On Tuesday, Congressmen Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) led a bipartisan resolution that successfully passed Resolution, HR 883, condemning the chant “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free” as antisemitic. The resolution passed the House by a vote of 377 to 44 with 1 abstention.
The gist of HR 833 is:
Whereas the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is an antisemitic call to arms with the goal of the eradication of the State of Israel, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea;
Whereas the slogan seeks to deny Jewish people the right to self-determination and calls for the removal of the Jewish people from their ancestral homeland;
Whereas Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations and their sympathizers have used and continue to use this slogan as a rallying cry for action to destroy Israel and exterminate the Jewish people;
Whereas this rallying cry can promote violence against the State of Israel and the Jewish community globally;
Whereas, on October 7, 2023, Hamas reportedly beheaded dozens of babies, committed countless atrocities, and violently raped women … recorded and broadcasted to the world mutilation, desecration, and public parading of bodies … took over 240 hostages, including children, women, elderly Israelis, Americans, and other foreign nationals … murdered the highest number of Jewish people since the Holocaust;
And whereas Hamas’s 2017 Charter states, “Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea” (there were a couple more pages of whereases) …
Resolved, that it is the sense of the House of Representatives that
(1) the slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is outrightly antisemitic and must be strongly condemned;
(2) this slogan is divisive and does a disservice to Israelis, Palestinians, and all those in the region
who seek peace;
(3) this slogan rejects calls for peace, stability, and safety in the region;
(4) this slogan perpetuates hatred against the State of Israel and the Jewish people; and
(5) anyone who calls for the eradication of Israel and the Jewish people is antisemitic and must always be condemned.
See, this is where I expected to see some real penalties, say, fines, maybe some jail time. But that would not sit well with the First Amendment. So, a rebuke is all we got, except that the House clearly showed that the vast majority, Republicans and Democrats alike, are sick and tired of the past six months of antisemitic riots, establishing once and for all that people who chant the river to the sea thing are Nazis.
Congressman Josh Gottheimer issued a statement following the vote, saying, “I’m proud to have led and passed this bipartisan legislation with my colleagues, Representatives D’Esposito and Moskowitz. Our resolution makes it clear that the slogan ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ is antisemitic and calls for the total eradication of the Jewish, democratic state of Israel and the annihilation of the Jewish people. As Members of Congress, we have a right — and a responsibility — to condemn disgusting, divisive, and dehumanizing chants. I will never stop fighting against prejudice and hate — in any form.”
Works for me.
