When Western activists chant “From the river to the sea,” they insist it means freedom, equality, or coexistence.
On October 7, 2023, the world saw what the phrase has meant in practice.
Over 1,200 people were murdered — not soldiers in combat, but civilians in their homes and at a music festival. Parents were killed in front of their children. Children were killed in front of their parents. Approximately 250 hostages were taken, including babies, elderly Holocaust survivors, and entire families. The attacks were filmed and broadcast by the perpetrators themselves.
The assault was carried out by Hamas. Days later, Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad declared publicly: “We will repeat the October 7 attack, again and again.” In the same interview, he stated explicitly: “Israel is a country that has no place on our land,” affirming the goal of “all of Palestine, from the river to the sea.”
Not 1967 borders. Not settlements. Israel itself.
For more than seventy-five years, Palestinian leadership has rejected every opportunity for statehood alongside Israel. The slogan is not troubling because of what it might mean in theory. It is troubling because of what it has meant — and continues to mean — in practice.
The Pattern Predates Israel
The maximalist claim to all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea did not begin in 1967.
In 1937, the British Peel Commission proposed partition: a small Jewish state alongside an Arab state. Jewish leadership accepted the principle of division. Arab leadership rejected it outright.
In 1947, the United Nations proposed another partition: two states. Jewish leaders accepted. Arab leaders rejected it and launched a war aimed not at coexistence, but elimination.
The pattern was established before a single Israeli settlement existed in Judea and Samaria, before 1967, before “occupation” became the central explanatory framework.
This is proven by the founding charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964 — three years before Israel captured Judea and Samaria and Gaza. Article 24 of the 1964 PLO Charter explicitly disclaimed any claim of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria or Gaza, then under Jordanian and Egyptian control. Those territories were outside its stated jurisdiction. The claim was directed at Israel proper.
This was not about ending an occupation that did not yet exist.
It was about preventing Jewish sovereignty altogether.
Five More Offers of Statehood. Five Rejections. Zero Counter-Offers.
The record since 1947 follows the same arc:
- 1967: After the Six-Day War, the Arab League issued the Khartoum Resolution—“no peace, no recognition, no negotiations.”
- 2000: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered approximately 91–94% of Judea and Samaria and all of Gaza, with land swaps and a capital in East Jerusalem. Yasser Arafat walked away without a counter-offer.
- 2008: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proposed nearly 94% of Judea and Samaria with land swaps for equivalent territory, shared arrangements in Jerusalem, and a pathway to full statehood. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declined to sign.
After the 2000 rejection came the Second Intifada — not a spontaneous uprising, but a coordinated campaign. Over 1,000 Israeli civilians were killed over five years in suicide bombings targeting buses, cafes, restaurants, and shopping centers. The violence was organised by factions the Palestinian Authority had pledged under Oslo to disarm. Arafat could have built institutions. He chose intifada.
Rejection is not a theory. It is a record.
And each rejection was followed not by a counter-offer, but by violence.
Others Chose Peace
Arab states also fought Israel.
Egypt fought wars in 1948, 1967, and 1973. In 1979, President Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel. He was assassinated for it.
Jordan signed its own peace treaty in 1994, despite domestic opposition and regional pressure.
The peace is imperfect and often cold. But it holds.
Both governments concluded that permanent war was worse than imperfect compromise.
Palestinian leadership, offered statehood in 2000 and 2008, chose otherwise — not because compromise was impossible, but because maximalism would have been foreclosed.
The Settlement Objection — And Its Timeline
Critics argue: “Settlements make peace impossible.”
Examine the chronology.
- 1948–1967: Gaza was administered by Egypt and Judea and Samaria annexed by Jordan. No Israeli settlements existed in these territories, and no Palestinian state was established under Arab rule. Armed conflict against Israel continued, and in 1964 the Palestine Liberation Organisation was founded with a charter explicitly directed at Israel itself, not these territories.
- 1964: The PLO is founded. Judea and Samaria and Gaza are under Arab control. No Israeli settlements exist there. Yet the PLO Charter claims all of Israel.
- 1967–1977: Minimal settlement activity. The Khartoum “Three No’s” are declared.
- 2005: Israel dismantles every settlement in Gaza and withdraws every Jew – alive and dead.
When Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the 2005 Gaza disengagement, he faced fierce domestic opposition. International observers predicted it would unlock peace.
Instead, Hamas seized control and fired over 30,000 rockets at Israeli cities between 2005 and 2023 — culminating in October 7.
