It isn't difficult to find examples and quotations of the Palestinian slogan, "Palestine from the river to the sea." Why, look: here's a homegrown example.
(We interrupt this post for a quick phone call from me to my home state.
Hi . . . uh, New Jersey? Yeah, it's me . . . yeah, I know, it's really been awhile, huh? Yeah, look, I'm sorry, I know I don't call enough . . . look, I said I was sorry. Listen, quit crying for a second now. I've got something I want to say . . . no, it's not that . . . see, you know I forgave you for Bon Jovi and all, but this other thing here, this "solidarity" organization you've got--it's just like, enough is enough, okay? Please quit giving me reasons to be ashamed of my birthplace. I'm serious . . . oh, yeah? Is that so . . . well, you know what?--Screw you, too!
[click])
And here's the ever-helpful and totally not anti-Semitic Guardian publishing a letter last year from none other, ostensibly, than one Saddam Hussein. And what's one of the phrases the old boy signs off with?
Long live Palestine, free and Arab from the river to the sea.So it's free and Arab, now. Interesting modification. But the Guardian does provide a helpful explanation as a footnote for the terminally clueless [emphasis mine]:
** From the river Jordan to the Mediterranean sea - a phrase commonly used by those who do not recognise Israel."Those who do not recognise Israel" including, I presume, the entire Guardian staff.
"Palestine from the river to the sea," or its variants ("Palestine will be free from the river to the sea," "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," "If Arafat is Tweedledum, then who is Tweedledee?" etc.), is a well-established Palestinian slogan with a long history of use, a slogan which expresses a clear intent to eradicate Israel. Are we all clear on that much? Good. Because if we are, then we're farther ahead than Tehran's Mehr News, which sees things a little differently:
Israel's double standards are yet another obstacle in the way of the road map.[Emphasis mine.]If the plan was implemented Israel would dominate the Middle East and the Zionist slogan about expanding their territory “from the Nile to Euphrates” would be realized in another way.
The bad news is that this fiction of a "Zionist slogan" isn't at all new, nor is it even a deliberate inversion of the Palestinian slogan. (And I'll give you three guesses who originated the Nile-to-Euphrates story). The good news is that currently, this Daniel Pipes article explaining its history is the first search result returned by Google.
The second result? Oh, that'd be the Mehr News Agency again.
Posted by Ilyka at May 4, 2004 10:57 PM in newsInterestingly, I just recently posted another reason to be ashamed of your home state:
http://www.thezeroboss.com/archives/000222.html
And yeah - when you're actively championing the destruction of a free people, that's crossing the line. Especially when you consider the government that would replace it. (Didn't we just overthrow a couple of those??)
Posted by: The Zero Boss at May 4, 2004 11:58 PMIsrael is a terrorist nation. The modern Nazi Germany, defending Israel is like defending Hitler. What is wrong is wrong. No other nation in the world has many UN Security Council resolutions against them as Israel. Israel has nuclear bombs, where are the UN inspections? Why isn't Bush invading Israel since they are a nuclear threat? Ah yes America is Israel's faithful lapdog always vetoing any resolution to inspect Israel for Nuclear weapons.
Israel is a fiction; the land belongs to the Palestinians. There are approximately 1.3 Billion Muslims in the world, sooner or later, from the river to the sea Palestine will be free.