What do you understand from the chant 'Free Palestine'?

Like I said, you do you boo

@PicturesOfDogs ah yes - just seen your suggestion! Peace for Palestine would be a nice thing to say or have on a poster. I am intending on going to a protest and this thread has made me think. I don’t think free Palestine is offensive but I do understand the river to the sea chant can be taken as being very offensive.

I think what is clear is that the status quo just isn’t working for Israelis and Palestinians……how do you get them to a table to start all over again. If only!!! I’d certainly like to bang a few heads together…….

@PicturesOfDogs

You have just said to me You just can’t be that arrogant, surely, to say, point blank, ‘that is what it’s intended to mean’

When you have been that arrogant & more on this thread by saying :
“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free‘ is a call to eradicate all Jews. From the river Jordan all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. That’s what it means. Now if that’s not what people actually mean when they chant it, then they’re either wilfully ignorant, or just dangerously ignorant.”

You posted this after I said most Palestinians do not meant it that way nor think of it in those terms, these are the people who came up with the chant and use it, so think they they’d know best what it means:
“A Dec 2020 survey http://pcpsr.org/en/node/829 of just over 1,000 Palestinians found that when Palestinians were asked their top priorities no one even mentioned overthrowing the state of Israel. All responses recognised Israel’s right to exist:
“45% believe that the first most vital Palestinian goal should be to end Israeli occupation in the areas occupied in 1967 and build a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital. By contrast, 29% believe the first most vital goal should be to obtain the right of return of refugees to their 1948 towns and villages, 13% believe that the first and most vital goal should be to build a pious or moral individual and a religious society, one that applies all Islamic teachings and an identical percentage (13%) believes it should be to establish a democratic political system that respects freedoms and rights of Palestinians.” Given this the “Free Palestine” chant most probably represents freedom from occupation to form a sovereign state in a two state solution with Israel.”

No, the flag itself isn’t offensive.

I did suggest a chant actually, if you’ve read my earlier post.
But quite literally, anything else in my opinion.

But if you really want to chant that, chant it.

No one’s going to stop you.

But there may be people reading this who had no idea of the sinister motives that could potentially be associated with this chant.

I find it strange people who do know, still argue that they want to keep chanting it, but that just might be me.

It’s up to them how they want to show their support I guess

You just can’t be that arrogant, surely, to say, point blank, ‘that is what it’s intended to mean’

The definitely is how it’s meant to some people.

Both who chant it, and who hear it. You cannot think you speak for everyone?

The right wing nutter mentioned upthread ‘turning it on its head’ is proof of it.
As are the multiple people commenting that’s how they interpret it.

Listen, you want to argue your right to chant it, fill your boots.
I’m not going to stop you/anyone else.

I would hope that most of the people chanting it mean it they way you’ve stated, and I’m sure most do. Maybe they’ve never heard the more sinister meaning.

But many people do consider it a call to jihad.

It’s just not something I would personally do.

I wouldn’t chant something so open to interpretation if I genuinely wanted peace, knowing how it could be taken.

But, if you want to argue the toss that people who may feel threatened/marginalised/frightened hearing it are merely ‘choosing’ to interpret it that way, that’s fine.

You do you, boo.

What did they imply?

White Horse Spirit is a Spirit that is sacred to the Vale of the White Horse in rural Wiltshire. It would appear to the Ancient people roaming the hills as a symbol of hope during times of war. It had the power to grant wishes. This is still believed today by myself and others who grew up there.

What would be an acceptable chant or slogan for pro-Palestinian protesters?

Is the Palestinian flag offensive to those who find the ‘free palestine’ chant offensive?

What does white horse spirit mean?
I saw another poster imply something.

It isn’t what is meant, it is how biased receivers have chosen to interpret it.
Compare “land of the free from sea to shining sea” to “free from the river to the sea”. They both mean and are intended to mean freedom for everyone living on those lands.

Failing to infer something sinister into the latter when it is no different from the former in terms of language and sentiment, isn’t being willfully ignorant in my opinion. It’s more being reasonable in observing that one statement is deemed inspiring and the other is deemed sinister wholly based on the religion of who has said it.

? I did not say he was an IDF spokesman, I said he is a member of the IDF digital spokesteam. He works for Netanhyu as a member of the larger digital spokes team, but his role is on that team is to post about IDF operations.

I feel like we may be splitting hairs. The main point is he posted the claim of credit that IDF had done the one hit on one hospital as part of his job for the Israeli government and as a duly authorised public relations representative of them and not in a private capacity as a random commentator in the Twitter-sphere.

‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free‘ is a call to eradicate all Jews. From the river Jordan all the way to the Mediterranean Sea.

