A land without a people for a people without a land

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Bust of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, by F. Winter, 1886. In the collection of the Dorset Museum, Dorchester.

"A land without a people for a people without a land" is a widely cited phrase associated with the movement to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine during the 19th and 20th centuries. Its historicity and significance are a matter of contention.

Although it became a Jewish Zionist slogan, the phrase was originally used as early as 1843 by a Christian Restorationist clergyman, and the phrase continued to be used for almost a century predominantly by Christian Restorationists.

Alan Dowty and Diana Muir have claimed that this phrase never came into widespread use among Jewish Zionists. Anita Shapira stated to the contrary that it "was common among Zionists at the end of the nineteenth, and the beginning of the twentieth century."

History

Rev. Dr. Alexander Keith

An early use of the phrase was by Christian clergyman and Restorationist Rev. Alexander Keith, D.D.. Following an expedition to Ottoman Palestine in 1839, Keith published a retrospective of his journey—The Land of Israel—in 1843. Keith wrote of the Jews:

Therefore are they wanderers throughout the world, who have nowhere found a place on which the sole of their foot could rest—a people without a country; even as their own land, as subsequently to be shown, is in a great measure a country without a people.

Its most common paraphrase, "A land without a people and a people without a land", appeared soon thereafter in print in an 1844 review of Keith's book in a Scottish Free Church magazine.

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, in July 1853, who was President of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews wrote to Prime Minister Aberdeen that Greater Syria was "a country without a nation" in need of "a nation without a country... Is there such a thing? To be sure there is, the ancient and rightful lords of the soil, the Jews!" In May of the following year, he wrote in his diary "Syria is 'wasted without an inhabitant'; these vast and fertile regions will soon be without a ruler, without a known and acknowledged power to claim dominion. The territory must be assigned to some one or other... There is a country without a nation; and God now, in His wisdom and mercy, directs us to a nation without a country". In 1875, Shaftesbury told the annual general meeting of the Palestine Exploration Fund that "We have there a land teeming with fertility and rich in history, but almost without an inhabitant – a country without a people, and look! scattered over the world, a people without a country".

Variant phrasings in use in the pre-Zionist and pre-state eras include "a country without a people for a people without a country," "a land without a nation for a nation without a land." According to Edward Said, the phrasing was "a land without people for a people without a land."

Use of the phrase

Use of the phrase by Christian Zionists and proponents of a Jewish return to the land

William Eugene Blackstone

William Eugene Blackstone (born 1841) became an evangelist at the age of 37. A trip to the Holy Land in 1881 made him into a passionate restorationist. Like most people in the 1880s and 90s, he was appalled by the government-instigated pogroms being carried out against Russian Jews.

The Blackstone Memorial, an 1891 statement of support for making Palestine a Jewish state, was signed by hundreds of prominent Americans and received wide attention. Although the Memorial did not contain the phrase "land without a people", shortly after returning from his trip to Palestine in 1881 Blackstone wrote, in the context of his concern over the fate of the Jews of Russia, "And now, this very day, we stand face to face with the awful dilemma, that these millions cannot remain where they are, and yet have no other place to go... This phase of the question presents an astonishing anomaly – a land without a people, and a people without a land".

John Lawson Stoddard, a popular speaker and author of travel books, published an 1897 travelogue in which he exhorts the Jews, "You are a people without a country; there is a country without a people. Be united. Fulfil the dreams of your old poets and patriarchs. Go back, go back to the land of Abraham".

According to Adam Garfinkle what Keith, Shaftesbury, Blackstone, Stoddard and the other nineteenth century Christians who used this phrase were saying was that the Holy Land was not the seat of a nation in the way that Japan is the land of the Japanese and Denmark is the land of the Danes. The Arabic-speaking Muslim and Christian inhabitants of the "Holy Land" did not, in the view of European and American Christians of that era, appear to constitute a people or nation defined by their attachment to Palestine, they appeared, rather, to be part of the larger Arab, Armenian or Greek peoples.

Use of the phrase by Israel Zangwill

Israel Zangwill, who was initially Zionist but soon became a prominent Anti-Zionist and advocate of assimilationism, was one of the most prolific users of the phrase. In 1901 in the New Liberal Review, Zangwill wrote that "Palestine is a country without a people; the Jews are a people without a country". In a debate at the Article Club in November of that year, Zangwill said "Palestine has but a small population of Arabs and fellahin and wandering, lawless, blackmailing Bedouin tribes." "Restore the country without a people to the people without a country. (Hear, hear.) For we have something to give as well as to get. We can sweep away the blackmailer—be he Pasha or Bedouin—we can make the wilderness blossom as the rose, and build up in the heart of the world a civilisation that may be a mediator and interpreter between the East and the West." In 1902, Zangwill wrote that Palestine "remains at this moment an almost uninhabited, forsaken and ruined Turkish territory".

However, within a few years, Zangwill's views changed and his use of the phrase took on a much different tone. Having "become fully aware of the Arab peril," he told an audience in New York, "Palestine proper has already its inhabitants. The pashalik of Jerusalem is already twice as thickly populated as the United States," leaving Zionists the choice of driving the Arabs out or dealing with a "large alien population." He moved his support to the Uganda scheme, leading to a break with the mainstream Zionist movement by 1905. In 1908, Zangwill told a London court that he had been naive when he made his 1901 speech and had since "realized what is the density of the Arab population", namely twice that of the United States. In 1913 he went even further, attacking those who insisted on repeating that Palestine was "empty and derelict" and who called him a traitor for reporting otherwise.

According to Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Zangwill told him in 1916 that, "If you wish to give a country to a people without a country, it is utter foolishness to allow it to be the country of two peoples. This can only cause trouble. The Jews will suffer and so will their neighbours. One of the two: a different place must be found either for the Jews or for their neighbours".

In 1917 he wrote "'Give the country without a people,' magnanimously pleaded Lord Shaftesbury, 'to the people without a country.' Alas, it was a misleading mistake. The country holds 600,000 Arabs."

In 1921 Zangwill wrote "If Lord Shaftesbury was literally inexact in describing Palestine as a country without a people, he was essentially correct, for there is no Arab people living in intimate fusion with the country, utilizing its resources and stamping it with a characteristic impress: there is at best an Arab encampment, the break-up of which would throw upon the Jews the actual manual labor of regeneration and prevent them from exploiting the fellahin, whose numbers and lower wages are moreover a considerable obstacle to the proposed immigration from Poland and other suffering centers".

Use of the phrase by Jewish Zionists

In 1914 Chaim Weizmann, later president of the World Zionist Congress and the first president of the state of Israel said: "In its initial stage Zionism was conceived by its pioneers as a movement wholly depending on mechanical factors: there is a country which happens to be called Palestine, a country without a people, and, on the other hand, there exists the Jewish people, and it has no country. What else is necessary, then, than to fit the gem into the ring, to unite this people with this country? The owners of the country [the Ottoman Turks?] must, therefore, be persuaded and convinced that this marriage is advantageous, not only for the [Jewish] people and for the country, but also for themselves".

Assertions that it was not a Jewish Zionist slogan

Historian Alan Dowty quoted Garfinkle that the phrase was not used by Zionist leaders other than Zangwill.

