![]() ![]() All of them suffer from a range of policies in a singular system of discrimination and apartheid-a system that can only be challenged by their unified opposition. There are Palestinians in Gaza living under an Israeli siege. There are Palestinians in legal limbo in occupied Jerusalem and facing expulsion. There are Palestinians living with no citizenship rights under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank. There are Palestinians denied equal rights living within Israel’s internationally recognized territory as second-class citizens. There are Palestinian refugees denied repatriation because of discriminatory Israeli laws. Palestinians have been divided in a myriad of ways by Israeli policy. “From the river to the sea” is a rejoinder to the fragmentation of Palestinian land and people by Israeli occupation and discrimination. ![]() It is this space that Palestinians call home, regardless of what anyone else calls it. It is across this space-and across the political and geographic divisions that Israeli rule has imposed-that Palestinians must unite to create change. It is in this space that Palestinians seek to live freely. The phrase “from the river to the sea” captures this future as no other can, because it encompasses the entire space in which Palestinian rights are denied. The recent Palestinian uprising foreshadowed a future struggle in which the Green Line is unimportant if existent at all, because across the country, Palestinians mobilized collectively on a large scale under their national banner. More than ever before, people around the world are accepting that the problem goes well beyond the occupation of the West Bank, and that discrimination against Palestinians occurs on both sides of the Green Line. This is due in part to a general intellectual and moral awakening-in media, in academia, in activist spaces, and even among certain elected officials-on the subject of Israel/Palestine, but also because of the increasingly horrific realities on the ground. Today, I believe the conversation has increasingly shifted in this direction. My column, “From the River to the Sea,” would be focused on the unity of the Palestinian experience and how all Palestinians faced a shared struggle with Zionism regardless of where they lived. Would a project called “Open Zion” really be open to arguments that challenged the tenets of Zionism? I agreed to participate on the condition that I could write what I wanted and that my column could be called “From the River to the Sea.” As I explained to Peter, I wasn’t concerned with Israel’s identity crisis over whether it could be both Jewish and democratic I was concerned that Palestinians were being denied basic rights throughout their homeland. He invited me to participate regularly, and at first I was hesitant, given the name. Like many Palestinians, I’ve long used this phrase. About a decade ago, Peter Beinart started a blog at The Daily Beast called “ Open Zion” aimed at bringing together a range of perspectives on Israel/Palestine. (Unfortunately, the union backed down in the face of these smears.) On May 19th, for example, the New Yorker Union was widely attacked for tweeting, “Solidarity with Palestinians from the river to the sea who went on a 24-hour strike yesterday for dignity and liberation.” Whether in earnest ignorance or in bad faith, critics of the river-to-the-sea formulation argued that the union, and others who used the slogan last month, were implicitly calling for not only dismantling the State of Israel, but cleansing the entire region-from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, an area encompassing the West Bank, Gaza, and all of Israel within its internationally recognized pre-1967 borders-of its Jewish population. You may also have heard claims that this slogan is antisemitic or even genocidal. ![]() If you watched or attended any of these protests, you likely saw the slogan printed on a sign, or heard it drifting over the crowd. IN RECENT WEEKS, as Palestinians rose up in their homeland, in the wider Middle East, and around the world, you probably heard the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” In cities across the globe, protesters responded to the pending expulsions of Palestinian residents from their homes in Jerusalem, Israeli attacks on holy sites, and the bombardment of Gaza. This piece originally appeared in yesterday’s email newsletter, to which you can subscribe here. ![]()
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