The oft-heard chant “from the river to the sea” seems to unnecessarily pose some confusion for many, including most of those who utter it. In order to help understand and educate those who insist on repeating it, let’s take a closer look at it.
The first place to start is with the actual topographical features included in the phrase. By looking at a map of the State of Israel, one can readily determine that there is one major river in the land: the Jordan River. The Jordan River forms the eastern boundary of much of Israel, separating it (and the West Bank, which is the west bank of such river) from the Jordanian kingdom. Although there are, admittedly, other rivers in Israel, I am confident that very few invokers of the chant could name any of them. Consequently, it is a safe assumption that the river referred to is the Jordan River and thus the easternmost boundary of Israel.
In terms of seas, there are of course more than one of those bodies of water as well. In particular, there is the Red Sea, which most tourists visit on an excursion to Eilat in the southernmost point of Israel. There is also the Dead Sea, which forms part of the eastern boundary of Israel (along with, as you know from the above, the Jordan River), and is also a popular tourist destination due to its extreme salinity and purported restorative properties of its mud. Of course, there is one additional sea that borders Israel –the Mediterranean, which forms almost the entire western border of Israel.
With the understanding of the various bodies of water, it seems patently obvious that the only combination of a river and sea that could make any sense would be that of the Jordan and the Mediterranean. Any other combination would be essentially a null set. Given, therefore, that these two bodies of water form essentially all of Israel’s eastern and western boundaries, it seems undeniably clear that the land in between “the river and the sea” is all of Israel.
Despite some very thinly-veiled claims that this chant is merely “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate” by many, including a member of the United States House of Representatives, it is impossible to reconcile this statement with anything other than a call for the elimination of Israel. Since taking over everything from the “river to the sea” would leave nothing for the Jews, how can this be a call for coexistence and not one of death, destruction and hate?
Some, like the above-referenced Representative, might try to weasel their way out of the obvious true meaning of this phrase by emphasizing the “coexistence” angle. Yet there will be no possibility of peaceful co-existence for Jews if they are subsumed into a state with a majority Arab population. I know this because history unmistakably illustrates this point, both in Arab and other countries. The whole purpose for Israel is to have a majority Jewish state so that the Jews cannot be subjugated to the whims and hatreds of the majority. A one-state solution, which is the absolute most generous way in which one can interpret this phrase, is the same as no state for the Jews.
Of course, the more reasonable interpretation of this refrain is that Israel should cease to exist entirely. This does present somewhat of a conundrum for the over six million Jews living there. If Israel were to be wiped off the map along with its Jews – interestingly the same number of which were slaughtered in the Holocaust and which thereby inarguably made clear the very need for such a Jewish state – where would these Jews go? Should they return to the Arab countries that summarily exiled all of them to Israel, regardless of any expressed desire to go, and had at best long treated them as second-class citizens? (Interesting how one hears nary a word about those refugees; just because Israel accepted them does not mean that they were not ethnically cleansed from those Arab nations. Why isn’t Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International or the United Nations on top of this issue?) Or how about a return to Europe, which exterminated most of the Jews and then persecuted those who were left when they tried to return to their homes and which now is overrun with rampant anti-Semitism (not to mention hypocrisy of an unprecedented magnitude likening Israel as colonists by those countries whose very well-being to this day is derived from its colonial exploitation of people the world over)? The United States? Sorry to say that even America’s track record on taking Jewish refugees is far from good.
All of which makes it that much more frustrating when the White House’s own spokesperson tries to rationalize these inflammatory, eradicating remarks, when she stated, that the phrase “is divisive. It is hurtful to many — many find it hurtful and also many find it antisemitic. And so obviously, we categorically reject applying the term to this conflict.” Many “find it antisemitic”? Who does not find it antisemitic? A call to eradicate the Jews’ sole country can hardly be viewed as anything other than antisemitic.
Some might say all of this is really just semantics. Perhaps they are correct because we all know what is truly transpiring here: The Palestinians – whether Hamas or the Palestinian Authority or their other “leaders” – are not interested in anything other than eliminating Israel. They are not interested in any two-state solution. They want one state, a state that does not include the Jews. This should come as no surprise to anyone. Perhaps the only surprise is that the anti-Semites who wish to eradicate the Jewish state and the Jews along with it are so emboldened to finally say it out loud.
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