Diana Muir argued that the phrase was nearly absent from pre-state Zionist literature, writing that, with the exception of Zangwill, "It is not evident that this was ever the slogan of any Zionist organization or that it was employed by any of the movement's leading figures. A mere handful of the outpouring of pre-state Zionist articles and books use it. For a phrase that is so widely ascribed to Zionist leaders, it is remarkably hard to find in the historical record". She proposes that: "Unless or until evidence comes to light of its wide use by Zionist publications and organizations, the assertion that 'a land without a people for a people without a land' was a 'widely-propagated Zionist slogan' should be retired".

Adam Garfinkle similarly doubts that the phrase was in widespread use among Zionists. After affirming that this was a phrase in use among Christians, he writes "If there were early Zionists who validated that phrase, however, they did not do so easily or for long."

Use of the phrase by opponents of Zionism

The phrase has been widely cited by politicians and political activists objecting to Zionist claims, including the Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, who stated that "Palestine is not a land without a people for a people without a land!"^[26] On 13 November 1974, PLO leader Yasir Arafat told the United Nations, "It pains our people greatly to witness the propagation of the myth that its homeland was a desert until it was made to bloom by the toil of foreign settlers, that it was a land without a people."^[27] In its 14 November 1988 "Declaration of Independence," the Palestinian National Council accused "local and international forces" of "attempts to propagate the lie that 'Palestine is a land without a people.'"^[28] Salman Abu Sitta, founder and president of the Palestine Land Society, calls the phrase "a wicked lie in order to make the Palestinian people homeless."^[29] Hanan Ashrawi has called this phrase evidence that the Zionists "sought to deny the very existence and humanity of the Palestinians."^[30]

According to Diana Muir, the earliest identified use of the phrase by an opponent of Zionism occurred shortly after the British government issued the Balfour Declaration. Muir also cites other pre-statehood uses, including one in 1918 by Ameer Rihami, a Lebanese-American, Christian Arab nationalist, who wrote that "I would even say ... 'Give the land without a people to the people without a land' if Palestine were really without a people and if the Jews were really without a land". Rihami argued that Jews needed no homeland in Palestine because they enjoyed everywhere else "equal rights and equal opportunity, to say the least". And a use by someone she describes as an early twentieth-century academic Arabist who wrote that, "Their very slogan, 'The land without a people for the people without a land,' was an insult to Arabs of the country". American journalist William McCrackan said, "We used to read in our papers the slogan of Zionism, 'to give back a people to a Land without a People,' while the truth was that Palestine was already well-peopled with a population which was rapidly increasing from natural causes".

Interpretation of the phrase by scholars

Scholarly opinion on the meaning of the phrase is divided.

An expression of the Zionist vision of an empty land

A common interpretation of the phrase has been as an expression of the land being empty of inhabitants. Others have argued that in the phrase, "a people" is defined as a nation.

Historian Keith Whitelam and Christian activist Mitri Raheb claim that Zionists used this phrase to present Palestine as being "without inhabitants".

Literary scholar Edward Said, who held it to exemplify a kind of thinking that hopes to "cancel and transcend an actual reality—a group of resident Arabs—by means of a future wish—that the land be empty for development by a more deserving power". In his book The Question of Palestine, Said cites the phrase in this wording, "A land without people for a people without a land". S. Ilan Troen and Jacob Lassner call Said's omission of the indefinite article "a" in "a people" a "distortion" of the meaning and suggest that it was done "perhaps malevolently" for the purpose of making the phrase acquire the meaning that Said and others impute to it, that Zionists thought that the land was or wanted to make it into a land "without people". Historian Adam Garfinkle criticizes Said for writing "without people" instead of "without a people", which he says substantially changes the meaning.

Historian Rashid Khalidi concurs with Said, interpreting the slogan as expressing the Zionist claim that Palestine was empty: "In the early days of the Zionist movement, many of its European supporters—and others—believed that Palestine was empty and sparsely cultivated. This view was widely propagated by some of the movement's leading thinkers and writers, such as Theodor Herzl, Chaim Nachman Bialik, and Max Mandelstamm. It was summed up in the widely propagated Zionist slogan, 'A land without a people for a people without a land'". Muir criticized Khalidi for failing to acknowledge the distinction between "a people" and people. Citing two examples of Khalidi's understanding of "a people" as a phrase referring to an ethnically identified population, she charges Khalidi with "misunderstand(ing) the phrase 'a people' only when discussing the phrase 'land without a people.'"

Norman Finkelstein interprets the phrase as an attempt by Zionists to deny a Palestinian nation. Historian Avi Shlaim states that the slogan employed by Zangwill was used for propaganda purposes, but that from the outset Zionist leaders were aware that "their aim of establishing a Jewish state in a territory inhabited by an Arab community could not be achieved without inducing, by one means or another, a large number of Arabs to leave Palestine."

Anita Shapira wrote that the phrase was common among Zionists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and "contained a legitimation of the Jewish claim to the land and did away with any sense of uneasiness that a competitor to this claim might appear". Boaz Neumann also wrote that the early Zionist pioneers used the phrase, citing a book of David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. The writings of Zionist pioneers (Halutzim) were full of expressions of Palestine as an empty and desolate land.

An expression of the intention of ethnic cleansing

Historian Nur Masalha regards the phrase as evidence of a Zionist intention of carrying out a program of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arab population – a program euphemistically called "transfer". According to Masalha, Zionist demographic "racism" and Zionist obsession with the Palestinian "demographic threat" have "informed the thinking of Israeli officials since the creation of the state of Israel".

An expression of the wish that the Arabs would go away

Ghada Karmi and Eugene Cotran interpret the phrase as part of a deliberate ignoring, not expressing a lack of awareness of the existence of Palestinian Arabs on the part of Zionists and, later, Israelis, but, rather, the fact that Zionists and Israelis preferred to pretend that Palestinian Arabs did not exist and the fact that Jews wished they would go away. Nur Masalha, contributing to an edited collection by Ghada Karmi and Eugene Cotran, cites Israel's leading satirist Dan Ben-Amotz, who observed that "the Arabs do not exist in our textbooks [for children]. This is apparently in accordance with the Jewish-Zionist-socialist principles we have received. "A-people-without-a-land-returns-to-a-land-without-people".

An expression of the non-existence of a Palestinian nation

Another group of scholars interprets the phrase as an expression of the contentious assertion that, in the nineteenth century and the twentieth century up to WWI, the Arabs living in Palestine did not constitute a self-conscious national group, "a people".

Historian Gertrude Himmelfarb wrote that "Shaftesbury, like the later Zionists, clearly meant by 'people' a recognizable people, a nation."

Historian Gudrun Krämer writes that the phrase was a political argument that many mistakenly took to be a demographic argument. "What it meant was not that there were no people in Palestine... Rather, it meant that the people living in Palestine were not a people with a history, culture, and legitimate claim to national self-determination... Palestine contained people, but not a people".

