On US college campuses, on social media, and even in the halls of Congress, the 10-word slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is either a joyous call for Palestinian dignity and future statehood — or a threat to many Jewish people in Israel and around the world.
The slogan rhymes both in English and in Arabic — one modern Arabic version can be transliterated as “min al-nahr ila al-bahr / Filastin satatharrar” — and the river and sea in question are the Jordan in the east and the Mediterranean in the west. The phrase has been around in various iterations for a few decades. It’s only in the past five years or so, as US public support for Palestinians among younger demographics has steadily increased, that the phrase has become a flashpoint in the political debate about the future of Israel and Palestine.
Now, amid the Israel-Hamas war, the increased attention to the decades-long conflict over the land, and mass protests against Israel’s military operations in Gaza, those 10 words have suddenly become highly controversial.
Historians, experts, and activists who use and study it say iterations of the phrase have had many meanings over the course of the Palestinian national struggle. Some of those sources said that in the context most people at ceasefire rallies are using it today, it likely indicates a desire for Palestinian liberation and dignity — as well as a vision for the future in which Palestinians have equal rights in their homeland. But to many Jewish people, it’s a mortal threat to the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state.
Discourse around the phrase has become so extreme that Congress’s recent censure of its only Palestinian-American member, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), was driven in no small part by her use of it. The government of Berlin has criminalized the use of the slogan as well as other pro-Palestinian symbols and actions. And after yet another endorsement of anti-semitic conspiracy…
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