What does the decision “From the river to the ocean, Palestine can be free” imply to Palestinians who say it? And why do they hold utilizing the slogan regardless of the controversy that surrounds its use?
As each a scholar of Palestinian historical past and somebody from the Palestinian diaspora, I’ve noticed the decades-old phrase acquire new life – and scrutiny – within the huge pro-Palestinian marches within the US and around the globe which have occurred through the Israeli bombing marketing campaign within the Gaza Strip in retaliation for Hamas’ October 7 assault on Israel.
Professional-Israel teams, together with the US-based Anti-Defamation League, have labeled the phrase “antisemitic.” It has even led to a uncommon censure of Home Consultant Rashida Tlaib, the one Palestinian-American member of Congress, for utilizing the phrase.
However to Tlaib, and numerous others, the phrase isn’t anti-Semitic in any respect. Quite, it’s, in Tlaib’s phrases, “an aspirational name for freedom, human rights and peaceable coexistence.”
I can not converse to what’s within the coronary heart of each one who makes use of the phrase. However I can converse to what the phrase has meant to varied teams of Palestinians all through historical past, and the intent behind most individuals who use it right this moment.
Merely put, nearly all of Palestinians who use this phrase achieve this as a result of they imagine that, in 10 quick phrases, it sums up their private ties, their nationwide rights and their imaginative and prescient for the land they name Palestine. And whereas makes an attempt to police the slogan’s use could come from a spot of real concern, there’s a danger that tarring the slogan as anti-Semitic – and subsequently past the pale – faucets into an extended historical past of makes an attempt to silence Palestinian voices.
An expression of private ties
One motive for the phrase’s enchantment is that it speaks to Palestinians’ deep private ties to the land. They’ve lengthy recognized themselves – and each other – by the city or village in Palestine from which they got here.
And people locations stretched throughout the land, from Jericho and Safed close to the Jordan River within the east, to Jaffa and Haifa on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea within the west.
These deeply private ties had been handed down over generations by means of clothes, delicacies and refined variations in Arabic dialects which might be particular to places inside Palestine.
And people ties proceed right this moment. Youngsters and grandchildren of Palestinian refugees usually really feel a private connection to the particular locations their ancestors hailed from.
A requirement for nationwide rights
However the phrase is just not merely a reference to geography. It’s political.
“From the river to the ocean” additionally seeks to reaffirm Palestinians’ nationwide rights over their homeland and a need for a unified Palestine to kind the premise of an unbiased state.
When Palestine was underneath British colonial rule from 1917 to 1948, its Arab inhabitants objected strongly to partition proposals advocated by British and Zionist pursuits. That’s as a result of, buried deep within the proposals, had been stipulations that may have compelled a whole bunch of hundreds of Palestinian Arabs off their ancestral lands.
In 1946, the Delegation of Arab Governments proposed as a substitute a “unitary state” with a “democratic structure” that may assure “freedom of non secular follow” for all and would acknowledge “the proper of Jews to make use of the Hebrew language as a second official language.”
The next yr, the United Nations as a substitute accredited a partition plan for Palestine, which might have compelled 500,000 Palestinian Arabs residing within the proposed Jewish state to select between residing as a minority in their very own nation or leaving.
It’s on this context that the decision for a unified, unbiased Palestine emerges, in line with Arabic scholar Elliott Colla.
Throughout the 1948 warfare that led to the formation of the state of Israel, round 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or had been expelled from their villages and cities. By the top of the warfare, Palestine was cut up into three: 78% of the land grew to become a part of the Jewish state of Israel, whereas the rest fell underneath Jordanian or Egyptian rule.
Palestinian refugees believed that they had a proper to return to their houses within the new state of Israel. Israeli leaders, looking for to take care of the state’s Jewish majority, sought to have the refugees resettled far-off. In the meantime, a story emerged within the West within the Fifties claiming that Palestinians’ political claims had been invalid.
Future imaginative and prescient
Palestinians needed to discover a solution to each assert their nationwide rights and lay out an alternate imaginative and prescient for peace. After Israel occupied the West Financial institution, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip within the 1967 Arab-Israeli Warfare, the decision for a free Palestine “from the river to the ocean” began to acquire traction amongst those that believed that every one the land ought to be returned to the Palestinians.
But it surely quickly additionally got here to symbolize the imaginative and prescient of a secular democratic state with equality for all.
