See what you did there? Put "gas the Jews" and "from the river to the sea" in a list, like they're equivalent.
Try to imagine this: A hundred students marching through a college campus, waving signs that say "Cease fire now" and chanting "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." Are you saying their intention, their desire, is …
See what you did there? Put "gas the Jews" and "from the river to the sea" in a list, like they're equivalent.
Try to imagine this: A hundred students marching through a college campus, waving signs that say "Cease fire now" and chanting "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." Are you saying their intention, their desire, is to kill all the Jews?
No, I am saying that the sentence "from the river to the sea" is *explicitly* a call to "destroy the state of Israel". I don't know if you bothered looking at the map, there is no other place except between the river and the see, and that chant belongs to the PLO, whose charter clearly states that a "free palestine" must have "no Jews".
Try to imagine you are a Jew, an Israeli, studying there. Do you feel *safe*? Say that those chanters are simply ignorant westerner spoiled kids who have no idea what they're chanting, suppose. Can you *be certain* that none of them intend it so?
"Cease fire now" is a perfectly legit call. so does "free palestine", "end the occupation", I can give you quite a few of them. "From the river to the sea" is not. It is an explicit direct call to dismantle, violently, a sovereign democratic state. It's just NOT LEGIT. It is the exact line beyond free speech.
It is simple to me, and I think it should be simple to every sane person - it doesn't matter if they know what they're chanting or not. It's a slogan of terror and violence, it should be banned.
Not generally, I do not trust the government to police speech. But a higher education institute that claims to be 'inclusive' and 'condemns violence' should ban it from campus.
"Can you *be certain* that none of them intend it so?"
Is that how it works now? We assume people are for genocide until they prove themselves innocent of the charge? Banning speech, conviction of the crime of genocide without trial, you've got lots of interesting ideas, don't you?
"I don't know if you bothered looking at the map, there is no other place except between the river and the see"
Sigh. Can't believe we're arguing about what a map clearly shows. A Palestinian state along the lines of the '67 borders, something clearly contemplated and discussed as part of negotiations sponsored by the US for a "two-state solution" would have one border on the Jordan river and one border on the Mediterranean. It would go "from the river to the sea" and NOT require the destruction of the state of Israel.
No, that is not what that phrase means... It never did. For that we have "End the Occupation", among a host of others.
Also, it is not from the river to the sea, since it is not one continous territory. Which si exactly the problem with the ridiculous insistance on 1967 borders - they will never work.
Also, who are we talking about? Both Hamas and the PLO and *every elected palestinian official since 1967* has rejected that solution.
Why do we insist to keep on suggesting a solution the palestinians *do not want*? The PLO charter calls for 1 palestinian state, on the entire area of palestine, and the dismanlt of every "zionist colony since 1919".
Why do we not *believe them*?
Again, despite the mockery, this *is* context dependant. Context matters. That slogan has a very specific history, which sets it as stricktly refering to a no-israel solution.
I am sorry to say, the real shameful thing in the past 2 months on US campusea is the sheer amount of *ignorance* I hear form all sides. It's like blind people talking about the sunset.
"Also, it is not from the river to the sea, since it is not one continous territory. "
Ah, now I get it. The Israelis have stolen so much land between the West Bank and Gaza that it is no longer possible to create a contiguous Palestinian state between the West Bank and Gaza (excuse me, "from the river to the sea") without murdering all the Jews in between, therefore "from the river to the sea" means "kill all the Jews", QED.
"Stolen" in the course of defending themselves from 3 wars of extermination waged by the surrounding Arab powers.
And that's before we get into the utter absurdity of arguing that "From the river to the sea," which is taken from the Hamas (Hamas!) charter, really just means joining the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for a more equitable two state agreement. It does not.
It means a Palestinian state containing the entirety of what is now Israel, (what would happen to the Jews now living there is left as an exercise for the reader). You merely embarrass yourself by pretending otherwise.
Also, please look at a fucking map once in a while. What's happened in the Israeli-occupied territories is a years-long process of careful placement of Israeli settlements so as to make a Palestinian state impossible. Seize all the hills, all the best farm land, squeeze the Palestinians into a smaller and smaller space. Connect your settlements up with highways the Palestinians aren't allowed to use. Yes, "stolen" is the correct word here.
Israel gained control of the land dividing the Gaza Strip from the West Bank during the 1948 war. Whatever complaints you have about settlements, Israel has been in continuous control of the divide between the Palestinian territories for 75 years, and they gained that land in a war they did not start.
It requires serious blinders to call that land stolen.
