Here is Why Those Pro-Palestine Chants You Keep Hearing are Actually Calls to Violence

Photo by Nikolas Gannon on Unsplash

Over the past month, social media activists and politicians have increasingly used a number of phrases or slogans to indicate their support for the Palestinian people of Gaza and the West Bank and Hamas. Political slogans are an easy way of boiling policy ideas into quick, easily repeatable chants during protests and demonstrations. Here, I will summarize some of the main Pro-Palestinian chants leveraging the Anti-Defamation League’s research and analysis:

• From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free — This is a call for a Palestinian state spanning from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Interestingly, this chant derives from the original Arabic chant “from the water to the water, Palestine will remain Arab.” Of course, the State of Israel, as a Jewish state, would be dismantled in order for a Palestinian Arab state to take its place. Given the history between Israelis and Palestinians, this would result in a bloody conflict and the expulsion of Jews from the region. Many of the pro-Palestinian demonstrators call for the Jews to return to their homelands, which is not feasible since a sizable share of the Israeli population consists of Mizrahi Jews, or Jews of Middle Eastern descent. The Mizrahi Jews were expelled or forced out of their ancestral homelands in the mid-1900’s in response to the establishment of the State of Israel.
• Intifada, intifada! Long live the intifada! — The first Intifada was an organized, armed rebellion by Palestinians against Israeli army officers and civilians. As the Anti-Defamation League notes, “masses of civilians attacked Israeli troops with stones, axes, Molotov cocktails, hand grenades, and firearms supplied by Fatah, killing and wounding soldiers and civilians. Israeli troops, trained for combat, were not prepared to fight this kind of war.” The second Intifada spanned from September 2000 until February 2005. The many suicide bombings by Palestinian terrorists against Israeli civilians resulted in the construction of Israel’s West Bank barrier wall. The chant is a call to arms by Palestinians against Israelis, regardless of whether they are military or civilian.
• We don’t want two states! We want ‘48! — In November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the UN Partition Plan for Palestine, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine. This would allow the creation of independent Arab and Jewish States, which expectedly led to disputes over territorial control. On May 14, 1948, Israel declared its independence. The following day, five Arab nations launched an attack against the nascent Jewish state. This chant calls for a return to the conditions of 1948, which predate the formation of the State of Israel.
• From New York to Gaza! Globalize the intifada! — As noted above, intifada is a violent rebellion against Israeli military officers and civilians. As the chant implies, this intifada would span across the world so this implies a worldwide call to violence. This chant implies the violent uprising against Zionists across the world. However, the major increase in antisemitic attacks in the past few weeks has demonstrated that many pro-Palestinian demonstrators conflate Judaism with Zionism. As the Anti-Defamation League notes, “Anti-Zionism is antisemitic, in intent or effect, as it invokes anti-Jewish tropes, is used to disenfranchise, demonize, disparage, or punish all Jews and/or those who feel a connection to Israel, equates Zionism with Nazism and other genocidal regimes, and renders Jews less worthy of sovereignty and nationhood than other peoples and states.”
• Resistance is justified! When people are occupied! — This chant provides a rationale for the barbaric acts committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and the aggression seen since then. Of course, acts of Islamic terrorism are never justified. Further, the pro-Palestinian usage of the term “occupied” is often ill defined or fluid. Some may refer to the occupation as the Israeli security response to Gaza and the West Bank whereas others refer to the mere existence of the state of Israel as an occupation.
• Khaybar, Khaybar Ya Yahud, Jaish Mohammed Sauf Ya’ud — According to the Anti-Defamation League, this Arabic chant is used to reference historic 7th century battles between the Islamic prophet Mohammed and the Jewish community of Khaybar. This slogan promotes ethnic cleansing and genocide against Jews, as it references the subjugation, mass expulsion, and slaughter of the local Jewish communities near Khaybar.

In addition to the chants described above, another disturbing Islamic text has been shared: “The Jews will fight against you and you will gain victory over them, till the stone says: ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me; so kill him.” A common theme across these chants and sayings is an Islamic movement providing a justification to armed rebellion and even genocide. Do not let the media, academics, and activists gaslight you into believing that the chants and text noted above are anything other than calls for Jewish genocide and the annihilation of the State of Israel.