – and therefore beyond the pale – taps into a longer history of attempts to silence Palestinian voices.
The use of the phrase “from the river to the sea” has come under particular scrutiny in the last three months. When Palestinians, or anyone on the left, has used the phrase to demand a free Palestine—as in the popular chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”—those on the right have disingenuously argued that it is calling for the death of all Jewish people in Israel.
In 2021, the Palestinian-American writer Yousef Munayyer argued that those who saw genocidal ambition in the phrase, or indeed an unambiguous desire for the destruction of Israel, did so due to their own Islamophobia.
It was instead, he argued, merely a way to express a desire for a state in which “Palestinians can live in their homeland as free and equal citizens, neither dominated by others nor dominating them”.
Preventing any possibility of a Palestinian state has always been Israel’s policy, one that the settlement building in the Occupied Territories is meant to ensure. This policy has been intensified under Benjamin Netanyahu, who in January 2024 publicly vowed to resist any attempt to create a Palestinian state and to maintain Israeli control from the river to the sea.
It is often maintained that the slogan ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ expresses a genocidal and antisemitic intention. But this is generally not the case. On the contrary, the slogan has historically been used to articulate a wide variety of political strategies for Palestinian liberation
Denying such demands seems as self-evident to most Israeli Jews as the air they breathe. It is this denial that has led to the dehumanization of Palestinians and has culminated in the genocidal mood that is prevailing in Israeli Jewish society today and in the assault taking place now in Gaza. This should be viewed as the real problem and not the legitimate chant of ‘from the river to the sea: Palestine will be free’.
Serinus@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Look at the words. It’s not that complicated, no matter how much you try to obfuscate.
It’s calling for control of all the land “from the river to the sea”. Which means murder or displacement of the other side.
And the Israelis use it to mean the same thing, which is something a Zionist would never tell you.
The difference here is that Israel has the power to genocide and is actually committing genocide. That doesn’t make anyone else calling for genocide okay. There is no good side in this fight.
You still gonna call me a Zionist? Anyone who doesn’t agree with you 100%?
Keeponstalin@lemmy.world 2 days ago
No, it’s pretty clear. It means an end to Apartheid and equal rights. That means equal rights for everyone. Right of return across all of historic Palestine.
It’s a One-state reality already. Like with South Africa, ending the Apartheid did not mean the murder or mass displacement of the white settlers. That mentality of mass murder and mass displacement is entirely the projection of the sick mentality of the settler colonialists.
They have zero issues calling for the complete expulsion of Palestinians. That’s been the case from the origins of Zionism to present day.
The Palestinian slogan is, once again, not a call for genocide. You have five articles to learn more, why don’t you take them seriously?
Just stop repeating Zionist misinformation, it’s not that difficult, especially when provided sources.
Serinus@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Supporting Palestine shouldn’t mean sanewashing Palestine. They’re angry. They have reason to be angry, and it’s an angry slogan.
It’s saying “all this land will be ours”, and anyone who is honest can see it isn’t about sharing.
Keeponstalin@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It’s an emancipatory slogan.
Now you’re repeatedly refusing to engage with the sources because you know they prove you wrong
It’s saying ‘Palestine will be free.’
You’re the one falsely attributing that as “all this land will be ours” while also falsely implying that ‘ours’ would exclude Jewish people. You’re the one falsely conflating anti-zionism with antisemitism.
Again, actually taking the sources seriously clarifies all of this.