1. Calling for the destruction of a nation - be it Palestine or Israel - is calling for genocide.

2. It should be legal to call for genocide.

The reality though is that a whole lot of murder has been in the name of religion.

Sorry had trouble posting hence the delay.

With these types of demonstrations, they are fruitless, they are calling for action with no clear action being called for.

Was this a protest against censorship? Or against the war? Or pro Palestine? Or was this a 'stick it to the man'? Who are you calling to action and what action are you calling for?

No one knows which is my point. Instead it costs the taxpayer money to manage, will not change the opinions of anyone and will not achieve any change. Now any of those causes are fine, but aimless protests are useless, and from my perspective frustrating cos we're paying for it (in a tight financial environment these days). Also lets not forget how much Sydney cost the taxpayer.

Now let's say censorship is the protest here, a broadcast that, discuss that, write to your member on that, wearing a taboo (rightfully or wrongly) shirt and getting arrested will not achieve this. We should instead aim for strong discussions which will naturally start a movement. It's more effective than getting arrested.

Also thanks for the respectful response, didn't think I'd have to hunt for that (shads too) 😁

These particular protests at this time appear to be sparked by the ban on certain slogans. You can't directly change the policies of Israel by waving signs in Queensland. But if your state government is carrying water for Israel by selectively banning political speech, that is absolutely a local issue and one that needs to be addressed. It's not just an issue of free speech, but also of corrupt politicians serving zionist lobbies. By addressing that local issue, in Australia and elsewhere, we can weaken the grip that zionism has had on large swathes of the global political establishment. The benefits of doing so won't just be felt by Palestinians. The network of corruption, blackmail and bribery that underpins this worldwide system of control is making us all worse off.

1.5 "from the river to the sea" is not a slogan calling for the destruction of Israel.

Thanks, I appreciate that. But I'm just some random white dude on the Internet. The voices we really need are more prominent figures (including politicians) who can greatly influence their followers, brave anti-zionist Jewish people who can provide a clear counterexample to Israel's false conflation, and the voices of the people directly affected by Israel's genocidal activities.

By defining the geographic scope of a future Palestinian state as the entire territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, the slogan encompasses the land where Israel currently exists. To remove all doubt about the context, remember that it has been widely used by groups like Hamas - whose founding charter explicitly calls for the elimination of Israel.

In the 1960s, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) used it to call for what they saw as a "decolonized" state encompassing the entirety of Mandatory Palestine. By 1969, after several revisions, the PLO used the phrase to call for a one-state solution, that would mean "one democratic secular state that would supersede the ethno-religious state of Israel".

I'm sure there are people who use this phrase now and do not wish to destroy Israel. Just like there are people who use phrases like "all lives matter" and genuinely want racial equality. Unfortunately the terms are hard to disambiguate from the people chanting them.

Either way, we won't settle this argument now, and we don't have to. I simply do not wish to see people imprisoned for saying offensive things. That seems like an important pillar of democracy to me. I uphold the rights of people to say offensive things especially when I disagree with them. Free speech means nothing unless we're doing it when it's really hard.

Best comment in this whole thread

SINCERELY - Thank you !!!

If your interpretation of "Palestine will be free" somehow includes killing people because they're Jewish, then you're telling on yourself.
It's really simple, and didn't require a text wall to explain.
Additionally, genocidal speech is a crime, or evidence thereof at least, and rightly so.

“Palestine will be free”

This is not part of the original call to action. That is a modern addition used very selectively. It is frequently omitted, as we see on the t-shirt on the activist in the article. Selectively adding a nice phrase on the end of a very bad phrase doesn't erase the original meaning, intent, and history of the phrase.

Please also note that I did not suggest that the slogan is a call to kill all Jews. The slogan is a call to destroy Israel. Those are not mutually inclusive. Palestinian activists argue that when right wing Israelis call for the destruction of Palestine, that does constitute intent to commit genocide, and I agree. So I don't have much tolerance for hypocrisy on this. I find the call to destroy any nation - be it Israel or Palestine - to be incredibly immoral.

The same Wikipedia article hints at both Zionist and Palestinian use of a similar phrase even before PLO adopted it, so I am not sure if we can just plainly state that the cited sentiment is the original one behind this phrase.

I have a honest question though - if one calls for a one state solution, would you say that it always entails destroying one or the other?

In my imagination, even if it’s quite naïve, if there ever was a peaceful one-state resolution to this mess, it would indeed require superseding the ethno-state of Israel, but I don’t think it would necessarily be a destruction per se - similarly when the Russian Empire was superseded by the USSR, one could say that the Empire was destroyed but to me it was more of a regime change and policy shift (of course forced by a brutal civil war, but still, I don’t think it was destruction in a way we’d normally imagine when hearing the word). The Russian state essentially persisted, just in a different form.

The same Wikipedia article hints at both Zionist and Palestinian use of a similar phrase even before PLO adopted it, so I am not sure if we can just plainly state that the cited sentiment is the original one behind this phrase.

When Menachem Begin’s Likud party won the 1977 elections, its official platform explicitly laid out a vision for the land that excluded any possibility of a Palestinian state. The relevant section states: "The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable... therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." It sounds kind of similar, and has been used by right wing parties since at various times. I condemn its use by them too.

I have a honest question though - if one calls for a one state solution, would you say that it always entails destroying one or the other?