Steven Poole, in a book about the use of language as a weapon in politics, explains the phrase this way, "The specific claim was not the blatantly false one that the territory was unpopulated, nor that those living there were not human, but that they did not constitute 'a people', in other words, it was argued that they had no conception of nationhood in the modern western sense".

According to historian Adam M. Garfinkle, the plain meaning of the phrase was that the Jews were a nation without a state while their ancestral homeland, Israel, was at that time (the nineteenth century) not the seat of any nation.

Columbia University professor Gil Eyal writes "In fact, the inverse is true. Zionists never stopped debating Palestinian nationalism, arguing with it and about it, judging it, affirming or negating its existence, pointing to its virtues or vices... The accusation of 'denial' is simplistic and disregards the historical phenomenon of a polemical discourse revolving around the central axis provided by Arab or Palestinian nationalism..."

As an efficiency-based territorial claim

Political theorist Tamar Meisels regards the argument made by the slogan as falling into a category of Lockean efficiency-based territorial claims in which nation states including Australia, Argentina, and the United States argue their right to territory on the grounds that the fact that these lands can support many more people under their government than were supported by the methods of the aboriginal peoples confers a right of possession.

Peel Commission

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Report of the Palestine Royal Commission
Peel Commission Partition Plan, July 1937. Areas enclosed within the red line were part of the proposed Jewish state. The black line with hatched area represents an "enclave" (or "corridor") that was proposed as an international zone to remain under British control and administration, in recognition of Jerusalem's religious and historical importance to Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
Created	July 1937
Purpose	Investigation of the causes of the 1936 Arab revolt in Palestine

The Peel Commission, formally known as the Palestine Royal Commission, was a British Royal Commission of Inquiry, headed by Lord Peel, appointed in 1936 to investigate the causes of conflict in Mandatory Palestine, which was administered by the United Kingdom, following a six-month-long Arab general strike.

On 7 July 1937, the commission published a report that, for the first time, stated that the League of Nations Mandate had become unworkable and recommended partition. The British cabinet endorsed the Partition plan in principle, but requested more information. Following the publication, in 1938 the Woodhead Commission was appointed to examine it in detail and recommend an actual partition plan.

The Arabs opposed the partition plan and condemned it unanimously. The Arab Higher Committee opposed the idea of a Jewish state and called for an independent state of Palestine, "with protection of all legitimate Jewish and other minority rights and safeguarding of reasonable British interests". They also demanded cessation of all Jewish immigration and land purchase. They argued that the creation of a Jewish state and lack of independent Palestine was a betrayal of the word given by Britain.

The Zionist leadership was bitterly divided over the plan. In a resolution adopted at the 1937 Zionist Congress, the delegates rejected the specific partition plan. Yet the principle of partition is generally thought to have been "accepted" or "not rejected outright" by any major faction: the delegates empowered the leadership to pursue future negotiations. The Jewish Agency Council later attached a request that a conference be convened to explore a peaceful settlement in terms of an undivided Palestine. According to Benny Morris, Ben-Gurion and Weizmann saw it "as a stepping stone to some further expansion and the eventual takeover of the whole of Palestine".

History

Palestine Royal Commission Cmd 5479

With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, The United Kingdom was given a mandate by the League of Nations to administer the region known as Palestine. The mandate continued in force until the United Kingdom withdrew from it in 1948. The solution led to other problems, however, as the British sought to honor the Balfour Declaration while protecting the rights of the prior inhabitants of the territory. The British government investigated numerous possibilities for the region, including partition.

The commission was established at a time of increased violence; serious clashes between Arabs and Jews broke out in 1936 and were to last three years. On 11 November 1936, the commission arrived in Palestine to investigate the reasons behind the uprising. The commission was charged with determining the cause of the riots, and judging the grievances of both sides. Chaim Weizmann made a speech on behalf of the Jews. On 25 November 1936, testifying before the Peel Commission, Weizmann said that there are in Europe 6,000,000 Jews ... "for whom the world is divided into places where they cannot live and places where they cannot enter."

The Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, testified in front of the commission, opposing any partition of Arab lands with the Jews. He demanded full cessation of Jewish immigration. Although the Arabs continued to boycott the Commission officially, there was a sense of urgency to respond to Weizmann's appeal to restore calm. The former Mayor of Jerusalem Ragheb Bey al-Nashashibi—who was the Mufti's rival in the internal Palestinian arena, was thus sent to explain the Arab perspective through unofficial channels.

In 1981 it was disclosed that the Jewish Agency Executive Political Department had installed microphones in the room in which the commission was meeting and Ben Gurion was able to read transcripts of evidence held in camera.

Membership

The Chairman of the Commission was William Peel, 1st Earl Peel and the Vice-Chairman was Sir Horace Rumbold, 9th Baronet. The other members were Sir Laurie Hammond, Sir Morris Carter, Sir Harold Morris, and Reginald Coupland.

Conclusions

Lord Peel, 1936

Chaim Weizmann giving evidence

The causes of the Arab rebellion that broke out in the previous year were judged to be

First, the desire of the Arabs for national independence; secondly, their antagonism to the establishment of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, quickened by their fear of Jewish domination. Among contributory causes were the effect on Arab opinion of the attainment of national independence by ‘Iraq, Trans-Jordan, Egypt, Syria and the Lebanon; the rush of Jewish immigrants escaping from Central and Eastern Europe; the inequality of opportunity enjoyed by Arabs and Jews respectively in placing their case before Your Majesty’s Government and the public; the growth of Arab mistrust; Arab alarm at the continued purchase of Arab land by the intensive character and the "modernism" of Jewish nationalism; and lastly the general uncertainty, accentuated by the ambiguity of certain phrases in the Mandate, as to the ultimate intentions of the Mandatory Power.

The Commission found that the drafters of the Mandate could not have foreseen the advent of massive Jewish immigration, that they considered due to "drastic restriction of immigration into the United States, the advent of the National Socialist Government in Germany in 1933 and the increasing economic pressure on the Jews in Poland." They wrote that "The continued impact of a highly intelligent and enterprising race, backed by large financial resources, on a comparatively poor indigenous community, on a different cultural level, may produce in time serious reactions."

The Commission found that "though the Arabs have benefited by the development of the country owing to Jewish immigration, this has had no conciliatory effect. On the contrary, improvement in the economic situation in Palestine has meant the deterioration of the political situation". Addressing the "Arab charge that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained", the Commission noted that "Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamp and uncultivated when it was purchased." They write that "The shortage of land is, we consider, due less to the amount of land acquired by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population". "Endeavours to control the alienation of land by Arabs to Jews have not been successful. In the hills there is no more room for further close settlement by Jews; in the plains it should only be allowed under certain restrictions."

The Commission stated that Government have attempted to discharge the contradictory obligations of the Mandatory under conditions of great difficulty by "holding the balance" between Jews and Arabs. Repeated attempts to conciliate either race have only increased the trouble. The situation in Palestine has reached a deadlock. Development of local autonomy and selfgoverning institutions, this also has been hampered.

