Activist slogans such as "From the river to the sea" and "Globalize the Intifada" are antisemitic and incite violence.

"From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free" is straightforward: it is a call for freedom across all colonized Palestine. It rejects the Israeli-imposed fragmentation of the Palestinian people and their land and affirms that Palestinian liberation is incomplete so long as millions of refugees are denied their right to return and Palestinians remain subjected to partition and colonial rule.

Zionism has imposed a system of colonial domination and apartheid "from the river to the sea" in practice and still receives military, diplomatic, and financial support for its atrocities, yet Palestinians and allies are attacked for using the phrase to demand freedom. The real problem is the normalization of colonial oppression and the punishment of those who resist it.

"Globalize the Intifada" is also straightforward. Intifada literally means "shaking off" and embodies a culture of resistance that refuses to normalize oppression. The First Intifada of 1987 demonstrated the power of everyday resistance through strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, mutual aid, and community organizing. To "globalize the Intifada" is to recognize that this model of decentralized, people-led resistance carries lessons beyond Palestine, linking the Palestinian struggle with broader struggles against colonialism, racism, and oppression, and affirming the power of ordinary people everywhere to organize, resist, and transform their societies.

That someone hears slogans for Palestinian freedom and resistance and understands it as racism or violence says more about their own colonial projections. If Palestinian freedom is perceived as a threat, it is precisely because Israel has been built on a system of Jewish supremacy that depends on Palestinian subjugation.

The outrage over these slogans is a form of colonial deflection. Rather than confronting repeated genocidal statements by senior Israeli officials, accompanied by the material violence of occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, attention is redirected toward policing the language of Palestinians and their allies. The focus shifts from the violence of the oppressor to the words of the oppressed.

The campaign against these slogans has been used to suppress resistance and solidarity for Palestine. Governments, universities, employers, and institutions have censored speech, suspended students, canceled events, and restricted protest on the grounds that these slogans are hateful or antisemitic. Meanwhile, many of these same actors continue to arm, fund, or politically support Israel's ongoing genocide.

This claim obscures the fact that solidarity with Palestine includes people of all faiths and backgrounds, including Jewish anti-Zionists, who reject being identified with a project built on settler colonialism and racial supremacy.