CLAIM: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” means “Destroy Israel and drive all the Jews into the sea.”
RATING:
Mostly false
When Palestinians (or their supporters) use the slogan “From the river to the sea”, it is by and large not a call for genocide. "One of the problems with the criticism of the slogan is that it imputes genocidal intent to Palestinians, and there's no evidence that the majority of Palestinians want to eliminate Jews from historical Palestine," said Sheryl Nestel, retired University of Toronto professor and member of advocacy group Independent Jewish Voices Canada.
In this 2019 video, everyday Palestinians are asked what this slogan means to them. None of them call for the killing of Jews. The vast majority of them mean a one-state solution from the river to the sea, like historic Palestine, and an end to the Israeli occupation. To be fair, some called for Jews to return to the countries from which they came (an ethnic cleansing), while others call for a country shared with Jews. What they all ultimately want though is to enjoy the same rights and freedoms as most of us enjoy—the rights they had before Israel was established.
There are probably some Palestinian leaders who would like to retake all of historic Palestine, whether they state this openly or not. But anyone demonizing them should equally demonize the many Israeli leaders who have explicitly said that they want exactly the same thing. Notably, the ruling Likud party’s guiding principles state that all of historic Palestine belongs to Jews and no one else.
One reply on “Israel-Palestine Mega Fact Check!”
Keep trying to invent history. The palis didn’t exist until the mid 1960s.
One other fun fact – every group, every political organization, and every government that has ever tried to destroy the Jews has been destroyed. Fun fact #2 Israel has never been stronger.