“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a political slogan that has been printed on many images. The river is the Jordan River, and the sea is the Mediterranean Sea. For Palestinians, it means living without the rule of Israel. For Israel, it means a call for the destruction of the state of Israel.
   
The expression “From the river to the sea” was printed in Record of the Arab World: Yearbook of Arab and Israeli Politics (1970) and probably first appeared in the Arabic language. “They all began talking at once: the curly-haired Palestinian youth to my right just kept nodding his head and repeating in Arabic, ‘From the river to the sea, from the river to the sea’ — referring to the Palestinian claims to all of Palestine stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean” was printed in the book From Beirut to Jerusalem (1990) by Thomas L. Friedman.
 
The “sea-free” rhyme appeared later and only works in English. “Hundred percent of occupied Palestine will be free (from the river to the sea)” was posted on the newsgroup alt.religion.islam on June 10, 2000. “A few Sundays ago an organization called Al-Awda (Right of Return) held a rally in Chicago. T-shirts were produced especially for this event, proclaiming: ‘Palestine Will be Free from the River to the Sea’” was printed in the Chicago (IL) Tribune on October 31, 2002. “The problem: A banner hanging in the Douglas Campus Student Center reads ‘From the River to the Sea—Palestine Will be Free’” was printed in the Courier News (Bridgewater, NJ) on March 14, 2003.
   
   
Wikipedia: State of Palestine 
Palestine (Arabic: فلسطين, romanized: Filasṭīn[d]), officially the State of Palestine (دولة فلسطين, Dawlat Filasṭīn), is a state in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Founded on 15 November 1988 and officially governed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), it claims the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip as its territory, all of which has been Israeli-occupied territories since the 1967 Six-Day War. The West Bank contains 165 Palestinian enclaves that are under partial Palestinian rule, but the remainder, including 200 Israeli settlements, is under full Israeli control. The Gaza Strip was governed by Egypt but conquered by Israel in 1967. Israel governed the region until it withdrew in 2005. Hamas seized power after winning the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. The Gaza Strip has since been blockaded by Israel and Egypt.
 
Wikipedia: From the river to the sea
“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 slogan 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 in the 1960s as part of a wider call for Palestinian liberation creating a democratic state freeing Palestinians from living within Israeli as well as from other Arab regimes such as Jordan and Egypt.
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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.”
 
For Elliott Colla, “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.”
 
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).
   
American Jewish Committee
“From the River to the Sea”
noun \ ‘fruhm ‘thə ‘RIVər ‘too ‘thə ‘si \
: the catch-all phrase symbolizing Palestinian control over the entire territory of Israel’s borders, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea
 
HOW IT’S ANTISEMITIC:
“From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” is a rallying cry for terrorist groups and their sympathizers, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) to Hamas, which called for Israel’s destruction in its original governing charter in 1988 and was responsible for the October 7, 2023 terror attack on Israeli civilians, murdering over 1,200 people in the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
       
Google Books   
Record of the Arab World:
Yearbook of Arab and Israeli Politics
1970
Pg. 4982
... Palestinian Resistance Third: Can the Palestine resistance carry out a war of liberation that would end in complete liberation from the river to the sea? Of course, it cannot. Any hope for liberation from the river to the sea ...
   
Google Books
Soul in Exile:
Lives of a Palestinian Revolutionary
By Fawaz Turki
New York, NY: Monthly Review Press
1988
Pg. ?:
“... Palestine from the river to the sea. Down with the accommodationists.”
 
Google Books
From Beirut to Jerusalem
By Thomas L. Friedman
New York, NY: Anchor Books (Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.)
1990
Pg. 407:
They all began talking at once: the curly-haired Palestinian youth to my right just kept nodding his head and repeating in Arabic, “From the river to the sea, from the river to the sea” — referring to the Palestinian claims to all of Palestine stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean.
   
Google Groups: alt.religion.islam
If 20% of Israel can be Palestinian why cant 20% of West Bank and Gaza be Jewish ?
Laulak Siddique
Jun 10, 2000, 3:00:00 AM
Hundred percent of occupied Palestine will be free (from the river to the sea)
 
