When a catchy slogan is no longer child’s play

Back in my innocent primary school days, when even The Jetsons didn’t have smart phones, one of the best ways of enforcing imagined superiority over other kids was through playground rhymes. When you’re 8, what better way is there to put down a shy 6 year-old-girl than with the chant, “Girls are weak, chuck ‘em in the creek?"

Looking back at my schoolboy self, I can hardly say I’m proud. Yet, the excuse I was only a kid and didn’t know better offers at least some solace. And while I can’t remember whether I really believed that all girls should be thrown in the creek, the environment I was being brought up in made sure that I would never go so far as to translate such a slogan into actual violence.

So what about all those videos we see of school kids, college students and otherwise “normal” adults, chanting the latest in-vogue slogan of hate, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free?” Actually, the slogan isn’t new at all. The difference is that previously, it was rhetoric only heard from the most extreme anti-Israel activists. So before we consider why this is so disturbing, let’s first define what it means. For those of you less familiar with the geography of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, it can be divided into three categories: 1) Israel; 2) what much of the world refers to as “The West Bank”, and 3) Gaza.

Now let’s get something straight. I live in what the world, including many Muslim countries undisputedly recognize as the Jewish State of Israel, somewhere about halfway between “the river and the sea”. This is where my home is, where I live with my family, where I go to work and do all the normal things that civilized people do.

So what exactly might these slogan chanters have in mind for my family? Even those with the shortest memories only have to go back three weeks to see how Hamas would answer that question, and gleefully go about “making Palestine free.”

Make no mistake, this murderous chant has no place on our university campuses, schools, public protests, social media or anywhere else. Even proudly Arab countries such as Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco don't endorse it. So as ignorant, stupid or even childish as the protesters chanting this slogan might or might not be, if you hear it, you have moral duty to speak out strongly against it. These are hardly the chants of innocent 8 year olds.