Don’t Buy the Right-Wing Disinformation Campaign on “From the River to the Sea”
Don’t Buy the Right-Wing Disinformation Campaign on “From the River to the Sea”
This phrase was never about killing Jews. It emerged in the 1960s as a call for equal rights within a democratic state.
The phrase originally came from secular Palestinian nationalists in the 1960s calling for a democratic secular state within the boundaries of what was the British Mandate for Palestine, encompassing Israel, the then-Jordanian controlled West Bank and the then-Egyptian administered Gaza Strip — that is, the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
The PLO of that era also advocated mass expulsion of Jews and their descendants except those who lived in Palestine before the late 19th century, and even that was ambiguous, so I don't know that "The phrase doesn't have any connotations of ethnic cleansing!" is really correct here.
Seems like often ambiguous topic seem like the things both sides of any argument focus on and dig heels in about.
You realize that before the British came in, all of the land there belong to Palestine, so the Palestinians working towards a secular state on land that was stolen from them is ethnic cleansing?
all of the land there belong to Palestine, so the Palestinians working towards a secular state on land that was stolen from them is ethnic cleansing?
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, "Yes, a solution that involves ethnic cleansing is ethnic cleansing" and the right to self-determination doesn't really affect that fact?
The land was changing hands for centuries: https://youtu.be/8tIdCsMufIY (and if we care about silly things about who was first, that would historically be Jews)
In fact before the British, it was actually owned by the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) which sided with the central powers in WW1. The British enrolled Palestinians and Jews to fight them and promised to give them that land in exchange for conquering it.
Edit: I meant WW1
Well no, before the British arrived the land belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Before that it belonged to the Byzantine/Eastern Roman empire, Roman Empire, Greece, Persia. It hasn't been a "free" land since at least the mid to early Iron Age.
Edit: Even then, it was only free from the end of the Bronze Age, where it was a smattering of city states either part of or beholden to primarily the whims of the Hittites, Egyptians or Assyrians.
Yes, but anglophone white people did it, so it doesn't count.
When British empire was there, it belonged to Britain, not Palestine.
Is the right-wing anything but a disinformation campaign at this point? Outside of "fuck em all to death" I'm not sure what (or even if) they have a platform anymore. Seems to just be raw hate.
There is exactly one state here that does a forced "from the river to the sea" people replacement campaign here, and it is not Palestina.
Adding the subtitle…
This phrase was never about killing Jews. It emerged in the 1960s as a call for equal rights within a democratic state.
The equal rights were 1947 borders set by the UN, which Arab nations rejected and started a war which they lost.
If you look at the map, "from the river to the sea" clearly means the whole area.
The original slogan also was "from the river to the sea Palestine is Islamic/Arab", but that would be far less catchy in the West.
As for equal rights in democratic state, that has to be a joke. Just look at population of Israel where almost 25% is Arabic and compare it to Palestine which is very homogenous.
Nethanyahu is a MF, far right politician that should spend the rest of his life in jail, but let's not pretend the other side are saints. They would would do exactly same (maybe even worse) if they had the means.
There are no good guys on either side of that conflict, just innocent people caught in the middle.
Just look at population of Israel where almost 25% is Arabic and compare it to Palestine
That's a bit like comparing the proportion of immigrant citizens in the wealthy US with those in its low income neighbour Mexico.
Only, if the US was also occupying most of Mexico and controlled who could enter or leave.
Tl; dr it says a lot more about the situation than it does about the wishes of the population.
The original slogan also was “from the river to the sea Palestine is Islamic/Arab”, but that would be far less catchy in the West.
From where do you get this belief? According to the Wikipedia editors the precise origin is unknown, but a variant matching your claim (except it's from the water to the water) was coexisting with the "sea"/"free" version (both in Arabic) in the 1980s.
As for equal rights in democratic state, that has to be a joke. Just look at population of Israel where almost 25% is Arabic and compare it to Palestine which is very homogenous.
Why would a Jewish person choose to live in a ghetto rather than Israel. They have innate right to citizenship in the modern wealthy country next door. The people living in Palestine are doing so either because they have a deep attachment to the land or because they don't have any other choice, not because it's an attractive place to live. What Israelis have lived there were settlers trying to take land, not integrate into the society. Maybe the Palestinians (which ones?) would implement their own apartheid, but there not being many non-Arabs in Palestine isn't at all an indication of anything.