Parliamentarians in the Dutch lower house narrowly voted this week to criminalise the chant “from the river to the sea,” which calls for Israel to be wiped off the map. There are questions over how the motion, passed by just 74-73 votes, will be enacted. But more importantly, it strikes at the heart of the debate over the limits of free speech.
Members of Geert Wilders’ populist Party for Freedom said the ban was in response to “a disturbing increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the Netherlands.” The motion adds that “from the river to the sea” comes “right off the Hamas charter and is therefore a call for violence against all Jews worldwide.”
This could all be interpreted as a reaction to the police interrogation of, and wider prosecution against Dutch conservative commentator Raisa Blommestijn, over her description of migrants filmed engaging in an attack as “primates.”
Perhaps, then, this new motion is an attempt by the Dutch Right to ‘take back territory’ from the Left; if the country has criminalised certain kinds of speech, a ban on pro-Hamas slogans should—for right or for wrong—fit right in.
The “from the river to the sea” ban appears to be a bit of an uncomfortable topic among certain commentators who are both pro-free speech and anti-Hamas. But Trigger Warning author and writer at The European Conservative Mick Hume told this publication that while, “understandably, nobody wants to hear that celebration of genocide,” that “doesn’t necessarily mean it should be banned.”
He added that, as is often the case, a much more light-footed, nuanced approach ought to be adopted instead.
I tend to take an American view on incitement. As the Supreme Court ruled in 1968 (in a case involving a KKK leader), words should only be punished if they were both Intended and Likely to provoke Imminent criminal action.
On that basis, it’s possible to imagine a context in which that chant should be suppressed—say, a protest outside a Jewish politician’s home—but not a general, blunt law banning it altogether.
In March this year, the slogan “from the river to the sea” was projected onto the iconic exterior of the British Parliament. Police have also struggled across Europe to know how to respond to pro-Palestine crowds chanting this slogan and calling for “jihad, jihad, jihad.”