OCLC WorldCat record 
From the river to the sea? : honour, identity and politics in historical and contemporary Palestinian rejectionism
Author: Strindberg, Nils Tage Anders (Creator)
Summary: The present thesis seeks to understand and explain the rhetoric and behaviour of the rejectionist ‘current’ within the Palestinian national movement. It proceeds from the view that extant scholarship, primarily from within the fields of terrorism and security studies, has profoundly misunderstood rejectionist speech and behaviour by ignoring the explanatory capacity of Emic - the research subject’s perception - as well as the influence of the sociocultural milieu within which rejectionism exists. The thesis proceeds to set up a ‘socioculturally sensitive’ analytical framework drawn from social identity theory, a heuristic, non-reductionist model for understanding group interaction and conflict. Emphasizing cultural norms and cues identified by anthropologists as salient in the eastern Mediterranean, the thesis suggests that the social value of honour, patron-client dynamics and a firmly entrenched group orientation must be significant elements of a model for understanding rejectionist behaviour. The main analytical narrative suggests that for reasons derived from ideology, patron-client relations and group dynamics, what has distinguished the rejectionists from the mainstream have been a qualitatively different set of preconditions for, and objectives of diplomatic negotiations. To the main rejectionist factions the goal of liberating Palestine has always been inextricably intertwined with the goal of restoring national honour; one without the other has been impossible and to claim otherwise would mean a depletion of factional and personal honour. To the rejectionists, there has never been any question of deviating from the fundamental goals - national recognition, repatriation, self-determination and independent statehood, not even for tactical reasons. This ‘higher standard’ likely derives from their structurally and politically subordinate position within the national movement, and the need to creatively enhance their own social status and appeal
Thesis, Dissertation, English, 2001
Publisher: University of St Andrews The University of St Andrews, 2001
 
Newspapers.com
31 October 2002. Chicago (IL) Tribune, “Voice of the People: Palestinian tactics,” sec. 1, pg. 12, col. 4:
A few Sundays ago an organization called Al-Awda (Right of Return) held a rally in Chicago. T-shirts were produced especially for this event, proclaiming: “Palestine Will be Free from the River to the Sea.” This vision is regrettably consistent with maps and textbooks used to educate Palestinian students in which neither Israel nor a call for peaceful co-existence can be found.
(...)
David Roet
deputy consul general
of Israel to the Midwest
Chicago
     
Google Groups: alt.religion.unification
Weekly Dish
Eric Richardson
Mar 7, 2003, 10:07:26 AM
March 7, 2003
The Weekly Dish
Andrew Sullivan
(...)
Campus anti-Semitism
Two banners have recently gone up at Rutgers University. They both
proclaim the same message: “Palestine Will Be Free From The River To
The Sea.” One is in the student center, blessed by the university. The
University Council deemed the message to be “not inflammatory.” Jewish
students naturally felt otherwise. Meanwhile, the Rutgers paper just
ran an editorial describing Israel as a fascist state, bent on ethnic
cleansing. Bit by bit, the anti-Israeli forces on campuses ratchet up
the smears and propaganda. And bit by bit, campus authorities do
nothing.
 
Newspapers.com
14 March 2003, Courier News (Bridgewater, NJ), “Your Opinion: Student banner really anti-Semitic,” pg. A-13, cols. 2-5:
The problem: A banner hanging in the Douglas Campus Student Center reads “From the River to the Sea—Palestine Will be Free.”
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JEFFREY A. WEINSTEIN
Edison
         
Newspapers.com
30 March 2003, Newsday (Long Island, NY), “Targets: War, Israel Occupation” by Jerome Burdi, pg. 19, col. 1:
Several hundred people—many wearing kaffiyehs on their heads and necks and chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”—jammed Broadway between 41st and 42nd streets yesterday to speak against the Israeli occupation and U.S. military force against Iraq. The rally was followed by a march to Union Square.
 
The Nation 
Google Books
The Nation
Volume 276
June 9, 2003
Pg. 2:
Many workers and volunteers for ANSWER, the major rally organizer, sported T-shirts declaring, “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea,” clearly referring to a Palestinian state covering all Israel, or the end of the Jewish state.
(...)
EVAN J. DERKACZ
Media editor, Tikkun Community
Cambridge, Mass.
   
Google Groups: soc.culture.israel
Media Cover-Up For Terrorists rhs
Richard H. Shulman
Aug 8, 2003, 9:40:32 AM
(...)
MEDIA COVER-UP FOR TERRORISTS (Shulman 9958)
(...)
MEDIA COVERS UP FOR TERRORISM
The media portrayed the controversial Rutgers U. hosting of a pro-Arab
conference as one of free speech for a benign, mainstream organization.
Initial reports covered up the group’s pro-terrorism. That mission is frankly
stated on its website. It affirms opposition to the existence of Israel, which
it calls names. It approves of “any means necessary,” i.e., terrorism. It
submitted an article to the Rutgers U. newspaper, “Israel Has No Right to
Exist,” but the editors misleadingly toned it down to “Palestine Roots in Land
Proven Through History.” The “Star Ledger” reported a dispute between pro-P.A.
and Jewish groups over a “Palestine Will Be Free” sign. The full banner was
more revealing, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free.” The full
message indicates a wish to take over Israel, too, just gain P.A. independence.
Why did the media conceal it?
   
