Tag: From the River to the Sea

From the River to the Sea 2

~ The Koboi Project

” a) The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”

This is the first tenet of the Nethanhayu’s Likud Party’s original Platform statement of 1977. Any claim by Zionists that From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free is a call to genocide is disingenuous and obfuscatory. In 1942, European and American Zionist’s set forth the seminal Biltmore Conference Declaration which laid claim to the whole of the British Mandatory Palestine for their new settler colonial state –

“8. … The Conference urges that the gates of Palestine be opened; that the Jewish Agency be vested with control of immigration into Palestine and with the necessary authority for upbuilding the country, including the development of its unoccupied and uncultivated lands; and that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth integrated in the structure of the new democratic world.“

Indeed, it is the Zionist version of From the River (the Jordan) to the Sea, that is founded on acts of ethnic cleansing, starting with the Nkabah of 1948 and continuing on through the last 75 years by way of sustained apartheid oppression, relentless settlement activity, crushing military rule, and murderous wars on civilian populations. It is Israel, that is an exclusive and exclusionary ethnocracy. Before the imposition of this Jewish state upon its territory, Palestine was a multiethnic, multireligious land of Arabs, both Christians and Muslims, Bedouins and Jews. There is nothing to suggest that either contemporary Palestinian national aspirations or the slogan uttered in this cause, is genocidal or hateful in any way. It is not a call for ridding the land of Jews. From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free should be understood in the context of the above declaration and the second tenet of the Likud Party Platform which explicitly refuses the establishment of a Palestinian State anywhere on this land.-

” b) A plan which relinquishes parts of western Eretz Israel, undermines our right to the country, unavoidably leads to the establishment of a “Palestinian State,” jeopardizes the security of the Jewish population, endangers the existence of the State of Israel. and frustrates any prospect of peace.“

While it must be acknowledged that a liberation slogan can mean different things to different people, From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free, when interpreted in its proper historical context, is simply a cry for freedom, across all the land, for all the people.

See also From the River to the Sea

Image: https://sd.keepcalms.com/i/from-the-river-to-the-sea-palestine-will-be-free-1.png

https://www.palquest.org/en/historictext/6723/biltmore-conference-declaration

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/original-party-platform-of-the-likud-party

The Poppy is the Flower of Palestine

~ The Koboi Project

Yesterday was Remembrance Day, and I must confess that, as someone who has lived in lands whare this ritual is practiced since I was 17, I have never worn the Remembrance Day poppy. This is because, while I respect those who have fallen in service of their country, I have always thought this symbolism to be sanctimonius; that it is as much about pomp and militarism, as it is about honouring the sacrifices of the fallen.

My concerns have been heightened by the controversy around this year’s Remembrance Day observances in the UK, wherein the highest officials of government cast aspersions on the March calling for a ceasfire in Palestine that took place on the same day (Saturday 11th November). The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, had called for this march to be postponed claiming that it was “disrespectful and provocative,” because of its coincidence with and proximity to the service at the Cenotaph. His Home Secretary, Suella Bravaman, had characterized previous marches as “Hate Marches” on the basis of the chant “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free,” which she interpreted as a call for “the erasure of Israel from the map.” The irony of this savage disparagement, is that the ethea of Remembrance Day and the March for Palestine, are in fact, one and the same. An ‘armistice’ is a ‘ceasefire.’

There is, an even deeper irony here. The Imperial British symbol of remembrance, the red poppy, is also a national symbol of Palestine, a nation whose obliteration was initiated in one of the closing acts of the said imperium. As Rosabel Crean explains, the poppy, which grows in abundance in Palestine, symbolizes the relationship between Palestinians and their land, the bloodshed they have endured, as well as their resistance against Israeli occupation. My new awareness of the Palestinian symbolism notwithstanding, I will continue paying my respects to the dead of war, both civilian and military, without wearing the Remembrance Day poppy.

See also: Remembrance Day Will Never Be the Same Again

Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0d/30/e0/0d30e083a2e36cba5191a72f6acaf80d.jpg

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15637074

https://news.sky.com/story/these-are-hate-marches-home-secretary-hits-out-at-pro-palestinian-protests-as-uk-terror-threat-level-remains-substantial-12996645

https://www.newarab.com/news/poppies-are-national-symbol-palestinians-not-just-uk

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/09/london-pro-palestine-armistice-day-march

From the River to the Sea

~ The Koboi Project

The national motto of Canada, “A Mari Usque Ad Mare,” which translates to “From sea to sea,” marks the occupation of a land which the prior occupants still call Turtle Island. While this proprietary geographical imagery derives from the Biblical Psalm 72:8, “He shall have dominion from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth,” its eschatological sense of “dominion” has been repeatedly transposed into an imperial one throughout the Common Era. The territorial imagery of “A mari Usque Ad Mare,” is evoked again in ‘America the Beautiful’, a popular patriotic song often confused with the American National anthem,

America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

This proprietary boundary symbolism seems to be an identifiable feature of European settler colonial imagery and lore. Indeed, European settler colonialism can be said to have been inaugurated in 1452, when Roman Catholic Pope Nicholas V issued the bull Dum Diversas, authorizing King Afonso V of Portugal to subjugate the lands and the lives of non-Christians. While Zionism does not derive from this Christian ‘doctrine of discovery’, the founding of Israel in the violent displacement of native Palestinians by non-native European Jews, can be seen as the last significant instantiation of such an ethnopolitical ‘dominion’.

Given both the history of settlement and erasure of Palestinians from their lands and the fact that in the past month, 10,733 Palestinians have been killed (10,569 in Gaza and 164 in the West Bank, November 8, 10:50 GMT Update) with the complicity of the collective West, I wonder if it is a guilty self-projection that underpins the interpretation that the freedom slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as a call for genocide (mass killing or other form of eradication with intent)? In fact, as Israeli historian Avi Shlaim has recently explained, this is not a call for the destruction of the state of Israel, but “a call for freedom ‘from the river to the sea’ for everybody.

Image: https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/from-sea-to-shining-sea.html

https://doctrineofdiscovery.org/dum-diversas/

https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/israel-hebrew/why-israel-isnt-a-settler-colonial-state/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/2/from-the-river-to-the-sea-what-does-the-palestinian-slogan-really-mean