‘From The River to the Sea Palestine Will Be Free!’
There is a desire amongst some people in the world to see a Palestinian state established in the lands that have long been known as Palestine.
Currently this land includes the area covered by the state of Israel.
In 1948 a large number of Jewish settlers who had moved to Palestine proclaimed a bordered area of land within Palestine, as the home of an Israeli state, which was recognised by the United States and the United Nations.
From this point on the Israeli state removed Palestinian families by force from the land, a process of ethnic cleansing which continues today, as Israel sought and seeks to expand its borders and the living space for Jewish people.
Since 1948 Palestinians living in Palestine, Israel and elsewhere, and people around the world have desired to see the creation of a Palestinian state in the land commonly known as Palestine.
For some this would involve the removal of the current state of Israel, which is located on these lands.
For those who would want to see the removal of the state of Israel, some would be happy to see Israelis (including Jewish Israelis) live in the state of Palestine.
Others would want to see Israelis (and Jewish Israelis in particular) removed from the land, and some would not mind or would want to see all Jewish Israelis killed.
Still others would want to see the creation of a Palestinian state that would co-exist with the existing state of Israel or a a modified version of the state of Israel.
Some Jewish Israelis had their own version of ‘From The River to the Sea Palestine Will Be Free!’
The Likud Party’s ‘Original Party Platform’ written in 1977 states,
Between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.
This statement is clear in the intent, in that it implies that there will only be one state in the land between the river and the sea, the state of Israel. The implication is that there will be no Palestinian state in the lands long known as Palestine.
Neither the Likud Party or the state Israel has quite achieved this, though the forced movement and mass destruction taking place in Gaza in November 2023, together with the gradual slow drip drip ethnic cleansing of other parts of Palestine are slowly moving in that direction.
Furthermore the intent behind this statement was given legislative strength in 2018 when the Israeli parliament passed a law called The Nation-State Bill, which states that the the State of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people. Minister Yariv Levin called it “Zionism’s flagship bill… it will bring order, clarify what is taken for granted, and put Israel back on the right path. A country that is different from all others in one way, that it is the nation-state of the Jewish people.” (taken from here) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in 2019, declared, “Israel is… the nation-state of the Jewish people and only them”.
Israel had effectively created a legal document, which legitimised an apartheid state. It legitimised racial and ethnic discrimination against Palestinians, and favouritism of Israeli Jews.
