"From the river to the sea" (Arabic: من النهر إلى البحر, romanized: min an-nahr ʾilā l-baḥr; Palestinian Arabic: من المية للمية, romanized: min il-ṃayye la-l-ṃayye, lit. 'from the water to the water')^[1][2] is a political phrase that refers geographically to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an area described as Palestine,^[3] which today includes Israel and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.^[4][5]

The phrase was popularised among the Palestinian population in the 1960s as a call for liberation from living under Israeli, Jordanian and Egyptian control.^[6] In the 1960s, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) used it to call for an Arab state encompassing the entirety of Mandatory Palestine, which was initially stated to only include the Palestinians and the descendants of Jews who had lived in Palestine before 1947, although this was later revised to only include descendants of Jews who had lived in Palestine before the first Aliyah (1881).^[7]

Many Palestinian activists have called it "a call for peace and equality" after decades of Israeli military rule over Palestinians while for Jews it has been "a clear demand for Israel’s destruction."^[8] Islamist militant faction Hamas used the phrase in its 2017 charter. Usage of the phrase by such Palestinian militant groups has led critics to argue that it advocates for the dismantling of Israel, and calls for the removal or extermination of the Jewish population of the region.^[9][8]

The phrase has also been used by Israeli politicians. The 1977 election manifesto of the right-wing Israeli Likud party said: "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty."^[10][11][12] Similar wording, such as referring to the area "west of the Jordan river", has also been used more recently by other Israeli politicians,^[3] including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 18 January 2024.^[13] Some countries have considered criminalizing use of the phrase.^[14][15] On 16 April 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a resolution condemning the phrase as antisemitic.^[16]

Middle East scholar Elliott Colla says that the relevant historical context for understanding 'from the river to the sea' is the history of partition and fragmentation in Palestine, along with Israeli appropriation and annexation of Palestinian lands.^[17] In his opinion these include: the 1947 UN Partition plan for Palestine, which proposed to divide the land between the river and the sea; the 1948 Nakba, in which that plan materialized; the 1967 War, in which Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza; the Oslo Accords, that (in his view) fragmented the West Bank into Palestinian enclaves (that he describes as "an archipelago of Bantustans surrounded by Israeli settlements, bases, and checkpoints"); and the Israeli separation wall first erected after the Second Intifada.^[17]

Another element of historical context is given by Maha Nassar from University of Arizona in an opinion piece in the Forward. According to her, the phrase "from the river to the sea" was used even before 1967, and expressed then the hope of the Palestinians to get free not only from the rule of Israel, but also from the rule of Jordan in the West Bank and from the rule of Egypt in Gaza strip.^[18]

The precise origins of the phrase are disputed.^[19] According to American historian Robin D. G. Kelley, the phrase "began as a Zionist slogan signifying the boundaries of Eretz Israel."^[3] Israeli-American historian Omer Bartov notes that Zionist usage of such language predates the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and began with the Revisionist movement of Zionism led by Vladimir Jabotinski, which spoke of establishing a Jewish state in all of Palestine and had a song which includes: "The Jordan has two banks; this one is ours, and the other one too," suggesting a Jewish state extending even beyond the Jordan River.^[20] In 1977, the concept appeared in an election manifesto of the Israeli political party Likud, which stated that “between the sea and the Jordan there will be only Israeli sovereignty.”^[21][22]

Palestinian usage of this phrase is also unclear. Kelley writes that the phrase was adopted by the Palestine Liberation Organization in the mid-1960s; ^[23][6] while Elliott Colla notes that "it is unclear when and where the slogan "from the river to the sea," first emerged within Palestinian protest culture."^[24] In November 2023, Colla wrote that he had not encountered the phrase – in either Standard nor Levantine Arabic – in Palestinian revolutionary media of the 1960s and 1970s and noted that "the phrase appears nowhere in the Palestinian National Charters of 1964 or 1968, nor in the Hamas Charter of 1988."^[24]

The 1964 charter of the PLO's Palestinian National Council called for "the recovery of the usurped homeland in its entirety". The 1964 charter stated that "Jews who are of Palestinian origin shall be considered Palestinians if they are willing to live peacefully and loyally in Palestine", specifically defining "Palestinian" as those who had "normally resided in Palestine until 1947".^[23] In the 1968 revision, the charter was further revised, stating that "Jews who had resided normally in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion" would be considered Palestinian.^[23][6]

The phrase appeared in English sources (that translated it from Arab sources) at least as early as 1970.^[25][26][27]

In 1979, the phrase was invoked by delegates attending the Palestine Congress of North America.^[28]

