This is a post about the history of the literal use of the specific English-language phrase “free Palestine.”
It is not a post discussing Palestinian human or national rights.
When a phrase is used to galvanize people in support for a movement, it’s worth it considering where the phrase comes from.
Please don’t waste my time in the comments.
Move over, “All Eyes on Rafah” — the celebrities have picked their current favorite virtue signaling catchphrase.
A NOTE
I am deeply skeptical that any of these celebrities have any idea about what precisely it is that they are saying, in more ways than one.
Is their “free Palestine” a call in favor to a particular political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict? If so, what is the solution that would signal that Palestine has been successfully freed? Are we speaking of a sovereign Palestinian state, or is a sovereign Palestinian state only free when it fits into specifically constructed borders? Is a sovereign Palestine as part of a two-state solution a free Palestine? Or is a sovereign Palestine only free when it aligns perfectly with the borders that the British Mandate delineated in 1921?
Or is their “free Palestine” a call to end Palestinian oppression? And are Palestinians only not free when their oppressors are Jews? If the Jewish state stopped oppressing Palestinians and instead Palestinians were merely oppressed by their own, or by other Muslim countries in the region, would that still constitute freedom?
A brief recap on the use of “Palestine” as a geopolitical descriptor…
ORIGINS: A ZIONIST PHRASE
During the early period of the British Mandate, early Palestinian Arab nationalist leaders universally rejected the concept of a state of “Palestine,” viewing the territory of the Mandate as part of the wider entity of Bilad al-Sham, or Syria. Though they eventually came around to the idea of (an Arab) state in Palestine, some continued to reject the terms “Palestine” or “Palestinians” as national descriptors, with Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, going so far as to tell the British Peel Commission that “Palestine is a term the Zionists invented.”
Naturally, this means that Palestinian Arabs during the British period and even in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War wouldn’t have used the phrase “free Palestine.” Instead, “free Palestine” was a Zionist catchphrase, used in English in the 1940s to elicit donations from Jewish American donors for the Zionist movement.
"There is no such country as Palestine! “Palestine” is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria."
Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, in his testimony before the Peel Commission, 1937
ZIONIST USE OF THE CATCHPHRASE
In the Zionist view, “free Palestine” was a call to resist British rule over the Mandate and a call for the autonomy of a sovereign Jewish state. As the Jewish Legion described it in one of their propaganda pamphlets, “free Palestine” was a call for a movement to “restore Palestine to Israel.”
- Groups like the Zionist Organization of America used the phrase to request donations on behalf of the Zionist movement from wealthy Jewish Americans.
- The Jewish Agency for Palestine used it in promotional propaganda to promote Aliyah, or immigration to Israel, from American Jews.
- Hillel Kook’s “American League for a Free Palestine” (ALFP) used the phrase in ads in major American newspapers that openly asked for funds for the Jewish underground resistance against British rule.
PALESTINIAN USE
Though Palestinian Arabs began speaking of “tahrir,” or liberation, in the 1950s, this liberation referred exclusively to the territories Israel acquired in its War of Independence, now known as the 1967 borders. Gaza, which fell under Egyptian occupation, and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), which fell under Jordanian occupation, did not need to be liberated. In fact, in its original 1964 foundational charter, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the then political and paramilitary arm of the Palestinian people, recognized both Egyptian and Jordanian sovereignty over those territories they now consider occupied (because their current occupier so happens to be the Jewish state).
In the 1967 Six Day War, Israel conquered Gaza from Egypt and the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan.
The following year, the PLO amended its charter, now suddenly declaring Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem Palestinian Territory.
Interestingly, Jordan did not withdraw its claim to the West Bank and East Jerusalem until 1988.
"This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or the Himmah Area."
Palestine National Charter, Article 24, 1964
"Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate*, is an indivisible territorial unit."
Palestine National Charter, Article 2, 1968
*The boundaries of the British Mandate for Palestine include the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
FREE PALESTINE IN THE PALESTINIAN CONTEXT
The first recorded Palestinian use of “free Palestine” is found in the title of a political newspaper first published in London in 1968, aptly named Free Palestine. The newspaper was published by Palestinian intellectuals and activists associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization, for which they expressed their unequivocal support.
The publication happened strategically in conjunction with the PLO’s “rebranding” efforts, which were meant to improve the PLO’s image in the West, from a vicious terror group hell-bent on the violent destruction of the Jewish state to the humanitarian voice of an oppressed people.
These carefully-curated rebranding efforts were enacted at the suggestion of the Soviet Union, with the help of Communist leaders such as Võ Nguyên Giáp and Muhammad Yazid, an Algerian government minister assigned by Algerian President Houari Boumediene to guide Yasser Arafat.
Free Palestine, April 1971 cover. Upon its publication, Free Palestine did not describe Palestinians as Palestinians but as “the Arabs of Palestine.”
The May 1974 edition of Free Palestine glorified the Kiryat Shmona Massacre, in which the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine murdered 18 Israelis, including eight children.
IS SAYING FREE PALESTINE ANTISEMITIC?
No. I don't think so. Say whatever you want.
But saying it to harass, troll, assault, intimidate, vandalize, exclude, or hurt Jews and/or Israelis certainly is.
Saying it in response to the presence of Jews or Israelis or in response to mere expressions of Jewish or Israeli culture definitely is.
And saying it to virtue signal, when you probably couldn’t even tell me what you mean, is, in my opinion, a bit pathetic and embarrassing.
But, you do you!
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