During the demonstrations and marches that were in response to Israel’s collective punishment in response to the tragic events of Oct. 7th, 2023, chants of “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea” were denounced as anti-Semitic. But, the first article of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party reads:
The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.
The phrase originates in Deuteronomy, where ‘the river’ means the Euphrates (Deut. 11.24). The desire for ‘greater Israel’, which fed into the Likud party, includes not just the West Bank but Jordan and Egypt’s Sinai.
In the U.K., the Labour party issued a temporary punishment to a member of Parliament, Andy McDonald, for using the phrase during a rally at which he called for a stop to the I.O.F.’s bombardment. In a social media comment McDonald wrote:
We won’t rest until we have justice. Until all people, Israelis & Palestinians, between the river & the sea can live in peaceful liberty.
What on earth, we ask, is wrong with posting that!