The Commission concluded that the prospect of a unified Palestine with Jews and Arabs as fellow citizens in a common state was remote due to the highly nationalistic natures of the two communities. On the nature of the Yishuv, it wrote that:

"The Jewish National Home is no longer an experiment. The growth of its population has been accompanied by political, social and economic developments along the lines laid down at the outset. The chief novelty is the urban and industrial development. The contrast between the modern democratic and primarily European character of the National Home and that of the Arab world around it is striking. The temper of the Home is strongly nationalist. There can be no question of fusion or assimilation between Jewish and Arab cultures. The National Home cannot be half-national."

It also concluded that such a prospect was growing less realistic with time due to the nature of the Jewish education system, which was causing a rise in Jewish nationalism, writing that "from the ages of three or four years, when children enter the kindergarten to be taught Hebrew if they do not know it already, pride in the past of Jewry and in the National Home as an exclusively and intensely Jewish achievement is the dynamic centre-point of their whole intellectual development. The idea that they are to share their life in any way with the Arabs, that they are growing up to be fellow-citizens with Arabs in a common Palestinian state, is only recognised in the teaching of a little Arabic in the secondary schools... So far, in fact, from facilitating a better understanding between the races, the Jewish educational system is making it more and more difficult as, year by year, its production of eager Jewish nationalists mounts up."

The committee concluded that Arab nationalism was also a potent force and that the two communities were more loyal to their own national leaderships than the Palestine administration:

"Arab nationalism is as intense a force as Jewish. The Arab leaders' demand for national self-government and the shutting down of the Jewish National Home has remained unchanged since 1929. Like Jewish nationalism, Arab nationalism is stimulated by the educational system and by the growth of the Youth Movement. It has also been greatly encouraged by the recent Anglo-Egyptian and Franco-Syrian Treaties. The gulf between the races is thus already wide and will continue to widen if the present Mandate is maintained. The position of the Palestine Government between the two antagonistic communities is unenviable. There are two rival bodies – the Arab Higher Committee allied with the Supreme Moslem Council on the one hand, and the Jewish Agency allied with the Va'ad Leumi on the other – who make a stronger appeal to the natural loyalty of the Arab and the Jews than does the Government of Palestine. The sincere attempts of the Government to treat the two races impartially have not improved the relations between them. Nor has the policy of conciliating Arab opposition been successful. The events of last year proved that conciliation is useless."

The summary report statement concerning the possibility of lasting settlement states: "An irrepressible conflict has arisen between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country. There is no common ground between them. Their national aspirations are incompatible. The Arabs desire to revive the traditions of the Arab golden age. The Jews desire to show what they can achieve when restored to the land in which the Jewish nation was born. Neither of the two national ideals permits of combination in the service of a single State.

Recommendations

The Commission reached the conclusion that the Mandate had become unworkable and must be abolished in favour of partition, as the only solution to the Arab-Jewish "deadlock". It outlined ten points on: a Treaty system between the Arab and Jewish States and the new Mandatory Government; a Mandate for the Holy places; the frontiers; the need for Inter-State Subvention; the need for British Subvention; tariffs and ports; nationality; civil service; Industrial concessions; and the exchange of land and populations.

A Treaty system based on the Iraqi-Syrian precedent, proposed: Permanent mandates for the Jerusalem area and "corridor" stretching to the Mediterranean coast at Jaffa—and the land under its authority (and accordingly, the transfer of both Arab and Jewish populations) be apportioned between an Arab and Jewish state. The Jewish side was to receive a territorially smaller portion in the mid-west and north, from Mount Carmel to south of Be'er Tuvia, as well as the Jezreel Valley and the Galilee, while the Arab state linked with Trans-Jordan was to receive territory in the south and mid-east which included Judea, Samaria, and the sizable Negev desert.

The report stated that Jews contribute more per capita to the revenues of Palestine than the Arabs, and the Government has thereby been enabled to maintain public services for the Arabs at a higher level than would otherwise have been possible. Partition would mean, on the one hand, that the Arab Area would no longer profit from the taxable capacity of the Jewish Area. On the other hand, (1) the Jews would acquire a new right of sovereignty in the Jewish Area; (2) that Area, as we have defined it, would be larger than the existing area of Jewish land and settlement; (3) the Jews would be freed from their present liability for helping to promote the welfare of Arabs outside that Area. It is suggested, therefore, that the Jewish State should pay a subvention to the Arab State when Partition comes into effect. Citing the separation of Sind from Bombay and of Burma from the Indian Empire, as precedents for such financial arrangement.

The report stated that if Partition is to be effective in promoting a final settlement it must mean more than drawing a frontier and establishing two States. Sooner or later there should be a transfer of land and, as far as possible, an exchange of population. Citing as precedent the 1923 Greek and Turkish exchange, which addressed the constant friction between their minorities. While noting the absence of cultivable land to resettle the Arabs, which would necessitate the execution of large-scale plans for irrigation, water-storage, and development in Trans-Jordan, Beersheba and the Jordan Valley. The population exchange, if carried out, would have involved the transfer of up to 225,000 Arabs and 1,250 Jews.

Reactions

The Arab reaction

The entire spectrum of Palestinian Arab society rejected the partition plan. There was widespread public opposition including in the media and by religious figures. According to Henry Laurens, the Arabs saw the publication of the plan as a ringing disavowal of every key undertaking the Mandatory authorities had made since its inception, that there would be no separate Jewish state, no land expropriations and no expulsions of people. The proposed land swaps and population transfers were seen as annulling and inverting a century of economic development of the littoral region, with, apart from Jaffa and Gaza, Palestinians dispossessed of the essential rural and urban heritage that had evolved over the preceding century of coastal development. Jerusalem was placed outside the future Palestinian state. Palestinians were shocked both by the declaration their land would be divided, and that they themselves would be denied statehood (but only a union with Transjordan), while the Jewish state, extending over a third of the country, would absorb the whole of the Galilee, where an overwhelming percentage of the land was owned by Arabs and Jews had only a slender presence. In compensation, the Arabs were offered valuable areas to the east of Jordan and the southern portion of the Beisan sub-district where irrigation would have been possible. Indignation was widespread with Arabs complaining that the Plan had allotted to them "the barren mountains", while the Jews would receive most of the five cultivable plains, the maritime Plain, the Acre Plain, the Marj Ibn 'Amir, Al Huleh and the Jordan Valley For the Arabs, the plan envisaged giving Zionists the best land, with 82% of Palestine's principal export, citrus fruit, consigned to Jewish control.

The idea of transfer of population met strong opposition. Under the Peel proposal, before transfer, there would be 1,250 Jews in the proposed Arab state, while there would be 225,000 Arabs in the Jewish state. The Peel proposal suggested a population transfer based on the model of Greece and Turkey in 1923, which would have been "in the last resort ... compulsory". It was understood on all sides that there was no way of dividing the land which would not have meant a large number of Arabs (a large minority or even a majority) in the land designated for a Jewish state.

The solution proposed by the Peel Commission was partition. The Jews were to gain statehood in 20 percent of the territory of Palestine, including most of the coastline and some of the country's most fertile agricultural land, in the Jezreel Valley and the Galilee. The Arabs were allotted the poorest lands of Palestine, including the Negev Desert and the Arava Valley, as well as the hill country of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

— Eugene Rogan, The Arabs: A History^[34]

At the leadership level, there were tensions between the factions. Husseini, who according to his biographer was an "authoritarian who could not tolerate opposition", feared the recommended merger with Transjordan under the rule of King Abdullah. The latter stood to gain much from partition; reaching an accord with the Nashashibis could have consolidated his rule and left Husseini powerless. The Palestinians also opposed being consigned to the far more economically feeble society of the Transjordan.

