this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026
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I'm failing to see how the phrase "from the river to the sea", alone, can be considered a call to destroy Israel, let alone unequivocally genocidal. It seems like there's a lot of top-down reasoning required to arrive at that conclusion. I don't think there is genocidal intent on the deployment of those words on that woman's top. I think you assume too much. Israeli leaders, on the other hand, use unmistakably genocidal language. And then they also commit genocide. You don't get to both sides this issue with a very tenuous argument that this popular slogan is a call to genocide.
The phrase was created with the explicit intent to destroy Israel. We can equivocate about the intent to destroy Israel as being genocidal, but as I explain, Palestinian activists consider it genocidal intent when Israeli politicians talk of destroying Palestine, so I use their own standard. It may be that people who use this phrase do not intend destruction of Israel, but they are using a phrase which was created explicitly to call for the destruction of Israel. I don't accept that there is any good faith way to claim the term has been "reclaimed." If I say "heil Hitler," and follow it up with "but no genocide or any of the bad stuff Hitler did," it doesn't erase the first part of my sentence. In fact, the second part is antithetical to the first.
And the phrase "bless you" was created with the intent to banish demons out of your nose, but we still say it when you sneeze.
"From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", is what they chant. Calling that genocidal is Orwellian, mate. Get a grip.
This is like saying “I don’t see how the phrase “white power” alone can be considered a call to kill black people?” 🤣
It is a call to destroy/eliminate Israel. Don’t try to pretend it’s not.
No, it isn't like that. Because "white power" is used exclusively by extremists, whereby "from the river to the sea" is not. Do you see the difference there?
It is though. They might not think they're extremists, but they are.
People who are demanding an end to apartheid are extremists, you say. So apartheid, genocide, ethnonationalism, mowing the lawn, etc etc, are the norm, then? You're raving mad.