The phrase was apparently first used by Arabs to highlight their goal of pushing every Jew off the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean sea.
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This article is about the phrase. For the territory historically comprised between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, see
Palestine (region).
"Free Palestine" redirects here. For the Palestinian Syrian organized movement, see
Free Palestine Movement. For the European political alliance, see
Free Palestine Party.
The
region of Palestine, from the
Jordan River in the east to the
Mediterranean Sea in the west
"
From the river to the sea" (
Arabic: من النهر إلى البحر,
romanized:
min an-nahr ʾilā l-baḥr;
Palestinian Arabic: من المياه للمياه, romanized:
min il-ṃayye la-l-ṃayye,
lit. 'from the water to the water') is a
political slogan that refers to the area between the
Jordan River and the
Mediterranean Sea – an area historically known as
Palestine, which was formerly ruled by the British as
Mandatory Palestine, and which today encompasses
Israel and the
occupied Palestinian territories of the
West Bank and the
Gaza Strip.
The phrase and its variations have been used both by
Palestinians and
Israelis to mean that the area should consist of
one state, rather than
two or
three.
In the 1960s, the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) used it to call for what they saw as a "
decolonized" state encompassing the entirety of
Mandatory Palestine.
By 1969, after several revisions, the PLO used the phrase to call for a one-state solution, that would mean "one democratic secular state that would supersede the ethno-religious state of Israel".