What does “From the river to the sea” mean?

من النهر إلى البحر، فلسطين ستتحرر

Min al-nahr ila al-bahr, Filastin satatharrar: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

The geography. The river is the Jordan and the sea is the Mediterranean. The land between them is all of Israel, plus the West Bank and Gaza: about 27,000 km², home to about 15 million people. The Golan Heights sits east of the river, so it isn't included.

Where it comes from

It became a Palestinian nationalist slogan in the 1960s, in the early years of the PLO. The PLO's 1968 Charter said that “Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.” That rules out any partition with a Jewish state. In 1988 and 1993 the PLO accepted UN Resolution 242 and recognized Israel, but the slogan stayed in use. A common Arabic variant ends “Filastin ʿarabiyya”, meaning “Palestine is Arab.”

Hamas made it central. Its 2017 policy document rejects “any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.”

The idea isn't only Palestinian. The 1977 platform of Israel's Likud party said that “between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” In January 2024, Prime Minister Netanyahu said Israel must keep security control over all the territory west of the Jordan.

What people mean by it

• Many protesters say it's a call for Palestinians to live in freedom and equality throughout the land. That could mean one democratic state or an end to occupation, not harm to Jews.
• Many Israelis and Jews hear a call to end Israel as a Jewish state. The map requires it, Hamas uses the slogan, and there's no answer to what happens to the 7.5 million Jews living there. The ADL calls it antisemitic.
• Many who chant it haven't looked at the map. In a late-2023 survey of US college students, many who backed the slogan couldn't name the river or the sea.

How governments have treated it

Germany banned it as a Hamas slogan in November 2023. That same month, the US House censured Rep. Rashida Tlaib, citing in part her defense of the phrase. In April 2024 the House passed a resolution condemning it as antisemitic. In other countries, courts and police have split on whether it counts as protected political speech.

The intent behind the slogan is disputed, but the geography isn't. Switch on River to the Sea mode and the map shows no Israel left.