Some people are certainly implying support for genocide when they say "from the river to the sea", while others are not. Same for "Greater Israel".
The only sane place to draw the line imo is at explicit support for hatred or violence. Even that standard can be fuzzy, but if there's a reasonable doubt about intent, I don't think we want corporations or governments making those judgments.
I recall back during the furor over drawing Mohammad peoppe an extremist Muslim group said about Matt stone/trey Parker that they "will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh". Is allowing that sort of speech, what appears to be a death threat in response to free expression, protecting free speech? Or is it enabling a culture of self-censorship due to fears of violent reprisals? Things are complicated, you must be flexible.
In this case, I want to be reasonable. I have heard people use “from the river to the sea” in hateful ways many times. People seem legitimately upset by it and are not just putting on airs. It doesn’t advance the discourse in a productive way.
Nope, every single one. There's as much possibility to endorse this slogan and not imply Jewish genocide as there is to see a person wearing a nazi uniform, with a swastika armband, waving a swastika flag, and screaming "kill the jews!" and find out he's not actually endorsing a genocide of the Jews. That is, vanishingly small. If you say this slogan, this is exactly what it means, no ifs, no buts, no coconuts - destroying the population of Israel. Now, there are probably idiots that chant this without even knowing what "river", "sea" and "Palestine", or any other word of it, actually means, and won't be able to point it on the map if promised a million dollar to do just that. But that doesn't mean the meaning of it changes - it just means some idiots are chanting evil things without realizing it, just as if they were chanting "Sieg Heil".
> I don't think we want corporations or governments making those judgments.
Dude, we're so far from where it even was the question we can no longer see it in the back window even using a telescope. Corporations and governments are making these decisions every day now, it's kinda late to notice it a decade after it already happened. I mean sure, I'd be glad to be back to non-censorship days of yore, but it's kinda weird to remember about it only when it's about discussing calls for genocide. Maybe if people cared about it earlier, we could actually have a non-censorship present and future, but right now it doesn't look like we can anymore.
> The only sane place to draw the line imo is at explicit support for hatred or violence.
If there's any meaning in words "hatred" and "violence", "from the river to the sea" is wholeheartedly supporting both and there's probably not many slogans that are more hateful and violent than that towards millions of people. It literally calls for wiping out at least 7 millions of people (that assuming Arab population of Israel would be spared, which is not a given - Hamas was as willing to murder non-Jews as Jews on October 7, just because they found them on Israeli territory, nobody did a DNA test there). That's kinda hard to beat.
People have called for the seizure of "Greater Israel" since Israel's founding[1]. The "Movement for Greater Israel"[2] was one of the parties that merged together to form the ruling Likud Party, and the president of Israel pulled out a map showing "The New Middle East" only having Israel and no longer having Palestine [3]. You know, the one who just invaded "Greater Israel".
My square deal, is if "From the River to the Sea" gets banned as hate speech, Netanyahu's map also gets banned as hate speech. Nobody is allowed to promote the idea that Israel takes over Palestine, or Palestine takes over Israel. It's not fair if we ban things in one direction and not the other. Allow both or neither.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Israel#During_British_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_for_Greater_Israel [3] https://i.redd.it/x68dg51jb0qb1.jpg
If Hamas would show around the maps, and Netanyahu would show around the maps - I'd say, no problem, let them both have their maps. That's not what Hamas is doing. Hamas has just murdered over 1300 people in Israel, after a long string of lesser murders over 18 years, and after shooting rockets into Israel day to day for all those years. And they plan to continue that - that's not my words, it's theirs. And the "from the river" slogan is an unequivocal support to all that. It's not about drawing of some map, there's not even nearly any comparison between drawing a map and murdering, raping and kidnapping people.
And of course, if you knew anything about policy in Israel, you'd know nobody there, and that includes first and foremost Netanyahu himself, and Likud under his (or anybody else's) leadership, wants to annex Palestinian territories. If anybody wanted it, it'd be done decades ago - as it happened in Jerusalem and Golan. But it's exactly the opposite of what everybody in Israel - very much including Likud, Netanyahu and anybody who is somebody in Israel politics - wants. Only people that know absolutely nothing about Israel politics beyond what they read in some hostile source, itself being derived from some unsourced reddit posting, could claim anything like that. Anybody who knows anything would laugh at it. Israel explicitly exited Gaza because it didn't want any responsibility for it. Israel explicitly signed with PLO because they didn't want to annex the West Banks and have all the Arab population there as citizens. I have no idea what's the story of that map and what was meant by it, and when and in what context it was shown, but if you know anything about what happened there in the last 100 years, you'd know annexing those territories is just the opposite of what Likud or Netanyahu want. So again, there's absolutely no comparison. So if you want, yeah, ban "Greater Israel" - because you'd be banning nothing but the figment of your imagination.