That’s what it means.

Now if that’s not what people actually mean when they chant it, then they’re either wilfully ignorant, or just dangerously ignorant.

I just don’t understand why people would chant something that has such awful connotations, knowing it has such awful connotations.

If that’s not what you mean, chant something else.
If people are genuinely chanting not for the eradication of all Jewish people, but for peace, maybe they should start using a more peaceful chant?

How about Peace for Palestine?

Nice bit of alliteration, would flow nicely off the tongue, and importantly couldn’t be mistaken for a call to eradicate an entire people off the face of the earth.

Most people do not believe it to call for the destruction of Israel but obviously some people do currently mean that. In more peaceful times (ha!) it did mean that.

In all the years I've been watching this situation, it's the first time I've ever seen its meaning disputed tbh, generally it was always taken to have the grimmer meaning. It would be nice to think the meaning has changed but I really don't believe it has for plenty of those who chant it.

There is the case of a member if the IDF digital spokesteam taking credit for the strike and then deleting it

He's not an IDF spokesman but worked for Netanyahu's digital team. The official IDF spokesman has been doing it for years, I recognised him straightaway and the Govt spokesman is Eylon Levy.

He sounds like a bit of a twat, tbh.

https://jewishinsider.com/2023/10/hananya-naftali-spokesman-israeli-government-war/

Most people do not believe it to call for the destruction of Israel
100% this is the case not just amongst foreign activists, but among the Palestinians

A Dec 2020 survey http://pcpsr.org/en/node/829 of just over 1,000 Palestinians found that when Palestinians were asked their top priorities no one even mentioned overthrowing the state of Israel. All responses recognised Israel’s right to exist:

“45% believe that the first most vital Palestinian goal should be to end Israeli occupation in the areas occupied in 1967 and build a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital. By contrast, 29% believe the first most vital goal should be to obtain the right of return of refugees to their 1948 towns and villages, 13% believe that the first and most vital goal should be to build a pious or moral individual and a religious society, one that applies all Islamic teachings and an identical percentage (13%) believes it should be to establish a democratic political system that respects freedoms and rights of Palestinians.”

Given this the “Free Palestine” chant most probably represents freedom from occupation to form a sovereign state in a two state solution with Israel.

As to how to obtain these objectives….
”The most preferred way out of the current status quo is “reaching a peace agreement with Israel” according to 38% of the public while 29% prefer waging “an armed struggle against the Israeli occupation.” 10% prefer “waging a non-violent resistance” and 19% prefer to keep the status quo.”

This means that 71% of Palestinians do not support any kind of armed struggle or violent resistence, terrorist or otherwise.

In addition,
”If legislative elections are held today [Dec 2020], 38% expect Fatah to win; 25% expect Hamas to win; 23% expect third parties and new lists that are unknown today to win.”

This means that a supra-majority of the Palestinians surveyed would not vote for Hamas and Hamas has a 75% chance of losing the elections

But this is only if elections were to be done fairly and freely, the survey depressingly found that 52% say if elections are held today under current conditions, they will not be fair and free; so there is a widespread fear that any election would be rigged, perhaps this is how Hamas got to power in the first place?

Depends on the context…

At the moment, given Israel’s current slaughter and starving of civilians in Gaza, I think it means stop bombing Gaza, stop invading and occupying Gaza (sorry ‘settling’ in other people’s houses), and give back the occupied territories.

Most people do not believe it to call for the destruction of Israel but obviously some people do currently mean that. In more peaceful times (ha!) it did mean that.

Something I do think is so important though is that the West stays out of this. The Middle East is shit, it’s always been shit, Europe and America are actually pretty lovely. Let’s not start picking sides and prancing around the streets protesting about the Middle East. This is not a European problem, we have quite enough of our own troubles with Putin trying to start WW3. Palestine/Israel is a tragedy but not our tragedy.

Not all the reports. The reports from Israel, US, U.K., France and Canada have rubber stamped the IDF report. These are not independent reports being close allies of Israel. Reports by Channel 4, Russian, Chinese, Qatar cast doubt on this. Especially since IDF was shown to have fabricated evidence within their report in the first place (audio, & maps)

The primary issue I see is that IDF is not being entirely honest with their allies as to the full arsenal on munitions currently being used on Gaza because all these reports conclude that it wasn’t a JDAM. JDAMs are only one type of air strike Israel is using. They are also using mortar shells- guided, dumb, and the extra damaging white phosphorus and incendiary shells that are banned in urban environments where civilians are present. They are also using tank fire. The failure to examine the other artillery Israel has been lobbing into Gaza tells me these reports are incomplete. Concluding it wasn’t a JDAM doesn’t automatically mean it could not have been IDF. Trusting that IDF would not use a banned type of shell, is naive as HRW has investigated and shown repeated use of banned weapons used on Palestinian civilians.

