this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026
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If your interpretation of "Palestine will be free" somehow includes killing people because they're Jewish, then you're telling on yourself.
It's really simple, and didn't require a text wall to explain.
Additionally, genocidal speech is a crime, or evidence thereof at least, and rightly so.
This is not part of the original call to action. That is a modern addition used very selectively. It is frequently omitted, as we see on the t-shirt on the activist in the article. Selectively adding a nice phrase on the end of a very bad phrase doesn't erase the original meaning, intent, and history of the phrase.
Please also note that I did not suggest that the slogan is a call to kill all Jews. The slogan is a call to destroy Israel. Those are not mutually inclusive. Palestinian activists argue that when right wing Israelis call for the destruction of Palestine, that does constitute intent to commit genocide, and I agree. So I don't have much tolerance for hypocrisy on this. I find the call to destroy any nation - be it Israel or Palestine - to be incredibly immoral.
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.
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.
People demanding Israel be eliminated, which is what the saying means, are extremists, correct.
I'm not sure if you're aware of how language works, but I am. And I can assure you, your statement is not true, particularly the part you have italicised. This is not as simple as you think it is or would like it to be.
I hope one day you realise how mistaken you are.
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.
Bad example. The intent was good and it remains good.
Many do not. Many drop the second part entirely. For example, the t-shirt on the girl in this very video that we are discussing. Either way, adding a nice phrase to the end of a genocidal phrase doesn't make the genocide part less bad.
Accusation reversal. "The genocidees would be genociders if the role were reversed" aka "they deserved it".
How does it feel being a genocide apologist?
I don't know. How does it feel to be a genocide apologist? Rape and murder is always bad, and I think your defense of atrocities because they're committed by your "side" is abhorrent.
Like those babies who got raped on the 7th of october, according to the genociders?
Piece of shit. You really believe everything your little massmurdering nation is telling you dont ya?
Whataboutism re baby rape is next level evil.
whatever simp. Arabs eat babies for breakfast you know that
It's not a bad example, and I credit you with the intelligence to understand the principle the example is driving at, which you are choosing to ignore, that is: meanings change.
Do you really believe that girl made that t-shirt with genocidal intent? Do you think she wants Israelis wiped out?
Yea Israel is genociding the palestinians, not the other way around. Quit being a negationist
The same Wikipedia article hints at both Zionist and Palestinian use of a similar phrase even before PLO adopted it, so I am not sure if we can just plainly state that the cited sentiment is the original one behind this phrase.
I have a honest question though - if one calls for a one state solution, would you say that it always entails destroying one or the other?
In my imagination, even if it’s quite naïve, if there ever was a peaceful one-state resolution to this mess, it would indeed require superseding the ethno-state of Israel, but I don’t think it would necessarily be a destruction per se - similarly when the Russian Empire was superseded by the USSR, one could say that the Empire was destroyed but to me it was more of a regime change and policy shift (of course forced by a brutal civil war, but still, I don’t think it was destruction in a way we’d normally imagine when hearing the word). The Russian state essentially persisted, just in a different form.
When Menachem Begin’s Likud party won the 1977 elections, its official platform explicitly laid out a vision for the land that excluded any possibility of a Palestinian state. The relevant section states: "The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable... therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." It sounds kind of similar, and has been used by right wing parties since at various times. I condemn its use by them too.
This would require a 300 page document to answer. To shorten it, it would depend on things like the structure of the plan, the intent, the citizens involved, the negotiations, the history, and many other factors. As I have heard a one-state solution described by both Israel and Palestine leaders, they don't want that. They want the other state to dissolve and be replaced by their respective states. Their positions are so unbelievably intractable it is impossible to ever envision a one-state solution.
When I was younger I believed that a one-state solution were possible, but things have only deteriorated in my lifetime and having had long conversations with citizens of both nations, I cannot ever conceive of such a plan working. They hold a level of hatred for each other that is generational, built by collective trauma and pain, oppositional religious views which are extremely dogmatic, and a history which is literally Biblical.
Thanks for your perspective
And yours.
Except one state is the colonist and the other is getting genocided. How does it feel twosiding a genocide
I'm referring to Hamas' "one state" solutions they have proposed.
Rightly so. Israeli are colonists and land thiefs.
Thank you for proving my point. Many activists do indeed want to destroy Israel. Clearly Israel is never going to say, "sure thing!" So the region will remain at war.
You really like your genocidal state dont you?
Blink 3 times if they have recording of your holidays on jeffrey island
You really like raping and murdering people, apparently.
Yes, I do rape your mum for breakfast.
She likes it.
Just kidding unlike you I'm not a colonist
There's no war. There's a genocide. Which you support
When Palestine began the most recent war, it committed the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Some of their first victims were innocent young people at a music festival who supported the Palestinian cause. The Palestinians raped and murdered them en masse.
It's a war, and both sides are committing atrocities. Innocent bystanders are caught in the crossfire on both sides. If I understand your argument correctly, do I understand that you support raping and murdering innocent Jews?
Nooooo? Who knew shoving people in camps could push them into extremism am I right?
I support raping and murdering of your mum mate. She did bad things in life. Not avorting for example