Despite some initial support by the Nashashibi family of notables and Jordan's King Abdullah, the Arab Higher Committee (HAC) and the Nashashibis (who had strong roots in both the littoral region and Jerusalem and had defected from the HAC) opposed the partition plan and condemned it unanimously. They argued that the creation of a Jewish state and lack of independent Palestine was a betrayal of the word given by Britain, and emphatically rejected the idea of giving land to the Jews. This objection was accompanied by a proposal that Britain adhere to its promise of a sovereign democratic state with constitutional guarantees for the rights of the Jewish minority. The Plan was also repudiated at the Bloudan Conference convened in Syria on 8 September, where parties from all over the Arab world rejected both the partition and establishment of a Jewish state in the Palestine Mandate. In 1937, the US Consul General at Jerusalem reported to the State Department that the Mufti refused the principle of partition and declined to consider it. The Consul said the emir Abdullah urged acceptance on the ground that realities must be faced, but wanted modification of the proposed boundaries and Arab administrations in the neutral enclave. The Consul also noted that Nashashibi sidestepped the principle, but was willing to negotiate for favorable modifications.

The Jewish reaction

Zionist Congress resolution on the Peel Commission partition plan

On 20 August 1937, the Twentieth Zionist Congress expressed that, at the time of the Balfour Declaration, it was understood that the Jewish National Home was to be established in the whole of historic Palestine, including Trans-Jordan, and that inherent in the Declaration was the possibility of the evolution of Palestine into a Jewish State.

While some factions at the Congress supported the Peel Report, arguing that later the borders could be adjusted, others opposed the proposal because the Jewish State would be too small. The Congress decided to reject the specific borders recommended by the Peel Commission, but empowered its executive to negotiate a more favorable plan for a Jewish State in Palestine. In the wake of the Peel Commission the Jewish Agency set up committees to begin planning for the state. At the time, it had already created a complete administrative apparatus amounting to "a Government existing side by side with the Mandatory Government."

At the same Zionist Congress, David Ben-Gurion, then chairman of the executive committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, told those in attendance that, though "there could be no question...of giving up any part of the Land of Israel,... it was arguable that the ultimate goal would be achieved most quickly by accepting the Peel proposals." University of Arizona professor Charles D. Smith suggests that, "Weizmann and Ben-Gurion did not feel they had to be bound by the borders proposed [by the Peel Commission]. These could be considered temporary boundaries to be expanded in the future." Ben-Gurion saw the plan as only a stage in the realisation of a larger Jewish state.

The two main Jewish leaders, Chaim Weizmann and Ben-Gurion, had convinced the Zionist Congress to approve equivocally the Peel recommendations as a basis for more negotiation.

Aftermath

The Peel Plan proved to be the master partition plan, on which all those that followed were either based, or to which they were compared, ushering in a fundamental change in the British outlook on Palestine's future.

Following the report's publication the British Government released a statement of policy, agreeing with its conclusions and proposing to seek from the League of Nations authority to proceed with a plan of partition. In March 1938, the British appointed the Woodhead Commission to "examine the Peel Commission plan in detail and to recommend an actual partition plan". The Woodhead Commission considered three different plans, one of which was based on the Peel plan. Reporting in 1938, the Commission rejected the Peel plan primarily on the grounds that it could not be implemented without a massive forced transfer of Arabs (an option that the British government had already ruled out). With dissent from some of its members, the Commission instead recommended a plan that would leave the Galilee under British mandate, but emphasized serious problems with it that included a lack of financial self-sufficiency of the proposed Arab State. The British Government accompanied the publication of the Woodhead Report by a statement of policy rejecting partition as impracticable due to "political, administrative and financial difficulties".

At the Bloudan Conference of 1937, parties from all over the Arab world rejected both the partition and establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, thus claiming all of Palestine.

There was no such thing as Palestinians

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_was_no_such_thing_as_Palestinians

"There was no such thing as Palestinians" is part of a widely repeated statement by Golda Meir, the then Israeli Prime Minister, in her second month in office, made in an interview with Frank Giles, then deputy editor of The Sunday Times on June 15, 1969, to mark the second anniversary of the Six-Day War.

It is considered to be the most famous example of Israeli denial of a distinct Palestinian identity.

Interviews

Initial statement

The interview entitled Who can blame Israel was published in The Sunday Times on June 15, 1969, and included the following exchange:

• Frank Giles: Do you think the emergence of the Palestinian fighting forces, the Fedayeen, is an important new factor in the Middle East?
• Golda Meir: Important, no. A new factor, yes. There was no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist.

Following statements

In a 1970 interview with Thames TV:

• Golda Meir: "When were Palestinians born? What was all of this area before the First World War when Britain got the Mandate over Palestine? What was Palestine, then? Palestine was then the area between the Mediterranean and the Iraqian border. East and West Bank was Palestine. I am a Palestinian, from 1921 and 1948, I carried a Palestinian passport. There was no such thing in this area as Jews, and Arabs, and Palestinians. There were Jews and Arabs.
• Interviewer: "You deny that there was a Palestine Arab people before, but there is now a Palestine liberation movement, and the history of liberation movements are that they grow, won't this one grow and become in the end in fact your biggest enemy?"
• Golda Meir: "I don't say there are no Palestinians, but I say there is no such thing as a distinct Palestinian people."

In a 1972 interview with The New York Times, Meir was asked if she stood by the comments; she replied: "I said there never was a Palestinian nation".

Commentary

Palestinian jurist Henry Cattan reflected on the statement:

The obliteration of the history of Palestine is now attempted by deformation of historical facts. Zionist apologists have reached a new stage in deceit by suggesting that not only the Palestinians did not exist in Palestine, but that Palestine was essentially 'uninhabited' by Arabs before the Zionist movement began towards the end of the nineteenth century, and that the Arabs came in large numbers after that, from nearby countries, drawn by the economic benefits of Jewish settlements.

James Gelvin, an American scholar on Middle Eastern history, commented:

The fact that Palestinian nationalism developed later than Zionism and indeed in response to it does not in any way diminish the legitimacy of Palestinian nationalism or make it less valid than Zionism. All nationalisms arise in opposition to some "other." Why else would there be the need to specify who you are? And all nationalisms are defined by what they oppose. As we have seen, Zionism itself arose in reaction to anti-Semitic and exclusionary nationalist movements in Europe. It would be perverse to judge Zionism as somehow less valid than European anti-Semitism or those nationalisms. Furthermore, Zionism itself was also defined by its opposition to the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants of the region. Both the "conquest of land" and the "conquest of labor" slogans that became central to the dominant strain of Zionism in the Yishuv originated as a result of the Zionist confrontation with the Palestinian "other."