In addition, I have worked in rockets and a failed rocket launch mid flight would have looked very different visually and left a lot of debris- there is none reported at the site not even by UNWRA officials who arrived shortly after. For those who do not know, UNWRA are United Nations, not Hamas and not Palestinians.

In addition the audio on the hit on the hospital sounds nothing like a failed rocket plummeting down on to Gaza. There is no sound of an explosion mid-air, it has the whistle sound of incoming artillery fire.

In addition, the IDF had previously sent warning shells that hit near the hospital and said the next would be a hit as part of their evacuation warning. So there is both motive and stated intention from IDF that the hospital was a target. They have also shelled other health clinics and hospitals, so it’s clearly not a red line for them. There is the case of a member if the IDF digital spokesteam taking credit for the strike and then deleting it claiming they were repeating a Reuters report- when Reuters has said no such report existed.

In addition, the photos, craters and fire are similar to an incendiary shell not a JDAM. Hamas has used incendiary shells BUT a misfire wouldn’t have caused the damage or the fire. The crater is a direct hit crater and the incendiary explosion then ripped through the people sheltering in the car park and courtyard next to it. Incendiary shells are designed to spew conflagrations after impact causing widespread fire damage. This is consistent to what happened to the innocents who were killed and the burned out cars.

I don’t think it is a closed matter at all.

This is incorrect. The Palestinian Occupied Territories are de facto part of Israel as Israel is occupying them, much like Japan once occupied parts of China, or Russia occupied Poland. The POTs are not their own country - so saying it is like France to England is incorrect. They have not been formally annexed yet, but are all but annexed.

There is also a wall completely encircling Gaza…so not sure how you can claim there isn’t one. It was built by Israel to keep all Gazans imprisoned within it and so they could physically control everything and everyone that goes in an out including necessities for life and the blockade is at all levels- sea, air, and land and also funds & humanitarian that go to people in Gaza. They also control the number of jobs and decide whether cottage industries/busineses cab operate. They control all water in Gaza. All electricity.

I don’t agree that any country would do this. Many other countries have faced terrorist attacks by extremists and have managed to counter it without going to such brutally oppressive means.

Palestinian flags are not Hamas flags. Hamas has its own flag that is not the flag for Palestine. Similar to how a Nazi flag was not the flag for Germany.

@watcherintherye
You've had your answer - a right wing nutjob who does not represent what normal Israelis think. The settlers should be forcibly removed or made to live under Palestinian rule. As Truly says, he's reversing what is normally said about Israel and thinks he's oh so clever, but really he's a fucking moron who has sunk to the depths of their level. It's

Now that you've had your answer, will you accept it?

The poster was me! It was a rhetorical question, really.

Yes I understand that. I was just responding to the question asked by a poster.

Like all countries Israel has a small percentage of offensive and sometimes violent nutters both in Israel and the west bankor abroad. In the case of settlers in the west bank only a nutter or extremist would like on a settlement. Therefore I am not surprised by the outburst from the one the poster mentions He was still just using sayings and words he has heard Palestinian say and reversing them back in this case though. He is probably too thick to think of anything original himself.

He is not a lone oddball. He is one of a number within Israel who are of the same opinion, (probably including many in the Israeli government, going by their recent actions, although they would never admit it). They want to clear the Arabs out of what they consider to be their land. That means the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Informative to read about the Hilltop Youth settlers and their aggressive incursions onto land designated as Palestinian land, destruction of crops, use of weapons etc.

This is such an interesting article, published in a progressive Jewish magazine a couple of years ago.

https://jewishcurrents.org/what-does-from-the-river-to-the-sea-really-mean

That he is an idiot. However he is also parroting back at them the things they say about Jews. He probably thinks he is being clever there. However it just makes him look stupid and revolting.

I’ve posted about this on another thread, but it’s relevant to this one.
On this morning’s Today programme (R4 2h 36m in) an extremist settler in the West Bank was interviewed and referred to his Palestinian village neighbours (not Hamas, obviously) from whom he and others had illegally stolen land, as the enemy, Nazis and beasts. His final comment was
‘I hope now we’ll be able to get rid of them (the ‘Arabs’) from the river to the sea’.
Interesting, in the context of this thread. What should we understand him to mean by that?

Oh by the way to those screaming at Israel about the hospital attack, the reports all suggest now that missiles came from WITHIN GAZA, not only do Hamas hide behind its citizens when they misfire rockets and kill Palestinian people they blame Israel and wip up more hatred. The sooner Hamas go the better for all.