Mick Hartley

Daniel Ben-Ami at Spiked sets the record straight – ‘From the river to the sea’ is a call for genocide:

The debate over the meaning of the anti-Israel slogan, ‘From the river to the sea’, has been ferocious. Many of Israel’s opponents claim it is a call for freedom and peaceful co-existence, while Israel’s supporters tend to argue that it is a coded call for genocide.

What is not in question is the literal meaning of the slogan. It refers to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. That covers Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza strip. No doubt a significant number of the more naïve anti-Israel marchers chant it without knowing its meaning. It is a fair bet that many of them could not even name the river and the sea to which it refers.

It is also a deliberately ambiguous slogan. In the abstract, it sounds innocuous. It is not an overt call for genocide or a clear demand for a Palestinian state. It could be interpreted as such, but it could be interpreted in other ways, too. Some say it’s a call for an Islamised Palestine, while others say it’s a call for a potential bi-national state of Israelis and Palestinians. It is this ambiguity which fuels the debate about exactly what the slogan means.

But for Islamists, its meaning is not in question. Its intent is avowedly genocidal. Time and again, Islamist organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah have openly stated that their goal is to slaughter Jews. This is why Hezbollah hailed Hamas’s pogrom in southern Israel on 7 October as a spectacular success. Indeed, that pogrom was welcomed by Islamist groups around the world, including the most important of all – the Muslim Brotherhood, based in Egypt. Salah Abdel-Haq, its acting leader, said: ‘We congratulate our Palestinian people and our Arab and Islamic nation for this crowning victory in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood [the 7 October pogrom] by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades [the armed units of Hamas] and Palestinian factions.’

From an Islamist perspective, the creation of an Islamised Palestine is a precondition for the ultimate goal of an international Islamist order. This transitional goal necessarily entails the slaughter and subjugation of Jews living in the area. Indeed, the idea of Jews as a form of cosmic evil is central to Islamist doctrine. A genocidal anti-Semitism is at the core of this ideology.

It's possible that many of the "soft left" marchers believe it to be an innocent call for peace and harmony. Some – most? – don't even know which river they're chanting about. But in the current context of the Hamas pogrom, there should be no room to doubt what's being called for.

What is so troubling about this debate is that far too many Western fellow travellers know precisely what is meant by the slogan, but they still refuse to challenge it. They are rehabilitating anti-Semitism, whether they will admit it or not.