“From the River to the Sea”: Competing Visions for Territory and Free Speech

16 Jul 2026 “From the River to the Sea”: Competing Visions for Territory and Free Speech

Posted at 23:36h in Human rights by Daniela Carosio

The phrase “From the River to the Sea” remains a deeply contested political slogan that has sparked intense legal and societal debate across the globe. This section will evaluate its origins and current legal interpretations across jurisdictions.

Although frequently interpreted by critics as a call for the elimination of the State of Israel, the slogan has been historically employed by both Palestinian movements and the Israeli right to assert their respective claims to the territory. Palestinian solidarity protest action internationally has been exposed to varying degrees of governmental pushback for using this slogan- in Germany, the ministry of Interior declared it illegal, citing concerns over incitement to hatred and its perceived links to extremism, as early as autumn 2023.

The global context shows a variety of governmental stances towards the slogan “From the River to the Sea”, ranging from enforceable bans to proposals for legislation and individual sanctioning actions not constituting a real ban. Queensland, Australia became the first Australian state to ban the phrase in legislation passed in March 2026 (following the Bondi Beach attack in 2025, where 15 people were killed and 40 injured during a beachside Hanukkah celebration) making it a criminal offence to use the phrase in writing or speech in a way that menaces, harasses, or offends, with penalties of up to two years in prison^[1]. Under the same reasoning, police in Tallinn, Estonia opened criminal proceedings in November 2023 against five rally participants who used the phrase, treating it as incitement to hatred under existing law. In 2024 a district court judged the activist guilty, but in March 2025, the Supreme Court overturned this ruling, finding that, for the average reasonable person, the phrase “From the River to the Sea,” does not suggest an association with the group Hamas ^[2]. In the Netherlands, the slogan is theoretically criminalized through a very close vote resulting in a non-binding lower house decision of the Dutch Parliament in 2024, but this is rarely enforced, as a Dutch court of appeal ruled in 2023 that the phrase is protected on free speech grounds ^[3].

Austria, the Czech Republic and France have considered or proposed banning the slogan, but so far this has not been formalised in law. In Vienna, police banned a pro-Palestinian demonstration in October 2023 citing the phrase’s inclusion in the event invitation^[4]. The Interior Ministry of the Czech Republic suggested in late 2023 that using the phrase might be criminal ^[5], but the Supreme Administrative Court rejected that view in August 2024, ruling that any use must be assessed in context and isn’t inherently criminal ^[6]. A French MP introduced the “Yadan bill” in April 2026 that would criminalize the phrase and expand the already broad offense of “glorification of terrorism”. The OHCHR (UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) also warns against chilling effects on human rights and advocacy of this proposal- which for now is just that, a proposal ^[7]. In the English context, the US and UK have not enacted criminalisation of the slogan, but individual figures have been condemned, such as Representative from Mishigan Rashida Tlaib (Democrats) having been censured for using it ^[8], and Labour suspending MP Andy McDonald for using a variant of the phrase^[9].

“From the River to the Sea” predates Hamas’ existence and throughout the political history of the region, has been used for both the Israeli and the Palestinian claim to statehood. The PLO’s (Palestine Liberation Organisation) use of the river-to-sea framing to call for a “decolonized” state in Palestine dates to its creation in the 1960s, but the Israeli right was using essentially the same geographic claim, just for the opposite outcome, around the same period. In the decades since, right-wing Israeli political movements have likewise claimed the entirety of the territory for Israel, and this is documented as official party policy: Likud’s 1977 election manifesto stated, “Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty,” ^[10].

This language has recurred also in the recent past: in 2014, Religious Zionist politician Uri Ariel said, “Between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea there will be only one state, which is Israel,” and in 2020, Gideon Sa’ar (a former ally of Netanyahu, now a rival) stated “Between the Jordan River and the sea there won’t be another independent state” ^[11]. A Nation essay summarises Israeli-right version of the slogan as reflecting “the longtime ambitions of the Israeli right and the reality Israel has imposed on Palestine since 1967” ^[12], and in a news conference shortly after October 7, Netanyahu rejected Palestinian statehood and used the sentence himself: “in the future, the state of Israel has to control the entire area From the River to the Sea” ^[13]. He repeated the statement visually on multiple occasions ^[14], the first time at the UN General Assembly on September 22, 2023, holding up a map showing Israel stretching “From the River to the Sea” ^[15]. Critics noted the irony in that Israel and its supporters had spent months arguing the phrase, when used by pro-Palestinian protesters, was genocidal toward Jews^[16]. Notably, the politicians and institutions that had policed pro-Palestinian use of the phrase did not apply the same scrutiny to Netanyahu’s version.

Through its complex history, the call has gained two opposing meanings- supporters frame it as a call for Palestinians to live freely in the land From the River to the Sea, or as standing for “the equal freedom and dignity of the Palestinian people” ^[17]. Critics such as the American Jewish Committee (AJC) read its use in the International Solidarity movement for Palestine as a call for the elimination of the State of Israel and the people in it, and “a rallying cry for terrorist groups and their sympathizers” ^[18]. Yet, the Israeli right has continued to employ the same language to argue for a Jewish state reaching from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean. There is a notable difference in international reaction depending on the speaker: while the phrase is criminalised in Germany and protestors’ rights are violated for uttering it, the structurally identical claim made by Israeli officials including the Prime Minister, drew no comparable institutional consequence.

REFERENCES

^[1] https://www.newsweek.com/australia-israel-palestine-antisemitism-bondi-beach-attack
-11646496

^[2] https://news.err.ee/1609709667/estonia-s-top-court-clears-protester-for-yelling-from-the
-river-to-the -sea

^[3] https://www.dutchnews.nl/2024/05/mps-vote-to-criminalise-from-the-river-to-the-sea
-slogan/

^[4] https://www.reuters.com/world/from-river-sea-prompts-vienna-ban-pro-palestinian-protest
-2023-10- 11/

^[5] https://www.euractiv.com/news/czechia-mulls-penalising-from-the-river-to-the-sea-
palestine-will-be -free-slogan/

^[6] https://ism-czech.org/2024/01/06/czech-court-recognizes-the-legitimacy-of-the-slogan-
from-the-river-to-the-sea-palestine-will-be-free/

^[7] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/04/france-draft-antisemitism-law-could
-seriously -undermine-free-expression-and

^[8] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-resolution/845?__cf_chl_f_tk
=2uXty_Uud4MpHU4gc4c0gPNbRdl3ASROQRDp7mL4I8c-17828121301.0.1.1z9aDFC1CQ.1i_Eu_UFabOZK5FqE1 DgZgYQJ7y1d9DVA

^[9] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/13/mp-andy-mcdonald-has-labour-whip
-restored -after-inquiry

^[10] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/from-the-river-to-the-sea-where-does-the
-slogan -come-from-and-what-does-it-mean-israel-palestine

^[11] https://www.timesofisrael.com/from-the-river-to-the-sea-the-slogan-that-led-to-rashida
-tlaibs -censure-explained/