George Orwell once said: “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
By most measures, Palestinians are considered a small minority in the Arab world, and so infinitely smaller worldwide. Therefore, it is quite mind-bending to see millions around the world turning out on a regular basis to express solidarity with the Palestinian struggle since Israel’s scorched-earth assault on Gaza began more than five months ago. Even the Western world, whose governments have been unguardedly condoning and abetting Israel’s genocidal mission against the Palestinian people, has not been immune to this massive international solidarity phenomenon. That there appears to be a serious chasm developing between main street and Western officialdom over this issue could no longer be easily denied or ignored. In fact, nowhere has this chasm been more amply reflected than in the U.S.
On November 7, 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to censure Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the only Palestinian American in Congress, over her rhetoric about Israel’s brutal and indiscriminate bombing of Gaza. The House resolution passed with a final tally of 234-188 votes, earning the backing of most Republicans and 22 of Tlaib’s fellow Democrats.
The vote to censure Tlaib did not come as a surprise since the three-term congresswoman had long been a target of criticism for her views on Israel’s roundly condemned violations of Palestinian human rights and her call for a “Free Palestine.” More specifically, her appearance at a rally under the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” was interpreted by her detractors as a clarion call for the destruction of the state of Israel and, as such, was deemed by some to be antisemitic.
Ironically, Benjamin Netanyahu’s son’s proclamation on his social media pages, “Israel from the River to the Sea,” has barely registered an objection, nor has Netanyahu’s own proclamations that Israel will remain in control of the West Bank and Gaza been denounced as a signal presaging the Palestinian people’s perpetual subjugation by Israel. In fact, both proclamations are perfectly in line with the 1977 Charter of Netanyahu’s own Likud Party, which declared that “between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”