Philip Ó Ceallaigh wrote about the quote that:

Of course, 100 years ago there was no such thing as an Israeli either. The "Israeli" and "Palestinian" nations have come into being simultaneously, and in conflict. The assertion of one is often formulated as the denial of the other."

Barbara McKean Parmenter, a literary critic, reflected on the statement:

In one sense she was right. There was no Palestine in the Western sense of a nation-state and no Palestinian people in the Western sense of a national group taking explicit possession of and improving its national territory. By Western definition, Palestinians, like many other native peoples around the world, did not exist.

Abraham Foxman, then head of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote about the quote that:

The complete response makes it clear that Meir was talking not about the existence of Palestinians as individuals or even as a group, but the existence of a Palestinians nation. And she was stating a simple fact - that prior to the late 1960s no one, least of all the other Arab nations, had recognized the existence or even the potential existence of such a nation. ... Could Meir have made her point more clearly? Probably. And she paid dearly for her lack of clarity. Over the years, her words have repeatedly been cited by anti-Zionists (and sometimes by outright anti-Semites) to "demonstrate" the dismissiveness of Israeli leaders toward the Palestinian People."

Criticism

The quote has been frequently used to illustrate Israel's denial of Palestinian history, and is considered to sum up the Palestinians' sense of victimization by Israel. It is considered to be a successor to the early Christian Zionist phrase "A land without a people for a people without a land", and a predecessor of the controversial 1984 book From Time Immemorial and the 2017 satire A History of the Palestinian People.

Edward Said, a Palestinian American professor and activist, asserted that it was Golda Meir's "most celebrated remark". Aljazeera journalist Alasdair Soussi wrote that "Meir's jingoistic comments concerning Palestinians remain one of her defining – and most damning – legacies."

From the river to the sea

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea

Map showing Israel and the Palestinian Territories as outlined by the Oslo Accords. The Jordan River is on the right, and the Mediterranean Sea is on the left.

"From the river to the sea" (Arabic: من النهر إلى البحر, romanized: min an-nahr ʾilā l-baḥr; Palestinian Arabic: من المية للمية, romanized: min il-ṃayye la-l-ṃayye, lit. 'from the water to the water') is a political phrase that refers geographically to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an area described as Palestine, which today includes Israel and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

The phrase was popularised among the Palestinian population in the 1960s as a call for liberation from living under Israeli, Jordanian and Egyptian control. In the 1960s, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) used it to call for an Arab state encompassing the entirety of Mandatory Palestine, which was initially stated to only include the Palestinians and the descendants of Jews who had lived in Palestine before 1947, although this was later revised to only include descendants of Jews who had lived in Palestine before the first Aliyah (1881).

Many Palestinian activists have called it "a call for peace and equality" after decades of Israeli military rule over Palestinians while for Jews it has been "a clear demand for Israel’s destruction." Islamist militant faction Hamas used the phrase in its 2017 charter. Usage of the phrase by such Palestinian militant groups has led critics to argue that it advocates for the dismantling of Israel, and calls for the removal or extermination of the Jewish population of the region.

The phrase has also been used by Israeli politicians. The 1977 election manifesto of the right-wing Israeli Likud party said: "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." Similar wording, such as referring to the area "west of the Jordan river", has also been used more recently by other Israeli politicians, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 18 January 2024. Some countries have considered criminalizing use of the phrase. On 16 April 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a resolution condemning the phrase as antisemitic.

Context

See also: Mandatory Palestine and Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Middle East scholar Elliott Colla says that the relevant historical context for understanding 'from the river to the sea' is the history of partition and fragmentation in Palestine, along with Israeli appropriation and annexation of Palestinian lands. In his opinion these include: the 1947 UN Partition plan for Palestine, which proposed to divide the land between the river and the sea; the 1948 Nakba, in which that plan materialized; the 1967 War, in which Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza; the Oslo Accords, that (in his view) fragmented the West Bank into Palestinian enclaves (that he describes as "an archipelago of Bantustans surrounded by Israeli settlements, bases, and checkpoints"); and the Israeli separation wall first erected after the Second Intifada.

Another element of historical context is given by Maha Nassar from University of Arizona in an opinion piece in the Forward. According to her, the phrase "from the river to the sea" was used even before 1967, and expressed then the hope of the Palestinians to get free not only from the rule of Israel, but also from the rule of Jordan in the West Bank and from the rule of Egypt in Gaza strip.

History of the phrase

The precise origins of the phrase are disputed. According to American historian Robin D. G. Kelley, the phrase "began as a Zionist slogan signifying the boundaries of Eretz Israel." Israeli-American historian Omer Bartov notes that Zionist usage of such language predates the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and began with the Revisionist movement of Zionism led by Vladimir Jabotinski, which spoke of establishing a Jewish state in all of Palestine and had a song which includes: "The Jordan has two banks; this one is ours, and the other one too," suggesting a Jewish state extending even beyond the Jordan River. In 1977, the concept appeared in an election manifesto of the Israeli political party Likud, which stated that “between the sea and the Jordan there will be only Israeli sovereignty.”

Palestinian usage of this phrase is also unclear. Kelley writes that the phrase was adopted by the Palestine Liberation Organization in the mid-1960s;  while Elliott Colla notes that "it is unclear when and where the slogan "from the river to the sea," first emerged within Palestinian protest culture." In November 2023, Colla wrote that he had not encountered the phrase – in either Standard nor Levantine Arabic – in Palestinian revolutionary media of the 1960s and 1970s and noted that "the phrase appears nowhere in the Palestinian National Charters of 1964 or 1968, nor in the Hamas Charter of 1988."

The 1964 charter of the PLO's Palestinian National Council called for "the recovery of the usurped homeland in its entirety". The 1964 charter stated that "Jews who are of Palestinian origin shall be considered Palestinians if they are willing to live peacefully and loyally in Palestine", specifically defining "Palestinian" as those who had "normally resided in Palestine until 1947". In the 1968 revision, the charter was further revised, stating that "Jews who had resided normally in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion" would be considered Palestinian.

The phrase appeared in English sources (that translated it from Arab sources) at least as early as 1970.

In 1979, the phrase was invoked by delegates attending the Palestine Congress of North America.

Colla notes that activists of the First Intifada (1987-1993) "remember hearing variations of the phrase in Arabic from the late 1980s onwards" and that the phrases have been documented in graffiti from the period in works such as Saleh Abd al-Jawad's "Faṣā'il al-ḥaraka al-waṭaniyya al-Filasṭīniyya fi-l-arāḍī al-muḥtalla wa-shu'ārāt al-judrān" (1991) and Julie Peteet's "The Writing on the Walls: The Graffiti of the Intifada" (1996).

The phrase appeared in a 2021 B'Tselem report entitled "A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This Is Apartheid" that described Israel's de facto rule over the territory from the river to the sea, through its occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza Strip, as a regime of apartheid.

Variations

Protest chants

The concept of "from the river to the sea" has appeared in various pro-Palestinian protest chants, typically as the first line of a rhyming couplet.

In Arabic

The version min an-nahr ʾilā l-baḥr / Filasṭīn sa-tataḥarrar (من النهر إلى البحر / فلسطين ستتحرر, "from the river to the sea / Palestine will be free") has a focus on freedom.