Settlements are obstacles to peace. Israel bears responsibility for expansion that continued even during active negotiations, sending signals of bad faith. But these actions emerged in a context of repeated rejection — they did not create that rejection.
The historical record demonstrates that rejectionism predates settlements and persists regardless of territorial withdrawal.
Territorial withdrawal, in Gaza, did not produce peace. It produced an armed enclave committed to Israel’s destruction.
So if the issue is not territory, what is it?
The answer lies not in rhetoric but in budgets.
Follow the Money: Incentives Are Policy
Rhetoric matters. Budgets matter more.
The Palestinian Authority maintains a “Martyrs Fund” that provides payments to individuals imprisoned for attacks and to families of those killed while carrying them out. Payments scale with the length of prison sentence — meaning the deadlier the attack, the higher the stipend.
In 2025, the Palestinian Authority allocated approximately US$220 million to this fund — an amount exceeding the annual budgets of several of its civilian ministries. That is forecast to increase to US$320 million this year.
This is not generic social welfare. It is an incentive structure.
To excuse this as understandable “under occupation” denies Palestinians moral agency. It suggests they are incapable of distinguishing between justice and murder. That is not solidarity. It is condescension.
Educational materials reinforce the same message. A 2025 review by Impact-SE documented Palestinian Authority textbooks that:
- Omit Israel entirely from maps.
- Include math problems calculating the number of “martyrs.”
- Glorify specific attackers by name in language exercises.
- Present violence against civilians as national heroism.
These materials are funded in part by international aid.
This is not historical grievance instruction. It is present-tense curriculum.
The Refugee Arithmetic
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) operates uniquely among global refugee institutions.
In every other refugee crisis, status ends through resettlement, integration, or citizenship. In the Palestinian case, refugee status is hereditary.
UNRWA’s annual budget exceeds $1.6 billion. Yet the number of registered refugees grows each generation rather than diminishes.
This reflects political choice – whether to resolve displacement or preserve it as leverage.
Lebanon bars Palestinians from most professions. Syria kept many in camps for decades. Wealthy Gulf states have not granted mass citizenship. Only Jordan extended citizenship broadly — yet camp structures remain.
These are deliberate policy decisions by Arab governments that maintain refugee status rather than resolve it.
Power, Policy, and Permanence
Critics label Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria “apartheid.”
But apartheid in South Africa was designed to be permanent – a racial minority entrenching irreversible political domination with no pathway to negotiated majority rule.
Israel’s official position in repeated negotiations has been – accept peace, receive statehood. That offer was made in 1947, 2000, and 2008.
South Africa never offered Black South Africans majority rule through negotiations. Israel has repeatedly offered Palestinians statehood through exactly that mechanism.
The current situation persists not because Israel declared permanent rule, but because every negotiated alternative has been rejected — and unilateral withdrawal in Gaza produced Hamas rule and October 7, not peace.
This does not mean military rule is cost-free. Checkpoints, permits, and security restrictions burden ordinary Palestinians who simply want to live their lives — policies that emerge from legitimate security concerns but also generate real grievances.
The question is whether addressing those grievances requires ending Israel or reforming policies within a two-state framework.
The “river to sea” slogan answers with the former. Peace requires the latter.
Power asymmetry does not transform the murder of civilians into resistance. Agency remains.
What Coexistence Actually Requires
If the goal were truly two states living side by side, certain steps would require no Israeli permission:
- End payments that reward violence.
- Remove incitement from school curricula.
- Publicly acknowledge that implementing a “right of return” for six million people (most of whom have never lived in Israel) would end Israel demographically as a Jewish-majority state, and distinguish between symbolic recognition and demands incompatible with two states.
- Disarm militias operating outside a unified civilian authority.
None of these require territorial concessions. They require political will.
They also require no Israeli agreement to implement. These are entirely unilateral Palestinian decisions that could begin tomorrow.
Seven Million and Seven Million
Roughly seven million Jews and seven million Palestinians live between the river and the sea.
A sustainable future requires two states for two peoples — or some mutually agreed framework guaranteeing equal political rights for both.
It does not require the elimination, displacement, or demographic erasure of either.
“From the river to the sea” does not need interpretation.
From the Peel Commission to October 7, the record speaks clearly – when offered statehood alongside Israel, Palestinian leadership has repeatedly chosen otherwise.
The slogan is not misunderstood poetry.
It is not ambiguous aspiration.
It is seventy-five years of documented choice.
It is October 7.
It is a record.
