‘From the River to the Sea’ is racist. Has our government finally taken control of this tsunami of hate?
By Isaac Zarfati | The Jewish News UK | October 22
One of the longest-running farces has been settled. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has concluded, without caveat, that the ubiquitous “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” chant is racist after all.
That he has done so without equivocation or weasel words about ‘context’ (I’m looking at you, mayor of London) is to be applauded. It is a belated victory for common sense and a sorely needed positive first step in the fight against anti-Jewish racism.
The British public has long since grown tired of angry protesters screaming this ad nauseam. From the relentless protests and banners on university campuses and on the streets of Britain through to celebrities on your social media feed, I would wager that most Brits have been exposed to it hundreds of times.
Not everyone using it has known its meaning. Videos have repeatedly gone viral of protesters looking shellshocked when asked which river and sea they’re talking about. The naivety of the well-intentioned, yes, but there’s only so much slack they can be afforded since they share spaces with people promoting outright violent hatred of Jews.
Hamas’ sinister “From the river” rhetoric has acted as a Trojan Horse. It smuggled its genocidal intentions into this country, and the British police, university leaders and politicians have laundered this extremism through their collective failure to put a stop to it. All too many were even prepared to defend its use. From there, it was a slippery slope. In the absence of enforcement, language and imagery that were previously thought unthinkable entered the public domain as the red line edged ever further into the distance.
It is encouraging that the Government is showing signs that it is beginning to grasp a national crisis which has spiralled out of control.
But if it is to stand a chance of effectively countering antisemitism, the Government must now correctly diagnose the problem. Simply, it means reckoning with the true nature of contemporary antisemitism: so-called ‘anti-Zionism’.
With its singular obsession with Israel and its tendency to target British Jews, the whole notion of anti-Zionism has always been transparently racist. Yes, there remains a resilient strand of antisemitism which means hatred of Jews because of their religious identity, but any Jew knows that the threat now comes from the anti-Zionists.
“From the river” has been the calling card of the anti-Zionist crowd, and Sir Keir’s declaration represents the long-awaited recognition that hate speech targeting Jews under the guise of anti-Zionism is still hate speech.
This is a historic day in the fight against antisemitism, and the Jewish community must demand implementation rather than settle for lip service. This declaration cannot end as a gesture of appeasement toward the Jewish community. It must be translated into formal policy.
It now hinges on enforcement. The Prime Minister’s statement carries practical implications for law enforcement, universities, and public institutions across the country. It is essential that the authorities now bring criminal charges against those found using the chant. The Education Secretary must write to all universities and schools to emphasise, once and for all, that chanting “From the river” is a criminal offence.
The challenge ahead of us is vast. The threats and intimidation of the emboldened mob and the concurrent capitulation of the British authorities reached a new low point last week with the decision to ban Israeli football fans from Birmingham. And yet, the threats to Israeli football fans are no different to what Jewish students have endured for years now.
While this contemptible decision rightly led to international derision, I take great comfort from the fact that within 72 hours of StandWithUs UK launching a petition against the ban, our petition had received four time more signatures than one which MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Ayoub Khan had spearheaded with great effort.
It reminds us that there are more people out there who want a society defined by equality and peaceful coexistence. And isn’t that the key point?
This is far from being a Jewish-only problem. “From the river” has normalised a type of extremism that threatens all Brits. Its banishment means a safer society for all.
Isaac Zarfati, executive director, StandWithUs UK
