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

Douglas Hodge made an important point about how people who normally bleat in about micro-aggressions and words being actual violence, are strangely silent about the slaughter of 1,300 Jews in an unprovoked attack by Hamas.

I really hope that as well as asking your Arabic chums for an explanation, you have a chat with them about how their allegiance to their God overrides their responsibilities as British residents/ citizens. You might find King and country sit far, far below Allah. Think about how that might translate when race/ religious war erupts in this country. See last week’s Commissioner’s comments re: mass immigration and poor integration. The call is an incitement to violence. Did you see the nice chap in Whitehall waving his black and white Isis flag at the weekend? Death to infidels?

@Angrycat2768

They mostly don't know. But they also don't particularly want to know. They would say that however nasty Hamas is the Palestinians don't deserve to be ethnically cleansed/genocided. They generally believe that Hamas can't really help themselves, that they're just reacting instinctively to oppression. It's an old dogma of the left, Martin Luther King called riots 'the language of the oppressed'. It's terribly convenient if you're so busy 'being kind' all the time that you're desperate for a bit of a riot, even vicariously.

There are 32 ongoing conflicts in the world right now, ranging from drug wars, terrorist insurgencies, ethnic conflicts, and civil wars.

The world stood and watched the Rwandan genocide and did absolutely nothing.

The current ethnic cleansing of the Amhara (also a Semetic people) from Ethiopia.

Why does no one ever care about any of the other wars / genocides?

This is almost word for word what the ' free Palestine from the River to the sea ' people are doing. They have reduced a very complicated situation to one of identity politics- if you are on the Left you just want to free Palestine, and any actions done by the 'oppressed'is excused because Israel is automatically the ' oppressor'. Do the 'Young' not know or care about the oppression of the Palestinian people by Hamas? Their use of women and children as Human Shields? That anyone giving aid to Palestine gives it to Israel to distribute because they know Hamas will syphon it off for themselves? The underground tunnels and luxury villas Hamas live in ( built with aid money) while they leave Palestinians to starve? Do they justify Hamas going into Israel snd murdering young people like them?

It depends on how violent the crowd around me are likely to get of course. But then I oppose identity politics. I absolutely disagree that any group gets to decide what is or is not whatever -ism is relevant today. Only societies descending into lunatic asylums would accept such a bizarre concept.

Again, ironically this exact ideology is why support for Israel is lower the younger the generation. They're being taught this dogma throughout their education. What the pro-Israel side don't seem to understand is that the outcome you're observing now - that this becomes a victimhood competition - is one the Jews were always going to lose, because they're designated a white settler colonialist society and therefore are classified as the Oppressor.

I think most people chanting ‘Free Palestine’ mean that they want one state, comprised of what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories, within which Palestinians are free to move around and live wherever they want. They also want Palestinians in other countries to have a right of return.

The problem is that this would mean there was no longer a Jewish majority in Israel - which would mean the end of the state of Israel. There would be around 10 million Palestinians to 6 million Jews. And a lot of pro-Palestine people believe that many Jews would emigrate (a scary number believe that Israeli Jews are all actually Polish and will just ‘go back to Poland’), increasing the Palestinian majority.

The events of 7 October show why the Jewish Israeli population believes they would not be safe in a Palestinian majority country.

Here's a simple thought experiment.

Following the impact of the BLM movement, if black people told you that a song being sung by many other ethnic groups was grossly offensive, would you continue to sing it? In public? At marches attended by some people who call for their destruction? Would you tell them they're being over-dramatic and the words weren't racist? Especially just after c1200 of them were brutally massacred and c200 were taken as hostages by, say, white supremacists?

Thought not. So don't do it to Jews. Or you're antisemitic.

This is my view of the situation too.

I think your second paragraph is optimistically naive.

They don't know any of that though. This is the result of the education system in all western countries. It's been going that way for decades with essentially no opposition. A large cohort of left-leaning liberals did exactly the same thing during the Cold War acting as useful idiots for communist states. Many of those generations did learn their lesson eventually, but every year the universities churn out fresh batches of dupes.

