“From the river to the sea” & campus protests
Pro-Palestinian protest chant / movement
A protest chant read by some as liberation, by others as a call to eliminate Israel.
What happened
After October 7, 2023, the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” spread across campuses. Is it a call for Palestinian freedom, or for the elimination of Israel (and thus antisemitic)?
Under each definition
Example 7: read as eliminationist, it denies the Jewish people the right to self-determination.
Guideline 12 expressly protects opposing Zionism and advocating a single binational/democratic state.
Not antisemitic as a liberation slogan; antisemitic if it’s a coded call to remove Jews — Nexus weighs context and speaker.
Delegitimization if it denies Israel’s existence; not if it demands equal rights within one state.
Who called it antisemitic
Many Jewish groups and the ADL read it as denying Israel’s right to exist — an IHRA-listed example; the US House passed a resolution calling it antisemitic.
The defense
Protesters say it calls for equality and Palestinian liberation, not the harm of Jews; the JDA holds that opposing Zionism or advocating one state is not, by itself, antisemitic.
Outcome
A central flashpoint of the 2023–24 campus protests and the congressional hearings that followed.
In their words
It is fundamentally a call for a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, territory that includes the State of Israel, which would mean the dismantling of the Jewish state.
From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate.
Most Palestinians using this chant do not see it as advocating for a specific political platform … the majority of people using the phrase see it as a principled vision of freedom and coexistence.
The verdicts above are how each framework would most likely treat this case — illustrative guidance, not official rulings. The 3D test applies only to Israel-related cases, so it reads “N/A” elsewhere. See the Definition tab for each framework’s full text. Inclusion is documentation, not a finding.