Our Wednesday News Analysis | From the River to the Sea and the Alleged Proposed Genocide – Why We Urgently Need De-Zionisation

Pro-Palestine activists in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo: Becker1999, via Wikimedia Commons)

The pearl-clutching and Zionist propaganda lines associated with the slogan ‘From The River to the Sea: Palestine Will be Free”’ is indicative of the lack of serious debate and activist culture in the United Kingdom, the rest of Europe, and, to some extent, the United States. But with the rash of student occupations and encampments, this may be changing.

According to Zionist talking points ‘From the river to the Sea…’ is a statement that aims to destroy the ‘State of Israel’ and is genocidal because any such action would inevitably involve the genocide of the Jews in ‘Israel’. Large sections of the political mainstream go along with this nonsense either because they believe it, because they think it’s in their interests, or because they are bullied and intimidated into it by the Zionists.

For example, the New York Times reported,

“The official congressional rebuke of Ms. Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, said the phrase was ‘widely recognized as a genocidal call to violence to destroy the state of Israel.’ The top White House spokeswoman disavowed it from the West Wing, saying that it was “divisive” and that many considered it hurtful and antisemitic.

“The phrase, which Ms. Tlaib has defended as ‘an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction or hate’.”

In the UK the Guardian reported:

“The home secretary, Suella Braverman, tweeted after recent UK protests – in which thousands chanted ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ – that the slogan was ‘widely understood as a demand for the destruction of Israel’. She added: ‘Attempts to pretend otherwise are disingenuous’.

“Hers is a commonly held view, albeit one that is vigorously countered by those who regard such characterisations as an attempt to close down debate.

“In 2021, the Palestinian-American writer Yousef Munayyer argued that those who saw genocidal ambition in the phrase… did so due to their own Islamophobia.

It was instead, he argued, merely a way to express a desire for a state in which ‘Palestinians can live in their homeland as free and equal citizens, neither dominated by others nor dominating them’.”...

Read more: From the River to the Sea and the Alleged Proposed Genocide – Why We Urgently Need De-Zionisation

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WAR IN GAZA | WHAT DO YOU CALL PEOPLE WHO FIGHT ON THEIR OWN LAND AGAINST FOREIGN SOLDIERS?

Source: Haaretz
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2024-05-20/ty-article/.premium/war-in-gaza-what-do-we-call-people-who-fight-on-their-own-land-against-foreign-soldiers/0000018f-94fb-d212-abcf-d6ff4c140000

By Amira Hass
Published May 20, 2024

Displaced Palestinian children line up to receive food in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip, on May 19, 2024.Credit: AFP

It's rare to hear by phone from two people in Gaza whose relative was killed in battle. He was a soldier in the Hamas army.

A: "We haven't talked for a long time." (I say this apologetically. There are so many people I want to know about, to find out whether they are "well," that I don't manage to talk to all of them every day. Moreover, contact with many of them has been lost over the last two weeks.)

Friend: "That's right. How are you? (That's a question I always respond to haltingly. It's hard when I am safe in a well-lit, warm house, with the friend sitting in a tent, half-destroyed house, or apartment with 18 relatives.)

Friend: "I'm in Cairo. I managed to get out two weeks ago, with my family. Just a few days before Rafah was invaded." (I suddenly remember his sense of humor. Once, in 1994 or 1995, his neighbor and I collected testimonies about Gaza's economic situation. We met him and others on the beach. "What are you doing?" we asked. "Waiting to turn 40," he answered. Permits to work in Israel were then given only to men 40 or older.)...

Read more: War in Gaza | What Do You Call People Who Fight on Their Own Land Against Foreign Soldiers?

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‘THE FOURTH GENERATION REMEMBERS’: NAKBA COMMEMORATED IN SHADOW OF GAZA WAR

Source: +972 Magazine
https://www.972mag.com/nakba-march-of-return-gaza/

By Baker Zoubi and Ghousoon Bisharat
Published May 14, 2024

Thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel joined the annual March of Return, with many making connections to the violent displacement in Gaza.

Protesters wave Palestinian flags during the 27th annual March of Return in the depopulated villages of Hawsha and Al-Kasair, northern Israel, May 14, 2024. (Ahmad Al-Bazz)

In the shadow of what many Palestinians are describing as a second Nakba in Gaza, around 15,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel participated in the 27th annual March of Return on Tuesday. After gathering in the northern city of Shefa-Amr, participants marched to the site of Hawsha and Al-Kasair, Palestinian villages that were forcibly depopulated during the Nakba of 1948 and subsequently destroyed.

Although Nakba Day is officially marked on May 15, the March of Return is held every year on Israel’s Independence Day, under the slogan “Their independence is our Nakba.” In recent years, the march has become the central mobilizing event for Palestinian citizens of Israel, uniting all groups and political forces. It is organized by the Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the Internally Displaced Persons in Israel, which selects one of the more than 600 Palestinian localities uprooted by Zionist or Israeli militias in 1947-49 as the march’s destination.

The number of Palestinians who were expelled or forced to flee from their homes in those years and prevented from returning was around 750,000; the number displaced in Gaza since October 7 exceeds 1.9 million.

“Without a doubt, this year’s march is different from all its predecessors, although marches took place in the past under difficult circumstances for the Palestinian people,” said journalist and activist Makbula Nassar, a member of the organizing committee. “As we march to emphasize our commitment to the UN-recognized Right of Return, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians — the children and grandchildren of those displaced in 1948 — are living once again through mass displacement.”

Commemorating the Nakba under the present circumstances, Nassar explained, is “a real challenge, but we are not compromising on continuing our activity, which has been going on for years. Its value has grown in recent years as a unifying event that speaks to all members of Arab society, although this year, the accompanying feelings are much more difficult.”...

Read more: ‘The fourth generation remembers’: Nakba commemorated in shadow of Gaza war