This would require a 300 page document to answer. To shorten it, it would depend on things like the structure of the plan, the intent, the citizens involved, the negotiations, the history, and many other factors. As I have heard a one-state solution described by both Israel and Palestine leaders, they don't want that. They want the other state to dissolve and be replaced by their respective states. Their positions are so unbelievably intractable it is impossible to ever envision a one-state solution.

When I was younger I believed that a one-state solution were possible, but things have only deteriorated in my lifetime and having had long conversations with citizens of both nations, I cannot ever conceive of such a plan working. They hold a level of hatred for each other that is generational, built by collective trauma and pain, oppositional religious views which are extremely dogmatic, and a history which is literally Biblical.

No. And no.

Calling for the destruction of israel is as genocidal as calling for the end of appartheid south africa. Jew can stay.

Of course they would have to pay rent and give back the land they stole.

Let's have a quiet conversation about bombing your family with white phosphorus. You can start :)

It's hard to engage with someone who genuinely thinks Apartheid was a nation state. We could call for the end of Apartheid without calling for the destruction of South Africa.

I hope you hear your wife scream of pain when they bomb your house with white phosphorus lmao. Genocidal piece of shit

Thanks for your perspective

And yours.

That's so bad faithed lmao. You can recognize the genocide apologist. Not surprising you don't one the end of the genocidal state, you live in one yourself.

As I have heard a one-state solution described by both Israel and Palestine leaders, they don’t want that. They want the other state to dissolve and be replaced by their respective states

Except one state is the colonist and the other is getting genocided. How does it feel twosiding a genocide

You're the voice we needed on this.

Oh sorry. I actually had to Google that just now to get it.

Farnsy's not really my sort of music.

It was a subtle one by cdzero. 😂

I'm failing to see how the phrase "from the river to the sea", alone, can be considered a call to destroy Israel, let alone unequivocally genocidal. It seems like there's a lot of top-down reasoning required to arrive at that conclusion. I don't think there is genocidal intent on the deployment of those words on that woman's top.
I think you assume too much. Israeli leaders, on the other hand, use unmistakably genocidal language. And then they also commit genocide. You don't get to both sides this issue with a very tenuous argument that this popular slogan is a call to genocide.

You said “lying”. I think even if she was no longer “facing two years in jail” (as in “at risk of”) when OP posted it, it was probably not done with the intention to deceive.

The other person just gave an update without value judgment.

Zionists, not Jews,

Zionists are jews.

Mate I'm super sorry this happened to you. No one deserves it and it shouldn't happen period.

My point however is the name calling as you did in the other comments on my posts and shouting at me, is not the constructive discussion that will start a movement against this. People will just tune out or worse yet actively oppose you. You will ostracise others and cement thier point of view. Which will disrupt the ability to build a movement against these actions.

It’s about the vibe.

Incorrect in two ways.
There are non Jewist Zionists (see Trump as an example)
Even of they were, not all Jews are Zionists.

see Trump as an example

I'd call him a christofascist, not a zionist, he doesn't give two fucks about israel or jews unless it has some utility to him, but yeah, there are non-jewish zionists for sure: all those who support israel.

not all Jews are Zionists.

duh

Are you implying that Australia has freedom of speech enshrined in our laws? Please could you point me to them?

It 100% is, and pretending it isn’t just makes it worse.

This is like saying “I don’t see how the phrase “white power” alone can be considered a call to kill black people?” 🤣

It is a call to destroy/eliminate Israel. Don’t try to pretend it’s not.

In Australia? Which sea? We are surrounded by Ocean, not Sea.

We have no free speech btw. And yes, the government is suppressing and censoring speech because that’s what the political left have been begging them to do for years. Now it’s here and surprise surprise, they thought it wouldn’t be used against them, and now they’re not happy.

No, we don’t. In fact our leftist government is currently adding more and more authoritarian censorship and speech-restricting laws seemingly every month these days.

You can now be jailed for saying something that might offend a certain subset of people even if no one actually was offended. Let that sink in.

Aren't we 'girt by sea'? 🤣

What a silly thing to say. Here are a few examples of actual genocidal language:

Galit Distel Atbaryan (Likud MK, former Public Diplomacy Minister): Called for "erasing all of Gaza from the face of the Earth" and described the enclave as needing to be "wiped out".

Amit Halevi (Likud MK): Stated that the goal of the war is that there is "no more Muslim land in the land of Israel" and suggested leaving Gaza as a "monument, like Sodom".

Nissim Vaturi (Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, Likud): Stated in February 2025 that "all adults in Gaza should be killed" and that "the children and women need to be separated and the adults in Gaza eliminated".

Boaz Bismuth (Likud MK): Invoked the biblical reference to "erase the memory of Amalek," a phrase frequently interpreted as a call for the total destruction of an enemy, similar to references made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Ariel Kallner (Likud MK): Urged a "Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of '48," referencing the 1948 forced displacement of Palestinians.

Tally Gotliv (Likud MK): Demanded "crushing and flattening Gaza without mercy".
Hnoch Milwidsky (Likud MK): In a 2026 report, was cited as having stated during a debate that "it is legitimate" for soldiers to rape Palestinians.

No, it isn't like that. Because "white power" is used exclusively by extremists, whereby "from the river to the sea" is not. Do you see the difference there?