Those Chanting "From River To The Sea, Palestine Will Be Free" Are 'Useful Idiots': Rishi Sunak (image@ CFoI)

Rishi Sunak, United Kingdom Prime Minister, took a jibe at popular pro-Palestine chant which has been used in rallies across the globe. While delivering a speech at British parliamentary group Conservative Friends of Israel, Sunak said that “Those who chant ‘from river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, are either useful idiots who do not understand what they are saying, or worse, people who wish to wipe the Jewish state from the map”.

The British Prime Minister said London will have zero tolerance for those who support and “glorify terrorism or pedal anti-Semitism on our streets”.

“From river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a slogan calling for the freedom of Palestine from Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The slogan which has been labelled as pro-Hamas by Israel and its allies, and called it as a veiled call to violence which bears the anti-Semitic charge.

Earlier, in November, the UK Parliament’s Labour Party suspended Member of Parliament Andy McDonald’s for using the phrase, “between the river and sea” in a speech at one of the pro-Palestine protests. UK Football Association has also banned players from using the phrase on their private social media account. German authorities declared the slogan to be forbidden and asked the schools in Berlin, the capital city to ban the use of Kaffiyehs, the Palestinian scarf.

The slogan, “from river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, was call was the created under by Palestinian diaspora upon its creation in 1964, under the leadership of Yasser Arafat. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) called for the establishment of a single state that expands from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

While the slogan hangs on to every aspect of the word “free” to the Palestinians and Palestine supporters, Israelis say that slogan emits a “chilly vibe”. Yehudah Mirsky, a Jerusalem-based rabbi and professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University said that, “It sounds much more like a threat than a promise of liberation. It doesn’t betoken a future in which Jews can have full lives and be themselves”, as quoted by Al Jazeera.