The version min il-ṃayye la-l-ṃayye / Falasṭīn ʿarabiyye (من المية للمية / فلسطين عربية, "from the water to the water / Palestine is Arab") has an Arab nationalist sentiment, and the version min il-ṃayye la-l-ṃayye / Falasṭīn islāmiyye (من المية للمية / فلسطين إسلامية, "from the water to the water / Palestine is Islamic") has Islamic sentiment. According to Colla, scholars of Palestine attest to the documentation of both versions in the graffiti of the late 1980s, the period of the First Intifada.

In English

"From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free"—the translation of min an-nahr ʾilā l-baḥr / Filasṭīn sa-tatḥarrar—is the version that has circulated among English speakers expressing solidarity with Palestine since at least the 1990s.

Other formulations

In Hebrew

Similar formulations have been used by Zionists and Israelis. Omer Bartov notes the song "The East Bank of the Jordan" by the Revisionist Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky used the formulation שתי גדות לירדן: זו שלנו, זו גם כן "The Jordan has two banks; this one is ours, and the other one too".

The Likud Party used the formulation בין הים לירדן תהיה רק ריבונות ישראלית "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." Most recently this has been stated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 18 January 2024.

Usage

Use by Palestinian militant groups

See also: Calls for the destruction of Israel

Hamas, as part of its revised 2017 charter, rejected "any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea", referring to all areas of former Mandatory Palestine and by extension, the end of Jewish sovereignty in the region. Islamic Jihad declared that "from the river to the sea – [Palestine] is an Arab Islamic land that [it] is legally forbidden from abandoning any inch of, and the Israeli presence in Palestine is a null existence, which is forbidden by law to recognize. Islamists have used a version "Palestine is Islamic from the river to the sea".

The phrase was used as part of its 2017 revised platform where they state "Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea [...] along the lines of the 4th of June 1967".

Similar sayings by the Israeli right

The phrase was also used by the Israeli ruling Likud party as part of their 1977 election manifesto which stated "Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." This slogan was repeated by Menachem Begin. Similar wording has also been used more recently by other Israeli politicians, like Gideon Sa'ar and also Uri Ariel of The Jewish Home. In 2014 Ariel said, "Between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea there will be only one state, which is Israel." The phrase has been used by the Israeli Prime Minister, Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu, in speeches. Similar wording has also been used more recently by other Israeli politicians.

Use internationally

Graffiti at the Teacher-Student Centre, University of Dhaka

Al Qaeda

Among the materials recovered by American forces during the killing of al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was a speech addressed to the American people, in which bin Laden proposed economic and security guarantees in exchange for a "roadmap that returns the Palestine land to us, all of it, from the sea to the river, it is an Islamic land not subject to being traded or granted to any party."

Hezbollah

On September 27, 2008, Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah stated at a rally "Palestine, from the sea to the river is the property of Arabs and Palestinians and no one has the right to give up even a single grain of earth or one stone, because every grain of the land is holy. The entire land must be returned to its rightful owners."

Iran

Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, in 2023, used the phrase, saying "The only solution is a Palestinian state from the river to the sea", meaning that the only solution to the conflict would be a Palestinian state encompassing all of Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Iraq

In 2003, then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, during a speech commemorating the anniversary of the Iraqi Army's establishment, referred to the Palestinian people and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, stating "Long live Palestine, free and Arab, from the sea to the river".

United Kingdom

On 30 October 2023, British Member of Parliament Andy McDonald was suspended from the Labour Party after stating in a pro-Palestine rally speech: "We won't rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty". The party described McDonald's comment as "deeply offensive". McDonald said at the time, "These words should not be construed in any other way than they were intended, namely as a heartfelt plea for an end to killings in Israel, Gaza, and the occupied West Bank, and for all peoples in the region to live in freedom without the threat of violence."

As of 1 November 2023, the UK Football Association barred the use of the phrase by its players, stating they made clear to teams "that this phrase is considered offensive to many" and that the league will seek police guidance on how [they] should treat it and respond" if players have used it.

On November 5 the Met Police stopped working with an adviser who chanted the slogan during a protest saying this appears "antisemitic and contrary with our values".

United States

Pro-Palestinian protestor holding a sign in Colombus, Ohio

On November 30, 2018, CNN fired American academic Marc Lamont Hill from his position as a political commentator after he delivered a speech at the United Nations on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People ending with the words: "...we have an opportunity, to not just offer solidarity in words, but to commit to political action, grassroots action, local action, and international action that will give us what justice requires. And that is a free Palestine, from the river to the sea." Critics focused on his use of the phrase 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free' because Hamas also uses it. The ADL accused Hill of using the phrase "from the river to the sea" as code for the destruction of Israel. Hill apologized, but later tweeted "You say "River to the Sea" is "universally" understood to mean the destruction of the Jewish State? On what basis do you make this claim? Did it signify destruction when it was the slogan of the Likud Party? Or when currently used by the Israeli Right?"

On 7 November 2023, United States Representative Rashida Tlaib was censured by the House of Representatives in part for using the phrase. which Tlaib defended as "an aspirational call for freedom, human rights and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction or hate". Before the vote, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries criticized the phrase as something which is "widely understood as calling for the complete destruction of Israel". On 8 November 2023, the White House condemned Tlaib for using the phrase. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that "when it comes to the phrase that was used, 'from the river to the sea,' it is divisive, it is hurtful, many find it hurtful and many find it antisemitic," and added that the White House "categorically reject[s] applying the term to the (2023 Israel–Hamas) conflict."

Use on social media

The phrase has been used across social media, including on TikTok.

On November 15, 2023, Jewish influencers and celebrities confronted TikTok executives in a private call, to press them to moderate use of the phrase on the platform. Adam Presser, head of operations for TikTok, stated that only content "where it is clear exactly what they mean...that content is violative and we take it down," adding that if "someone is just using it casually, then that has been considered acceptable speech." In a statement, TikTok said that content using the phrase "in a way that threatens violence and spreads hate" is not allowed on the platform. A report by Fortune described an additional Zoom call between "about 40 mostly Jewish tech leaders," including Anthony Goldbloom, and TikTok executives, on November 16, claiming that the platform's algorithm favored "content that supports Palestine over pro-Israel content" and pushing the platform to "reexamine its community guidelines", with the company rejecting "blunt comparisons" of hashtags on the platform and stating that the imbalance of content is not the result of "any kind of intended or unintended bias in its algorithms."

On November 17, 2023, Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, announced a policy change, stating that users who use terms like "decolonization" and "from the river to the sea," or similar expressions would be suspended. He claimed these terms were used as euphemisms for extreme violence or genocide. Musk's announcement came after he was criticized for "endorsing an antisemitic post" on the platform two days before, and companies such as IBM, Comcast, Apple, Paramount Global, Disney, and Lionsgate announced a pause of ads on the platform.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, applauded Musk's action on November 17, calling it "an important and welcome move" and praising his "leadership in fighting hate." Greenblatt's statement was reported by The Guardian as being part of an effort to gain influence on the far right, and that the head of the ADL's Center for Technology and Society (CTS), Yael Eisenstat, quit her position in protest. Other ADL staffers expressed their opposition to Greenblatt's move. Rolling Stone stated that it was "doubtful" that Twitter users would be suspended for "repeating either phrase." Noah Lanard of Mother Jones wrote that the new policy would "presumably apply only to those who use the phrase [from the river to the sea] in support of Palestinians" and argued that Musk is "trying to cover up for his own bigotry." Pro-Palestinian users criticized Musk's new policy, arguing he was conflating legitimate political speech with "calls for violence" and was "limiting free speech."