It obviously means the extermination of the Jews

I genuinely think the majority of people marching would be horrified, if they knew that was the interpretation. 99% of people really don’t think the corollary of ‘free Palestine’ is extermination of the Jews. Really not. Whatever Hamas want. However naive you think people are.

It may seem an impossibility, but most people are assuming that there must be a way for Israel to thrive and be safe, whilst affording Palestinians the same human right. Hope springs eternal, and all that.

If it were Jewish people being marginalised, under siege and under constant bombardment without any protection, do you really think people would be standing by and rubbing their hands in glee? Maybe you do, and I’m sorry for that, but I can guarantee that would not be the case.

Maureen Lipman's attack on "bleeding heartless liberals" strikes a chord. The inane parroting of a clear call to jihad is being condoned by these useless fools. Palestine has been offered statehood five times since 1935.

I think you are right. They don't think they are calling for the expulsion and likely murder of all Jews in Israel ( and probably most definitely all the Palestinian Arab refugees who have escaped Hamas into Israel) because they have found a catchy slogan that rhymes. As Juliet Samuel commented in The Times, where were all these people when Palestinians were protesting against Hamas, and were brutally murdered for it? Where were they when Hamas destroyed infrastrucure built for the Palestinians with EU aid money, leaving the Palestinians at the mercy of the Israelis for their water and fuel supplies?

I have no time for these people who mindlessly chant something so deeply offensive to the most persecuted minority group on earth.

This ideology is one of the core reasons why younger generations in western countries are less and less supportive of Israel. When you reduce debate to a competition of emotions and identity politics, disputes will be resolved by reference to which group is Oppressor and which is Victim. Those roles have long since been assigned in the case of Israel. I'd stop feeding the crocodile if I were you.

I think you underestimate the ignorance and naivety of the average western leftist who goes on these marches. They'll literally chant 'From the river to the sea' with no concept whatsoever of which river is even being referred to. Of course there are also those playing the innocent, as anyone can observe right here on MN all day long.

anyone who knows any history will know that until 1948 what we now call Israel was Palestine

It was ruled over by the British, before that, the Ottomans, before that, someone else. Palestine has not been its on independant state since the year 70 when it was a Jewish state.

Maybe, what the Palestinians are saying, we are ok to be ruled over anyone as long as they are not Jewish.

Palestine was a name given by the Romans who conquered and exiled the Jews.

Absolutely. Reminds me of the saying:

When people show you who they are belive them.

It really is gaslighting to suggest the protestors who chant that mean anything other than what they say.

I think it means different things to different people who say it.

I think relying on information from two people to decide what everyone around the world who says a certain phrase means is very unusual.

I think people who can't possibly imagine what else it could mean could have found that out fairly easily about two threads down from here. Did you miss that OP? I'd find it for you, but this is quite a small little subforum so I'm sure you don't need me to do that.

It's a dog whistle to anti semities to wipe out Israel and Jewish people.
If you don't see that it is heard that way by Jewish people then you're part of the problem.
If Jewish people are telling you that's how it makes them feel you've no business saying it doesn't.

To expel every Jewish person from Israel, by killing them through jihad.

Sorry I can't edit on the app - it should have read: ample humanitarian aid and medical support needs to be allowed in

I wish they'd chant 'Free Palestine from Hamas'. There's no hope for peace without that, otherwise yes, chanting 'Free Palestine' is openly and proudly supporting a terrorist organisation that wants to exterminate Jews. The treatment of Gaza is appalling, and should be protested, humanitarian aid and access needs to get in, but that needs a different slogan. I wholeheartedly agree there needs to be a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but not while Hamas have any sort of power and not by undermining the state of Israel.

Well the answer is on the tin isn’t it
“from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”
i.e destruction of the state of Israel.
This is actually getting comical now. You think the above chant and “jihad jihad” chants can be translated as “would you mind terribly taking down the settlements”.
I wonder how you would interpret Jews chanting “destroy Gaza and West Bank”?
Would you say “oh gosh no they don’t actually mean what they are literally saying. They mean please dear chaps would you mind not raping Israeli girls to death”.
Or would chanting Jews perhaps get a different response to that of faux puzzled
bafflement?