” 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