> Israel explicitly exited Gaza because it didn't want any responsibility for it.
That is not how that works. As an occupying force they are obligated to protect the population they are occupying, not commit genocide on them. No amount of kicking up sand changes that very basic fact. It doesn't matter if they actually want what they are doing, they are guilty either way. Who gives a shit what Eichmann "actually wanted" except Eichmann?
Israel hasn't been "an occupying force" in Gaza for 18 years. All those years Hamas explicitly renounced responsibility of doing anything for Gazans, as a normal government should - their functionaries, like Musa Abu Marzouk, openly said they are not going to do anything for the population, that's UN's business. Their business is murdering Jews and using the population as shields, and they should be thankful for that. With this approach there's no wonder all the money went to Hamas' pockets and building the tunnels, that the schools, mosques and hospital were converted to military installations and the population is living in squalor. And the fault for that lies with Hamas - their insane fanatical hate for the Jews didn't leave any space for building any normal life in Gaza. And people on the West that keep enabling them and keep shifting the blame to Israel are part of the problem, because it's their money and their support allow Hamas to do what it does.
> not commit genocide on them
Hamas has genocide as their explicit goal, and they confirmed it many times, and they tried to do it just recently and succeeded in murdering over 1300 people in Israel. They literally murdered, raped and kidnapped everybody they encountered. The goal of Israel never was to commit any genocide (no wonder the population of Gaza tripled under Israel control) - it was to leave in peace and have the Arabs to rule themselves, peacefully. Unfortunately, with Hamas it proved to be impossible. There's only one side there that is hell-bent on committing genocide - and that's Hamas. And they are not hiding it in the least, either - but people like you keep employing astonishing amount of mental gymnastics to hide it from yourselves.
> It doesn't matter if they actually want what they are doing, they are guilty either way.
What Israel is doing is dismantling the Hamas regime. Nothing else. They allowed it to exist for 18 years, so it will take a lot of time and a lot of blood, unfortunately, because Hamas is not going to go willingly, and they are actively using the population of Gaza as human shields, while robbing them (quoting Musa Abu Marzouk again: "The aid that comes to Gaza must be distributed to the resistance fighters, and what remains is done - distribute it to the people. The attempt of some citizens to seize aid, as happened today in Rafah, will be fought with all force" - and by "force" he means murdering anyone who doesn't want to starve for his glory). But of course, the useful idiots on the West will drone about how Israel is guilty in that anyway. Nothing will change them.
> Despite the Israeli disengagement, the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and many human-rights organizations continue to consider Gaza to be held under Israeli military occupation, due to what they consider Israel's effective military control over the territory; Israel disputes that it occupies the territory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip
They blow up up the Palestinian Supreme court and you claim "What Israel is doing is dismantling the Hamas regime. Nothing else."
https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17317722618482647...
That has as much to do with fighting Hamas as putting children into death camps had to do with fighting "Jews who control the media" or whatever.
You did not change the facts, you did not even cover them up in the slightest. What you did was stand up and get counted as someone looking the other way.
The right to self defense is one of the basic human rights. "Human" here includes Jews, to the surprise of many. Israeli government committed a grave mistake of disarming the population in dangerous areas, thinking people do not need to defend themselves, since it's the job of the government. That cost hundreds of lives - lives of the people that could defend themselves, but were disarmed by their own government. Looks like finally the government realizes the gravity of their mistake. Good, at least they are capable of learning.
Oh sure, anyone who criticizes Nazi mentality and behaviour in Israelis hates Jews.
Nope. Leibowitz was right, and your mental gymnastics just underline that.
Meanwhile: "Palestinians under attack as Israeli settler violence surges in the West Bank"
I follow this topic daily, on twitter, in telegram (both Israeli and Arab groups), and among the thousands of Jews I know across the world on FB (from anti-Zionist Jews to Orthodox). This is the first time I've ever seen the phrase "Greater Israel" mentioned. I'll go research it now but it strikes me as a manufactured obscurity, while "From the River to the Sea" is prevasive.
Well, it is unquestionably the stance of the entire political party in which Netanyahu is a member of.