Sigh. A hundred students are marching across the quad at Harvard. They're chanting "From the River to the Sea." You REALLY think that what they mean by this is "Kill all the Jews"? When did they come by this desire to kill all the Jews? Just in the past couple of weeks, or have they always wanted to kill all the Jews?
Well, most of them mean "I don't actually know anything about anything, but all the people from my Model UN chapter are here and I don't want to seem out of place."
Those who have actually thought it through probably don't want to kill the Jews directly, but they are prepared to accept those deaths as a side effect of achieving their anticolonialist victory (the restoration of Palestinian Arab political control of the whole region between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea).
No one with even a passing familiarity with Hamas or Fatah thinks that Jews would be safe in a Palestinian controlled country.
I think it makes them appalling, morally obtuse garbage people. That doesn't necessarily mean they are antisemites, but it does mean that they and their defenders richly deserve the drubbing they are getting in the court of public opinion.
But I do understand the need to lie, "Students call for genocide" is attention-grabbing, "College students wrong about stuff" is dog-bites-man and won't get a single second of airtime.
It is the rabid racist zionists that currently support genocide that are getting a drubbing the court of public opinion (although it is true the MSM is doing it's darn best to defend their genocidal support).
The expansion of the settlements has been conintuois since the last war Israel fought fifty years ago. Itt would be nice if you didn't staright up lie by saying:
"Stolen" in the course of defending themselves from 3 wars of extermination waged by the surrounding Arab powers."
The discussion here is about whether it is reasonable to expect Israel to give back enough land to join the Gaza strip and the West Bank into a single contiguous Palestinian state.
Israel could give back every single settlement, and there would still be significant separation between the Palestinian territories because Israel seized the land that used to connect them, a northern extension from the Gaza Strip, in the war of 1948. It would be difficult to characterize the Arabs' goal in that conflict as anything other than a war of extermination.
Next time, read more carefully before you accuse someone of dishonesty. You will be less likely to embarrass yourself.
The discussion was your claim that from the river to the sea was a call for genocide. But go ahead and be dishonest. People have already pointed out that it does not require a contigious land mass to meet the term. And I pointed out that even if it did Israel could hand some land to make Palestine as a nation contigious with no genocide necessary. Right now it is Paletsinians experiencing genocide from Israel anyway.
But that is an entirely different question from whether Israel stole that land. They didn't. They seized it as part of a defensive war in which the other side meant to wipe them out. The fact that you would like Israel to make a concession to the Palestinians or even the fact that it is possible for Israel to make that concession are very different questions then whether they are morally obligated to or whether that land is stolen.
It's not surprising that someone who thinks that Israel's current military campaign is even in the same universe as genocide is too stupid to keep track of the point at issue.
Genocide is the deliberate attempt to exterminate a people. Genocide would be going house to house, raping the women and killing everyone your soldiers can get their hands on. Genocide would be what the Hamas charter calls for when it says "from the river to the sea." Genocide is not an urban military campaign with a high casualty count.
It is particularly grotesque to accuse Israel of genocide a mere two months after Hamas finished demonstrating that they were serious when they said they wanted to wipe out all the Jews.
You value words. "We care about civilians" while committing horrendous genocide. I look at actions. I bet if someone bombed your house and killed your family while saying they loved you and someone else (proportionality) killed your dog while saying they want you wiped off the earth, you would have a bigger problem with they one who murdered your family and bombed you entire city into smithereens. But form you couch you get to say that saying you care while committing genocide is all good.
What borders will work if you throw out the 1967 ones? Why doesn't Israel give equasl rights to everyone in the country including the occupied territiries (even actual citizens have the "Jewish" class and all the others. It is explicitly (as in part of the law and founding documents) a racist and aparthied state. You are straight up lying when you call it a democracy.
Ask protestors what they are calling for when they say "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" I have asked dozens. To a person they say they are calling for equal rights for all peoples currently in the land, and an end to the explicitly racist and aparthied state. Do you think ending apartheid is genocide? Was ending apartheid in South Africa genocide?
I completely agree that "from the river to the sea" is a slogan of terror and violence. It is a horrible, antisemitic thing to say, and as an American Jew I don't feel safe hearing that.
All that said, it is speech protected by the First Amendment, and is covered under free speech. Even explicit calls for genocide are protected free speech.
Sorry, you don't to say that the way a phrase makes you FEEL defines, without question, what it MEANS.
Because there are other people involved here, specifically the people who use this phrase. Do they get any say in what it means? Of course they do. When 30,000 people march in D.C. and chant "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", do you really think they're seeing it as a "slogan of terror and violence"? How come your interpretation wins out over theirs?