Colla notes that activists of the First Intifada (1987-1993) "remember hearing variations of the phrase in Arabic from the late 1980s onwards" and that the phrases have been documented in graffiti from the period in works such as Saleh Abd al-Jawad's "Faṣā'il al-ḥaraka al-waṭaniyya al-Filasṭīniyya fi-l-arāḍī al-muḥtalla wa-shu'ārāt al-judrān" (1991)^[29] and Julie Peteet's "The Writing on the Walls: The Graffiti of the Intifada" (1996).^[30][24]

The phrase appeared in a 2021 B'Tselem report entitled "A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This Is Apartheid" that described Israel's de facto rule over the territory from the river to the sea, through its occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza Strip, as a regime of apartheid.^[31][32]

Some politicians and advocacy groups such as the Anti-Defamation League^[6] and American Jewish Committee^[6] consider the phrase to be antisemitic, hate speech and incitement to genocide,^[6][87] suggesting that it denies the right of Jews for self-determination in their ancestral homeland,^[6] or advocates for their removal or extermination.^[15][88][89] Such critics of the phrase claim that it has been explicitly used to call for the land to be placed entirely under Arab rule at the cost of the State of Israel and its Jewish citizens.^{[39][90][91][92]}

ADL regional director Jonah Steinberg stated that from the time of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and thereafter "there was a catchphrase of 'pushing the Jews into the sea' and the phrase, 'from the river to the sea' echoes that trope in a menacing way."^[93]

Steven Lubet wrote in an opinion piece on The Hill that if the people promoting this slogan were really interested only in “freedom, human rights and peaceful coexistence” as they claim, then they would have changed the slogan to “From the river to the sea, Palestinians will be free.”^[94] Lubet also says that, according to DEI norms, the racism of a certain speech can be determined not only by the intent of the speaker, but mainly by the impact it has on the people who feel offended or threatened by it. Therefore, he concludes, since most Jews view the slogan as hurtful and threatening, it should be avoided, regardless of what is the real intent of its chanters.^[94]

According to Susie Linfield in an interview in Salmagundi magazine, there is nothing wrong with both Jews and Palestinians "pursuing national self-determination". In her opinion, the slogan 'from the river to the sea' represents a rejectionist unwillingness to compromise with the other nation on a two-state solution, which led the Palestinian leadership to reject the partition plan in 1947, ended in them losing everything so far.^[95]

On 9 November 2023, Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard University at the time, condemned the phrase.^[96]

On 17 April 2024, Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia University at the time, said that she herself hears the phrase as antisemitic, but some people do not.^[97]

On 16 April 2024 the U.S. House of Representatives approved a decision that condemns the chant as antisemitic, with a majority of 377 against 44.^[98]

Following the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the British home secretary at the time, Suella Braverman, proposed prosecuting those using the phrase in certain contexts.^[102]

A majority of the Dutch parliament declared the phrase to be a call for violence. The judiciary, however, ruled in August 2023 that the phrase was protected on free speech grounds, being "subject to various interpretations", including those that "relate to the state of Israel and possibly to people with Israeli citizenship, but do not relate to Jews because of their race or religion". The decision was later upheld by the Dutch Supreme Court.^{[14][61][103]}

On 11 October 2023, Vienna police banned a pro-Palestinian demonstration, citing the inclusion of the phrase "from the river to the sea" in invitations, as a justification.^[88][104] Politicians in Austria have also considered declaring use of the phrase to be a criminal offense, with Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer saying that the phrase would be interpreted as a call for murder.^[105][106]

On November 5, 2023, in Tallinn (Estonia), the police opened criminal proceedings against five rally participants who used "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free".^[107][108]

On November 11, 2023, the phrase was banned in Bavaria (Germany), and "the prosecutor's office and the Bavarian police warned that henceforth its use, regardless of language, will be considered as the use of symbols of terrorist organizations. This may result in punishment of up to three years in prison or a fine".^[109] Later using the slogan “From the river to the sea” was made a criminal offense across Germany.^[110]

On November 16, 2023, it was reported that users of the phrase may now face criminal prosecution in the Czech Republic.^{[111][112][113]}

On November 17, 2023, it was reported that the case of a man charged by the police in Calgary, Canada for using the phrase, had been stayed.^[114]

On April 16 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning the phrase as antisemitic, with 377 in favor, 44 against, and 1 absent. The resolution stemmed from controversy surrounding Rashida Tlaib's video post featuring the phrase. Tlaib, who voted against the resolution, defended the phrase as aspirational for freedom. While some Democrats viewed the resolution as divisive, many supported it due to concerns about antisemitism.^[16]

• Anti-Zionism
• Antisemitism
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict
• Greater Israel
• Greater Palestine
• Am Yisrael Chai
• A land without a people for a people without a land
• There was no such thing as Palestinians