This is just a myth
If your slogan implies genocide, as your example also does, yes it is hate speech. You cannot undo colonization by disposing the occupiers. Any nation is occupying some native land in one form or another.
mrdown@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Keeponstalin@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It is an emancipatory slogan that calls for an end to apartheid and for equal rights.
Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine-Israel program at the Arab Center Washington D.C., has written extensively about the meaning of the slogan before and since Hamas’s attacks on Oct. 7, which led to Israel’s current bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
“It’s an expression of Palestinian nationalism and it’s an expression of a demand for Palestinian freedom or self-determination,” said Waxman. “I think Palestinian self-determination need not come at the expense of Jewish self-determination. Nor do I think Palestinian freedom has to be considered a threat to Jewish rights.”
Simply put, the majority of Palestinians who use this phrase do so because they believe that, in 10 short words, it sums up their personal ties, their national rights and their vision for the land they call Palestine. And while attempts to police the slogan’s use may come from a place of genuine concern, there is a risk that tarring the slogan as antisemitic – and therefore beyond the pale – taps into a longer history of attempts to silence Palestinian voices.
The use of the phrase “from the river to the sea” has come under particular scrutiny in the last three months. When Palestinians, or anyone on the left, has used the phrase to demand a free Palestine—as in the popular chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”—those on the right have disingenuously argued that it is calling for the death of all Jewish people in Israel.
In 2021, the Palestinian-American writer Yousef Munayyer argued that those who saw genocidal ambition in the phrase, or indeed an unambiguous desire for the destruction of Israel, did so due to their own Islamophobia.
It was instead, he argued, merely a way to express a desire for a state in which “Palestinians can live in their homeland as free and equal citizens, neither dominated by others nor dominating them”.
Preventing any possibility of a Palestinian state has always been Israel’s policy, one that the settlement building in the Occupied Territories is meant to ensure. This policy has been intensified under Benjamin Netanyahu, who in January 2024 publicly vowed to resist any attempt to create a Palestinian state and to maintain Israeli control from the river to the sea.
It is often maintained that the slogan ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ expresses a genocidal and antisemitic intention. But this is generally not the case. On the contrary, the slogan has historically been used to articulate a wide variety of political strategies for Palestinian liberation
Denying such demands seems as self-evident to most Israeli Jews as the air they breathe. It is this denial that has led to the dehumanization of Palestinians and has culminated in the genocidal mood that is prevailing in Israeli Jewish society today and in the assault taking place now in Gaza. This should be viewed as the real problem and not the legitimate chant of ‘from the river to the sea: Palestine will be free’.
AudaciousArmadillo@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
If you want to say “Free Palestine”, you could say “Free Palestine”. “From the river to the sea” is also used by Israel and I bet I don’t have to convince you as hard that they aren’t talking about peaceful co-existance.
Keeponstalin@lemmy.world 3 days ago
fizzle@quokk.au 3 days ago
You’re going to have to elaborate on how “from the desert to the sea” implies genocide.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
It means there won’t be any Israelis left between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Hamas’s stated purpose for existing is to vanquish not only the state of Israel, but all Israelis and more broadly all Jews. That’s overtly genocidal.
And before you call me a zionist, I don’t support the Israeli government. What it’s doing to Palestinians is atrocious. But I’m capable of discerning between Israelis and the the Israeli government, just like I’m capable of discerning between Palestinians and Hamas.
Israelis and Palestinians alike deserve peace, justice, security, autonomy, and self-determinism, just like every other human being in the world deserves these things.
The Israeli government and Hamas, on the other hand, are both genocidal organizations and need to be replaced with something more civilized.
Aussieiuszko@aussie.zone 3 days ago
No it doesn’t. It means the land won’t be owned by Israel.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
And what do you think the plan is for all the Israeli civilians who are currently living there?
Do you expect a Hamas-led government to treat them with basic dignity and respect for human rights?
fizzle@quokk.au 3 days ago
The history of harassment, Palestine, and israel is largely irrelevant.
If a law prescribes (proscribes?) specific phrases regadless of intent and context, they should be chosen very, very carefully.
Im not an expert, but i think other states require a context like “intended to incite hatred”.
By prescribing this particular phrase, even if you are correct, it allows harassment to portray Palestine as ignored and persecuted - the very intention of terrorism.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
Should people be allowed to use nazi slogans at protests? What about racist slogans?
I understand it’s dicey to draw a line somewhere, but do you really believe hate speech should be protected as political speech? It’s a slippery slope either way, the trick is to find the point of balance.
And repeating a phrase which initial intent is to call for the eradication of an entire ethnic group is, in my opinion, on the side of the line that should be considered hate speech, promoting violence, and shouldn’t be protected.
The history of the conflict is indeed relevant. And the proscription of the phrase isn’t being done “regardless of intent and context.”
(By the way, ‘proscribe’ means to condemn something; ‘prescribe’ means doctor’s orders)
I’m not following the logic of your last paragraph.