The meaning of words is determined by their usage, and numbers do matter. Again, 30,000 people marching in D.C. chanting "From the river to the sea..." your claim is what they mean by this is "we want terror and violence". Here's an idea, why don't you ASK them what they mean by it?
Cause I've seen the tiktoks and the twitts and the signs held in thise rallies. A lot of them do say exactly that.
Because that sentance does not exist in a vaccume - it comes with other slogans like "intifada, revolution". And yes, Intifida *specifcaly means* war on civilians.
And yes, Intifida *specifcaly means* war on civilians.
You sure about that? Elsewhere in this thread, I was told "intifada" is OK, but "global intifada" means "kill all the jews." So hard to avoid calling for genocide with all this conflicting advice!
Upthread you said "End the occupation" is OK, but one way to end the occupation is to kill all the Jews, so are you sure "End the Occupation" is not also a call for genocide? Suppose we take your advice and stick to just "End the Occupation" but then next week Elise Stafnik decides that "End the Occupation" also means genocide?
Look, it's been fun, really it has, but I think going forward those of us who want to see the Palestinians living free of the Israeli occupation will just choose for ourselves the words that come out of our own mouths, without all this "helpful" advice from people who are clearly not our allies. Bye now!
Yes, I have. And do you see what you're doing here? You see something on Twitter, and that tells you what college students marching through the campus at Harvard MUST think, no doubt. Elsewhere in this thread, I learned that a guy at a protest in New York City held up a phone with a swastika on it, which not only means that all of the thousands of people at that protest want to kill all the Jews, but that students marching on a campus hundreds of miles away want to kill all the Jews.
I'm starting to suspect that you just REALLY want to believe these college students want to kill all the Jews and will grab at anything you can find to "prove" that. And I'm 100% positive you'll be successful in convincing yourself of this thing you already believe, congratulations!
I have asked dozens in person. Please link to a single tiktok etc that supports your claim. It is a straight up lie (of course someone out there may mena that, but I am talking about the vast majority well over 95 percent probably 99.5 percent or more).
See what you did there? Put "gas the Jews" and "from the river to the sea" in a list, like they're equivalent.
Try to imagine this: A hundred students marching through a college campus, waving signs that say "Cease fire now" and chanting "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." Are you saying their intention, their desire, is to kill all the Jews?
But sure, I'll bet it's all very simple - to you.
No, I am saying that the sentence "from the river to the sea" is *explicitly* a call to "destroy the state of Israel". I don't know if you bothered looking at the map, there is no other place except between the river and the see, and that chant belongs to the PLO, whose charter clearly states that a "free palestine" must have "no Jews".
Try to imagine you are a Jew, an Israeli, studying there. Do you feel *safe*? Say that those chanters are simply ignorant westerner spoiled kids who have no idea what they're chanting, suppose. Can you *be certain* that none of them intend it so?
"Cease fire now" is a perfectly legit call. so does "free palestine", "end the occupation", I can give you quite a few of them. "From the river to the sea" is not. It is an explicit direct call to dismantle, violently, a sovereign democratic state. It's just NOT LEGIT. It is the exact line beyond free speech.
It is simple to me, and I think it should be simple to every sane person - it doesn't matter if they know what they're chanting or not. It's a slogan of terror and violence, it should be banned.
Not generally, I do not trust the government to police speech. But a higher education institute that claims to be 'inclusive' and 'condemns violence' should ban it from campus.
"Can you *be certain* that none of them intend it so?"
Is that how it works now? We assume people are for genocide until they prove themselves innocent of the charge? Banning speech, conviction of the crime of genocide without trial, you've got lots of interesting ideas, don't you?
"I don't know if you bothered looking at the map, there is no other place except between the river and the see"
Sigh. Can't believe we're arguing about what a map clearly shows. A Palestinian state along the lines of the '67 borders, something clearly contemplated and discussed as part of negotiations sponsored by the US for a "two-state solution" would have one border on the Jordan river and one border on the Mediterranean. It would go "from the river to the sea" and NOT require the destruction of the state of Israel.
No, that is not what that phrase means... It never did. For that we have "End the Occupation", among a host of others.
Also, it is not from the river to the sea, since it is not one continous territory. Which si exactly the problem with the ridiculous insistance on 1967 borders - they will never work.
Also, who are we talking about? Both Hamas and the PLO and *every elected palestinian official since 1967* has rejected that solution.
Why do we insist to keep on suggesting a solution the palestinians *do not want*? The PLO charter calls for 1 palestinian state, on the entire area of palestine, and the dismanlt of every "zionist colony since 1919".
Why do we not *believe them*?