Civic usage

Pro-Palestinian rally in London, 9 October 2023

Pro-Palestinian rally in Columbus, Ohio, 12 October 2023

The phrase has been used widely in pro-Palestinian protest movements. It has often been chanted at pro-Palestinian demonstrations, usually followed or preceded by the phrase "Palestine will be free" (the phrase rhymes in English, not Arabic). Interpretations differ amongst its supporters. In a survey conducted by the Arab World for Research and Development on November 14, 74.7% Palestinians agreed that they support a single Palestinian state "from the river to the sea", while only 5.4% of respondents supported a "one-state for two peoples" solution.

Civic figures, activists, and progressive publications have said that the phrase calls for a one-state solution: a single, secular state in all of Historic Palestine where people of all religions have equal citizenship. This stands in contrast to the two-state solution, which envisions a Palestinian state existing alongside a Jewish state. This usage has been described as speaking out for the right of Palestinians "to live freely in the land from the river to the sea", with Palestinian writer Yousef Munayyer describing the phrase as "a rejoinder to the fragmentation of Palestinian land and people by Israeli occupation and discrimination." Others have said it stands for "the equal freedom and dignity of the Palestinian people." Elliott Colla traces the first evidence of use of the phrase in Palestinian protest culture to the First Intifada (1987-1993), with documentation in graffiti from the period.

On November 8, 2023, Amazon told Newsweek that they would not be removing pro-Palestinian merchandise, including garments bearing the phrase, stating that the items do not "contravene our policies," which prohibit sale of products which "promote, incite, or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual, or religious intolerance."

Criticism

Some politicians and advocacy groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee consider the phrase to be antisemitic, hate speech and incitement to genocide, suggesting that it denies the right of Jews for self-determination in their ancestral homeland, or advocates for their removal or extermination. Such critics of the phrase claim that it has been explicitly used to call for the land to be placed entirely under Arab rule at the cost of the State of Israel and its Jewish citizens.

ADL regional director Jonah Steinberg stated that from the time of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and thereafter "there was a catchphrase of 'pushing the Jews into the sea' and the phrase, 'from the river to the sea' echoes that trope in a menacing way."

Steven Lubet wrote in an opinion piece on The Hill that if the people promoting this slogan were really interested only in “freedom, human rights and peaceful coexistence” as they claim, then they would have changed the slogan to “From the river to the sea, Palestinians will be free.” Lubet also says that, according to DEI norms, the racism of a certain speech can be determined not only by the intent of the speaker, but mainly by the impact it has on the people who feel offended or threatened by it. Therefore, he concludes, since most Jews view the slogan as hurtful and threatening, it should be avoided, regardless of what is the real intent of its chanters.

According to Susie Linfield in an interview in Salmagundi magazine, there is nothing wrong with both Jews and Palestinians "pursuing national self-determination". In her opinion, the slogan 'from the river to the sea' represents a rejectionist unwillingness to compromise with the other nation on a two-state solution, which led the Palestinian leadership to reject the partition plan in 1947, ended in them losing everything so far.

On 9 November 2023, Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard University at the time, condemned the phrase.

On 17 April 2024, Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia University at the time, said that she herself hears the phrase as antisemitic, but some people do not.

On 16 April 2024 the U.S. House of Representatives approved a decision that condemns the chant as antisemitic, with a majority of 377 against 44.

Response to criticism

Oxford researcher Ahmad Khalidi has responded to those who characterize it as genocidal, "It is perfectly possible for both people to be free between the river and the sea, is 'free' necessarily in itself genocidal? I think any reasonable person would say no. Does it preclude the fact that the Jewish population in the area between the sea and the river cannot also be free? I think any reasonable person would also say no."

Palestinian-American writers such as Yousef Munayyer and University of Arizona professor Maha Nassar have written that accusations that the phrase is a call to genocide, rely on racist and Islamophobic assumptions about Palestinian intent. Nadia Abu El Haj notes that critics who characterize it as "threatening", "intimidating", or a call to "genocidal violence" when it is used in support of Palestine do not make equivalent claims when used by Israelis.

In describing the criticism of the phrase, scholar of politics in the Arab world Elliott Colla writes:

It is the first phrase of the slogan—"from the river to the sea"—that has caused so much fury. Dominant Jewish communal institutions, most prominently the ADL and AJC, have insisted that this phrase is antisemitic. Throughout recent years, they have composed new definitions of antisemitism that render many common expressions of Palestine solidarity as ipso facto instances of anti-Jewish hate speech ... the slogan "from the river to the sea" figures prominently in their accusations of antisemitic doublespeak.

In 2021, over 200 scholars in various fields signed the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. The declaration discussed common manifestations of antisemitism, as well as what kinds of speech and behavior are antisemitic and what kind of speech and behavior are not, espacially regarding the Palestine-Israel conflict. According to the authors, "between the river and the sea" is not antisemitic.

Legal status

Following the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the British home secretary at the time, Suella Braverman, proposed prosecuting those using the phrase in certain contexts.

A majority of the Dutch parliament declared the phrase to be a call for violence. The judiciary, however, ruled in August 2023 that the phrase was protected on free speech grounds, being "subject to various interpretations", including those that "relate to the state of Israel and possibly to people with Israeli citizenship, but do not relate to Jews because of their race or religion". The decision was later upheld by the Dutch Supreme Court.

On 11 October 2023, Vienna police banned a pro-Palestinian demonstration, citing the inclusion of the phrase "from the river to the sea" in invitations, as a justification. Politicians in Austria have also considered declaring use of the phrase to be a criminal offense, with Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer saying that the phrase would be interpreted as a call for murder.

On November 5, 2023, in Tallinn (Estonia), the police opened criminal proceedings against five rally participants who used "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free".

On November 11, 2023, the phrase was banned in Bavaria (Germany), and "the prosecutor's office and the Bavarian police warned that henceforth its use, regardless of language, will be considered as the use of symbols of terrorist organizations. This may result in punishment of up to three years in prison or a fine". Later using the slogan “From the river to the sea” was made a criminal offense across Germany.

On November 16, 2023, it was reported that users of the phrase may now face criminal prosecution in the Czech Republic.

On November 17, 2023, it was reported that the case of a man charged by the police in Calgary, Canada for using the phrase, had been stayed.

On April 16 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning the phrase as antisemitic, with 377 in favor, 44 against, and 1 absent. The resolution stemmed from controversy surrounding Rashida Tlaib's video post featuring the phrase. Tlaib, who voted against the resolution, defended the phrase as aspirational for freedom. While some Democrats viewed the resolution as divisive, many supported it due to concerns about antisemitism.