Even Tlaib should know better

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Words matter, especially when it comes to discussing Hamas' brutal slaughter of Israeli civilians, or the massive civilian casualties in Gaza caused by Israel's efforts to destroy Hamas leadership and tunnels with bombs.

In that context, it is important to understand the meaning of the controversial phrase that thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators have been chanting, and whose use earned a censure resolution from the U.S. House of Representatives against Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the lone Palestinian American in Congress.

Tlaib claims — and some demonstrators may actually believe — that the slogan "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" is a call "for peaceful coexistence" between Israelis and Palestinians. But that would require a willful ignorance of past and present realities.

As I know from decades of covering the Israel-Palestine issue all over the Mideast region, the words "from the river to the sea" have historically been used to mean an Arab Palestinian state over all of the West Bank, Gaza, and the territory of the state of Israel. The phrase was used to reject the 1947 United Nations decision to partition the British-controlled mandate Palestine into two states, one Palestinian and one Israeli.

When Israel accepted partition and declared independence, Arab states invaded the new country to try to take back all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. They failed.

In the 1970s and 1980s, when the Palestine Liberation Organization was based in Beirut, and before it recognized the statehood of Israel in the 1990s, the slogan stood for the group's military effort to destroy Israel.

As for the terrorist group Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for the past 16 years, its 1988 charter specifies that the "Zionist state [Israel]" must be destroyed, and all the Jews there killed. It states bluntly that an Islamist state must be established over what it calls all historic Palestinian lands. In other words, from the river to the sea.

Some Hamas supporters cite a 2017 charter update as hinting that the organization could tacitly accept Israel for a short truce period. But the update still states clearly that the Israeli state must be destroyed.

I understand Tlaib's emotions. She has many relatives still living in a West Bank village and is understandably distressed at the scenes of carnage in Gaza, as Israel tries to destroy Hamas tunnels built under apartment buildings, hospitals and schools.

Yet it is dishonest to describe the "river to the sea" slogan as an "aspirational call" for peaceful coexistence, as Tlaib does. I assume she is claiming that the slogan hints at a binational state for Jews and Arabs — often referred to by its promoters as a "one-state solution."

Tlaib should know better. That idea was the stuff of dreamers even before Hamas murdered 1,400 Israeli civilians and took more than 200 hostages on Oct. 7.

On Thursday, I watched footage, largely compiled by Israeli officials from Hamas GoPro footage, that the invaders put out on social media. The horrors shown include terrorists chopping off a head with a garden hoe, killing and burning women and children, and yelling, "Allahu Akbar" over dead bodies.

No one should kid themselves that a one-state solution would be possible now.

In fact, a quick look around the Mideast makes clear why it was always a nonstarter. If you think identity politics is polarizing the United States, in the communal Mideast it rips states and societies apart.

Look at Iraq, where, when a dictator was removed, the country plunged into civil wars between Shiite and Sunni Muslims and Kurds. In Lebanon, the only pseudo-democracy in the region, inter-sectarian wars have killed thousands.

Polls show that only a small percentage of Palestinians support the one-state idea. And even among those who do, it is usually viewed as a way station until the Palestinian population outnumbers Jews and Israel becomes a Palestinian Arab state.

If the Palestinian one-state solution is dead, so is the alternative model that was being hyped by messianic Israeli nationalists before the Hamas attack. Namely, that Jerusalem could rule over the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank forever without an ultimate explosion and constant civil war.

So, "from the river to the sea" is a dangerous concept that needs to be discarded.

For whichever side tries to activate them — Palestinians or Israelis — they spell disaster.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Trudy Rubin
Philadelphia Inquirer
(TNS)

Previously:

• 9/22/23: Russia's kidnapping of Ukrainian children under the spotlight at United Nations

• 9/22/23: Biden should resolve the blockage of visas for Iraqis and Afghans who helped our troops

• 9/11/23: Even on vacation, there's no escaping Putin's murderous intentions

• 08/18/23: With new weapons slow to arrive from NATO allies, Ukraine surprises Putin with sea drones

• 08/09/23: Lessons from a military funeral in Ukraine

• 07/28/23: As Russian missiles again rain down on Odesa, Putin sneers at the UN and NATO allies

• 07/24/23: Putin is playing a game of food blackmail. The West can't let him win

• 07/19/23: Can Ukraine win the war against Russia? I'm traveling there to find out

• 07/17/23: From hell to Harvard: One Ukrainian's escape and how you can help fulfill her dreams

• 07/11/23: At the NATO summit in Vilnius: Will Biden seize or squander the chance to end Putin's war on Ukraine?