Again, despite the mockery, this *is* context dependant. Context matters. That slogan has a very specific history, which sets it as stricktly refering to a no-israel solution.
I am sorry to say, the real shameful thing in the past 2 months on US campusea is the sheer amount of *ignorance* I hear form all sides. It's like blind people talking about the sunset.
What are they teaching there?
"Also, it is not from the river to the sea, since it is not one continous territory. "
Ah, now I get it. The Israelis have stolen so much land between the West Bank and Gaza that it is no longer possible to create a contiguous Palestinian state between the West Bank and Gaza (excuse me, "from the river to the sea") without murdering all the Jews in between, therefore "from the river to the sea" means "kill all the Jews", QED.
I have to admit that's a novel argument.
"Stolen" in the course of defending themselves from 3 wars of extermination waged by the surrounding Arab powers.
And that's before we get into the utter absurdity of arguing that "From the river to the sea," which is taken from the Hamas (Hamas!) charter, really just means joining the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for a more equitable two state agreement. It does not.
It means a Palestinian state containing the entirety of what is now Israel, (what would happen to the Jews now living there is left as an exercise for the reader). You merely embarrass yourself by pretending otherwise.
Also, please look at a fucking map once in a while. What's happened in the Israeli-occupied territories is a years-long process of careful placement of Israeli settlements so as to make a Palestinian state impossible. Seize all the hills, all the best farm land, squeeze the Palestinians into a smaller and smaller space. Connect your settlements up with highways the Palestinians aren't allowed to use. Yes, "stolen" is the correct word here.
Israel gained control of the land dividing the Gaza Strip from the West Bank during the 1948 war. Whatever complaints you have about settlements, Israel has been in continuous control of the divide between the Palestinian territories for 75 years, and they gained that land in a war they did not start.
It requires serious blinders to call that land stolen.
Sigh. A hundred students are marching across the quad at Harvard. They're chanting "From the River to the Sea." You REALLY think that what they mean by this is "Kill all the Jews"? When did they come by this desire to kill all the Jews? Just in the past couple of weeks, or have they always wanted to kill all the Jews?
Well, most of them mean "I don't actually know anything about anything, but all the people from my Model UN chapter are here and I don't want to seem out of place."
Those who have actually thought it through probably don't want to kill the Jews directly, but they are prepared to accept those deaths as a side effect of achieving their anticolonialist victory (the restoration of Palestinian Arab political control of the whole region between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea).
No one with even a passing familiarity with Hamas or Fatah thinks that Jews would be safe in a Palestinian controlled country.
Wait you think Jews would not be safe if the people they have slughered occupied and denied basic human rights for over fifty years were in charge?
Why on earth would that be?
Well, that's generous of you. Do you think you could pass this on to Elise Stefanik, because she's still thinking they want to kill all the Jews.
Generous?
I think it makes them appalling, morally obtuse garbage people. That doesn't necessarily mean they are antisemites, but it does mean that they and their defenders richly deserve the drubbing they are getting in the court of public opinion.
But I do understand the need to lie, "Students call for genocide" is attention-grabbing, "College students wrong about stuff" is dog-bites-man and won't get a single second of airtime.
"That doesn't necessarily mean they are antisemites..."
Again, thanks for your generosity. Please tell Elise she should stop lying about these students.
It is the rabid racist zionists that currently support genocide that are getting a drubbing the court of public opinion (although it is true the MSM is doing it's darn best to defend their genocidal support).
The expansion of the settlements has been conintuois since the last war Israel fought fifty years ago. Itt would be nice if you didn't staright up lie by saying:
"Stolen" in the course of defending themselves from 3 wars of extermination waged by the surrounding Arab powers."
The discussion here is about whether it is reasonable to expect Israel to give back enough land to join the Gaza strip and the West Bank into a single contiguous Palestinian state.
Israel could give back every single settlement, and there would still be significant separation between the Palestinian territories because Israel seized the land that used to connect them, a northern extension from the Gaza Strip, in the war of 1948. It would be difficult to characterize the Arabs' goal in that conflict as anything other than a war of extermination.
Next time, read more carefully before you accuse someone of dishonesty. You will be less likely to embarrass yourself.
The discussion was your claim that from the river to the sea was a call for genocide. But go ahead and be dishonest. People have already pointed out that it does not require a contigious land mass to meet the term. And I pointed out that even if it did Israel could hand some land to make Palestine as a nation contigious with no genocide necessary. Right now it is Paletsinians experiencing genocide from Israel anyway.
