Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Minnesota on Sunday retweeted a phrase that is associated with calling for the elimination of Israel.
StopAntisemitism.org highlighted the tweet that Tlaib retweeted, which stated: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
“Rashida Tlaib RT’s out the same message that got Marc Lamont Hill canned from CNN,” StopAntisemitism.org noted. “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free – code for eradicating the State of Israel and its millions of Jews. Reminder – this is a sitting U.S. Congresswoman.”
“Palestine” is the name given to ancient Israel by Roman invaders. The name was used to describe the area until the nation of Israel was reborn in 1948. Until 1948, both Jews and Arabs living in the area described themselves as Palestinians. Since Independence, Arabs have continued to use the Roman term while Jews chose the name “Israelis.”
“The Daily Beast”, a liberal publication, wrote the following about the meaning of the phrase:
READ: Who are the Palestinians?
“The river in this formulation is the Jordan, the naturally occurring eastern border of Israel and of the West Bank; the sea is the Mediterranean to the west. Uttered by advocates of the Palestinian cause for decades, the pithy slogan very pointedly makes no place for Israel. It evokes a strip of Middle Eastern land where Israel is no more, replaced by a unified Palestinian entity in the space it once occupied. It could be that this entity would welcome and protect a Jewish population. But when supporters of the Jewish state hear those 10 words, they worry about their potentially violent implications.”
CNN fired then-contributor Marc Lamont Hill in 2018 after he used the slogan, which “The Times of Israel” noted was associated with “Palestinian extremists,” during a speech at the United Nations. Hamas has repeatedly used the phrase, according to the Anti-Defamation League. A recent report from the ADL described the phrase as “extreme.”
The ADL’s senior vice president for international affairs, Sharon Nazarian, responded to Hill’s remarks at the time by telling the Jewish Journal that “those calling for ‘from the river to the sea’ are calling for an end to the State of Israel.”
“It is a shame that once again, this annual event at the United Nations does not promote constructive pathways to ‘Palestinian solidarity’ and a future of peace, but instead divisive and destructive action against Israel,” Nazarian said.
–Dwight Widaman | Metro Voice