• 04/21/23: The Pentagon documents leak will embolden Putin as he tries to outlast Ukraine

• 03/22/23: The Russian attack on a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone underlines why we must help Ukraine win

• 03/15/23: Will the White House have the courage to propel a Ukrainian victory this year?

• 02/21/23: On the first anniversary of Putin's invasion, Ukraine fights on for its independence and for the security of the West

• 02/17/23: A former Pakistani leader's death, and his wise peace plan that failed

• 02/09/23: Earthquakes killed nearly 12,000 people this week. Three men are partly to blame

• 01/24/23: As Russia murders civilians in Dnipro, why won't NATO send weapons that could end the war?

• 12/28/22: What Zelensky worried about when he addressed a cheering Congress

• 12/13/22: The US-China conflict to watch is the Chip War --- which centers on Taiwan

• 09/14/22: Ukraine scores sudden breakthrough that should energize Western support

• 09/09/22: Queen Elizabeth's death deprives Britain and the world of a rock of stability

• 09/08/22: After Gorbachev's death, Putin wants the world to know he is the 'anti-Gorbi'

• 08/26/22: 6 months after Russia's war vs. Ukraine began, the West still won't give Kiev the weapons to win

• 08/15/22: Ukraine's civilian volunteers work to give aid and rebuild, even as Russia continues to bomb them

• 08/08/22: A trip near the front lines finds Ukrainian troops ready for a battle that could decide the war

• 06/13/22: The critical battles for Ukraine and for America are being fought right here, right now

• 05/02/22: Save Odesa to save the world from hunger and high food prices

• 05/02/22: Bloodless Ukrainian War, not utopian fantasy says one-time largest foreign investor in Russia

• 04/11/22: The only way to end Putin's war crimes

• 03/28/22: Don't let Putin's nuclear and chemical threats stop us from giving Ukraine what it needs

• 03/24/22: An elegy for Mariupol, where I walked six weeks ago. Now razed by Russian bombs

• 03/18/22: Zelensky's brilliant speech should impel Biden and Congress to protect Ukrainian skies

• 03/11/22: Mariupol's bombed maternity hospital exemplifies why NATO should protect Ukraine's skies

• 03/10/22: No 'no-fly zone'? Then NATO must find another way to protect Ukraine's skies

• 03/07/22: The third World War has already started in Ukraine. Europe and the US should wake up

• 03/04/22:Putin must be stopped from turning Kiev into Aleppo

• 03/02/22:Why is Belarus helping Russia invade Ukraine? An explainer on the latest in the conflict

• 02/25/22: What the UN should finally do about Russia

• 02/24/22: Why Putin's Ukraine aggression will change the world --- an explainer on how we got here

• 02/10/22: Ukrainian civilians train for war with cardboard guns: 'We are scared but we are ready

• 01/13/22:Putin wants to reestablish the Russian empire. Can NATO stop him without war?

• 12/10/21: Can Biden and NATO prevent Putin from invading Ukraine? Summit puts it to the test

• 12/02/21: Boris Johnson stirs up new Irish Troubles for his own personal political gains

• 11/22/21: Xi Jinping thinks America is on the rocks. Is he correct?

• 08/18/21: President Biden, get our Afghan allies on evacuation planes

• 08/18/21:The horror of Afghan women abandoned by Biden's troop pullout

• 08/09/21:China is pushing a big COVID-19 lie that makes a new pandemic harder to prevent

• 05/27/21: Punish Belarus leader for Ryanair hijacking before air piracy becomes dictators' new tool

• 04/14/21: Can Beethoven temper the political tensions between US and China?

• 06/01/20: US must stand with Hong Kong against Beijing's efforts to crush its freedoms

• 05/20/20: COVID-19 offers a chance to halt Iran's hostage diplomacy

• 05/21/14: Newscycle spurs visit to country my family fled

• 04/21/14: Blind to Putin's strategy?

• 12/24/13: Obama's Syrian indifference has led to more death and destruction. Meet some real heroes

• 12/13/13: Where liberals have come to love the military

• 12/09/13: The China strategy

• 11/05/13: Return to Iraq is worth a close look

• 10/01/13: Obama's call to Iran: Who was really on the line?

• 09/11/13: How Obama got Syria so wrong

• 07/24/13: It's time for Obama to tell Putin 'nyet'

• 05/15/13: What Russia gave Kerry on Syria --- very little

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.