But that is an entirely different question from whether Israel stole that land. They didn't. They seized it as part of a defensive war in which the other side meant to wipe them out. The fact that you would like Israel to make a concession to the Palestinians or even the fact that it is possible for Israel to make that concession are very different questions then whether they are morally obligated to or whether that land is stolen.
It's not surprising that someone who thinks that Israel's current military campaign is even in the same universe as genocide is too stupid to keep track of the point at issue.
Genocide is the deliberate attempt to exterminate a people. Genocide would be going house to house, raping the women and killing everyone your soldiers can get their hands on. Genocide would be what the Hamas charter calls for when it says "from the river to the sea." Genocide is not an urban military campaign with a high casualty count.
It is particularly grotesque to accuse Israel of genocide a mere two months after Hamas finished demonstrating that they were serious when they said they wanted to wipe out all the Jews.
You value words. "We care about civilians" while committing horrendous genocide. I look at actions. I bet if someone bombed your house and killed your family while saying they loved you and someone else (proportionality) killed your dog while saying they want you wiped off the earth, you would have a bigger problem with they one who murdered your family and bombed you entire city into smithereens. But form you couch you get to say that saying you care while committing genocide is all good.
What borders will work if you throw out the 1967 ones? Why doesn't Israel give equasl rights to everyone in the country including the occupied territiries (even actual citizens have the "Jewish" class and all the others. It is explicitly (as in part of the law and founding documents) a racist and aparthied state. You are straight up lying when you call it a democracy.
Ask protestors what they are calling for when they say "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" I have asked dozens. To a person they say they are calling for equal rights for all peoples currently in the land, and an end to the explicitly racist and aparthied state. Do you think ending apartheid is genocide? Was ending apartheid in South Africa genocide?
I completely agree that "from the river to the sea" is a slogan of terror and violence. It is a horrible, antisemitic thing to say, and as an American Jew I don't feel safe hearing that.
All that said, it is speech protected by the First Amendment, and is covered under free speech. Even explicit calls for genocide are protected free speech.
Sorry, you don't to say that the way a phrase makes you FEEL defines, without question, what it MEANS.
Because there are other people involved here, specifically the people who use this phrase. Do they get any say in what it means? Of course they do. When 30,000 people march in D.C. and chant "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", do you really think they're seeing it as a "slogan of terror and violence"? How come your interpretation wins out over theirs?
> Sorry, you don't to say that the way a phrase makes you FEEL defines, without question, what it MEANS.
To be clear, I never said this.
Do you agree with Humpty Dumpty in "Alice in Wonderland" that words mean whatever you want them to mean?
The meaning of words is determined by their usage, and numbers do matter. Again, 30,000 people marching in D.C. chanting "From the river to the sea..." your claim is what they mean by this is "we want terror and violence". Here's an idea, why don't you ASK them what they mean by it?
Have you asked them?
Cause I've seen the tiktoks and the twitts and the signs held in thise rallies. A lot of them do say exactly that.
Because that sentance does not exist in a vaccume - it comes with other slogans like "intifada, revolution". And yes, Intifida *specifcaly means* war on civilians.
And yes, Intifida *specifcaly means* war on civilians.
You sure about that? Elsewhere in this thread, I was told "intifada" is OK, but "global intifada" means "kill all the jews." So hard to avoid calling for genocide with all this conflicting advice!
Upthread you said "End the occupation" is OK, but one way to end the occupation is to kill all the Jews, so are you sure "End the Occupation" is not also a call for genocide? Suppose we take your advice and stick to just "End the Occupation" but then next week Elise Stafnik decides that "End the Occupation" also means genocide?
Look, it's been fun, really it has, but I think going forward those of us who want to see the Palestinians living free of the Israeli occupation will just choose for ourselves the words that come out of our own mouths, without all this "helpful" advice from people who are clearly not our allies. Bye now!
Yes, I have. And do you see what you're doing here? You see something on Twitter, and that tells you what college students marching through the campus at Harvard MUST think, no doubt. Elsewhere in this thread, I learned that a guy at a protest in New York City held up a phone with a swastika on it, which not only means that all of the thousands of people at that protest want to kill all the Jews, but that students marching on a campus hundreds of miles away want to kill all the Jews.
I'm starting to suspect that you just REALLY want to believe these college students want to kill all the Jews and will grab at anything you can find to "prove" that. And I'm 100% positive you'll be successful in convincing yourself of this thing you already believe, congratulations!
Intifada is the right to fight oppresion. Not a war on civilians. Point to ANY source whatsoever that supports this lie.
I have asked dozens in person. Please link to a single tiktok etc that supports your claim. It is a straight up lie (of course someone out there may mena that, but I am talking about the vast majority well over 95 percent probably 99.5 percent or more).