X/Twitter
Rob Spectre
@dN0t
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. http://ff.im/-ti1o
6:20 PM · Jan 2, 2009
   
X/Twitter
Disinformation
@disinfo
From the River to the Sea - Stop the massacre in Gaza: Following the continued bombing of Gaza by Israeli warpla.. http://tinyurl.com/8dabcq
12:03 PM · Jan 6, 2009
 
X/Twitter
Call me Dalal
@miqla3
#iLoveItWhen I hear some one say, “From the river to the sea, #Palestine will be free!” #Gaza #GFM
5:40 PM · Dec 26, 2009
   
Al Jazeera     
‘From the river to the sea’: What does the Palestinian slogan really mean?
Critics have called its use anti-Semitic amid Israel’s war on Gaza. But the slogan has more complex roots, say analysts.
By Federica Marsi
Published On 2 Nov 2023
A slogan calling for freedom from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea has drawn scrutiny after pro-Palestinian demonstrators across the Western world were met with attempts to curtail its use.
 
From Beirut to London, from Tunis to Rome, calls for a ceasefire ending Israel’s relentless bombing of Gaza were interspersed with the slogan: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
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“It’s important to remember this chant is in English and it doesn’t rhyme in Arabic, it is used in demonstrations in Western countries,” he (Nimer Sultany, a lecturer in law at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London—ed.) said. “The controversy has been fabricated to prevent solidarity in the West with the Palestinians.”
 
Pro-Israel observers, however, argue the slogan has a chilling effect. “To Jewish Israelis what this phrase says is that between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, there will be one entity, it will be called Palestine – there will be no Jewish state – and the status of Jews in whatever entity arises will be very unclear,” Yehudah Mirsky, a Jerusalem-based rabbi and professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University.
 
Associated Press
‘From the river to the sea’: Why these 6 words spark fury and passion over the Israel-Hamas war
BY LAURIE KELLMAN
Updated 11:00 PM EST, November 10, 2023
The Jordan River is a winding, 200-plus-mile run on the eastern flank of Israel and the occupied West Bank. The sea is the glittering Mediterranean to its west.

But a phrase about the space in between, “from the river to the sea,” has become a battle cry with new power to roil Jews and pro-Palestinian activists in the aftermath of Hamas’ deadly rampage across southern Israel Oct. 7 and Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
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SLOGAN ADOPTED BY HAMAS
“From the river to the sea” echoes through pro-Palestinian rallies across campuses and cities, adopted by some as a call for a single state on the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.
   
Vox
The controversial phrase “from the river to sea,” explained
“From the river to the sea” demands conversations about the future of Israel and Palestine.
By Ellen Ioanes Nov 24, 2023, 7:00am EST
On US college campuses, on social media, and even in the halls of Congress, the 10-word slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is either a joyous call for Palestinian dignity and future statehood — or a threat to many Jewish people in Israel and around the world.
 
The slogan rhymes both in English and in Arabic — one modern Arabic version can be transliterated as “min al-nahr ila al-bahr / Filastin satatharrar” — and the river and sea in question are the Jordan in the east and the Mediterranean in the west. The phrase has been around in various iterations for a few decades. It’s only in the past five years or so, as US public support for Palestinians among younger demographics has steadily increased, that the phrase has become a flashpoint in the political debate about the future of Israel and Palestine.
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The history of the phrase and how it came to be so controversial
It’s not clear where the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” comes from, or even when it came about. Elliott Colla, a professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, says that the phrase as it’s currently known first came about around the time of the first intifada and the Oslo accords process in the 1990s. Other sources, though, place its origins much earlier, to the 1960s and the birth of the Palestinian nationalist movement.
 
(Trademark)
Mark: FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA
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US Serial Number: 98260590 Application Filing Date: Nov. 08, 2023
Filed as TEAS Plus: Yes Currently TEAS Plus: Yes
Register: Principal
Mark Type: Trademark
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Status: New application awaiting assignment to an examining attorney. See current trademark processing wait times for more information.
Status Date: Nov. 08, 2023
 
(Trademark)
Mark: FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE
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US Serial Number: 98275013 Application Filing Date: Nov. 17, 2023
Filed as TEAS Plus: Yes Currently TEAS Plus: Yes
Register: Principal
Mark Type: Trademark