Public life has grown accustomed to the chant. It appears at rallies and in lecture theatres, on placards and timelines, its rhythm offering the chanter a sensation of borrowed virtue, a moral halo available on demand and payable in slogans rather than thought. The words sound simple, almost musical. Yet the meaning is not benign. The phrase draws a clear geographic frame – the Jordan to the Mediterranean – and asserts a single political destiny for everyone within it. That destiny excludes a Jewish state. On any honest reading, the slogan carries an antisemitic charge.

The literal scope comes first. “The river” and “the sea” encompass all of Israel. If that space becomes “Palestine”, Israel ceases to exist. This is not a reformist appeal, not a plea for negotiated borders or two states. It is a maximalist programme: the abolition of the world’s only Jewish state. When one people’s nationhood alone is marked for removal where it already exists, the target is not a policy but the Jews as a people.

A milder gloss often follows. The claim insists that the phrase seeks only freedom from occupation. The wording does not support this, though it does provide full shelter for those who prefer their extremism pre-packaged as sensitivity. A wish to end occupation can set out borders, security arrangements, power-sharing, minority protections. The chant supplies none of these elements. Its........

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