In 1969, the Palestinian Nationwide Council, the very best decision-making physique of the Palestinians in exile, formally known as for a “Palestinian democratic state” that may be “freed from all types of spiritual and social discrimination.”
This remained a well-liked imaginative and prescient amongst Palestinians, whilst a few of their leaders inched towards the concept of creating a truncated Palestinian state alongside Israel within the West Financial institution, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
Many Palestinians had been sceptical of this two-state resolution. For refugees exiled since 1948, a two-state resolution wouldn’t permit them to return to their cities and villages in Israel. Some Palestinian residents of Israel feared {that a} two-state resolution would depart them much more remoted as an Arab minority in a Jewish state.
Even Palestinians within the West Financial institution and Gaza Strip – those that stood probably the most to realize from a two-state resolution – had been lukewarm to the concept. A 1986 ballot discovered that 78% of respondents “supported the institution of a democratic-secular Palestinian state encompassing all of Palestine,” whereas solely 17% supported two states.
That helps explains why the decision for a free Palestine “from the river to the ocean” grew to become fashionable within the protest chants of the First Intifada, or Palestinian rebellion, from 1987 to 1992.
Notably, Hamas, an Islamist social gathering based in 1987, didn’t initially use “from the river to the ocean,” possible because of the phrase’s long-standing ties to Palestinian secular nationalism.
Two states or one?
The 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords led many to imagine {that a} two-state resolution was simply across the nook.
However as hopes for a two-state resolution dimmed, some Palestinians returned to the concept of a single, democratic state from the river to the ocean.
In the meantime, Hamas picked up the slogan, including the phrase “from the river to the ocean” to its 2017 revised constitution. The language was a part of Hamas’ broader efforts to realize legitimacy on the expense of its secular rival, Fatah, which was seen by many as having failed the Palestinian folks.
Right now, broad swaths of Palestinians nonetheless favour the concept of equality. A 2022 ballot discovered robust assist amongst Palestinians for the concept of a single state with equal rights for all.
Offensive phrase?
Maybe colored by Hamas’ use of the phrase, some have claimed it’s a genocidal name – the implication being that the slogan’s finish is looking for Palestine to be “free from Jews.” It’s comprehensible the place such fears come from, given the Hamas assaults on October 7 that killed 1,200 folks, in line with the Israeli overseas ministry.
However the Arabic unique, “Filastin hurra,” means liberated Palestine. “Free from” could be a special Arabic phrase altogether.
Different critics of the slogan insist that by denying Israel’s proper to exist as a Jewish state, the phrase itself is anti-Semitic. Below such pondering, protesters ought to as a substitute be calling for a Palestinian state that exists alongside Israel – and never one which replaces it.
However this could seemingly ignore the present actuality. There’s robust scholarly consensus {that a} two-state resolution is now not viable. They argue that the extent of settlement constructing within the West Financial institution and the financial circumstances in Gaza have eaten away on the cohesion and viability of any envisioned Palestinian state.
Additional demonisation
There’s one other argument towards the slogan’s use: That whereas not anti-Semitic in itself, the truth that some Jewish folks see it that manner – and as such see it as a risk – is sufficient for folks to desert its use.
However such an argument would, I contend, privilege the sentiments of 1 group over that of one other. And it dangers additional demonising and silencing Palestinian voices within the West.
Over the past month, Europe has seen what pro-Palestine advocates describe as an “unprecedented crackdown” on their activism. In the meantime, folks throughout the US are reporting widespread discrimination, retaliation and punishment for his or her pro-Palestinian views.
On November 14, George Washington College suspended the coed group College students for Justice in Palestine, partly as a result of the group projected the slogan “Free Palestine From the River to the Sea” on the campus library.
Precept, not platform
None of that is to say that the phrase “From the river to the ocean, Palestine can be free” doesn’t have a number of interpretations.
Palestinians themselves are divided over the particular political consequence they want to see of their homeland.
However that misses the purpose. Most Palestinians utilizing this chant don’t see it as advocating for a particular political platform or as belonging to a particular political group. Quite, nearly all of folks utilizing the phrase see it as a principled imaginative and prescient of freedom and coexistence.
Maha Nassar, Affiliate Professor within the Faculty of Center Japanese and North African Research, College of Arizona.
This text first appeared on The Dialog.