Netanyahu's Map Draws Criticism as U.S. Fully Backs Israel's Land Steal

'From river to the sea" is only acceptable when an Israeli makes the comment, American college students can be kicked out of school for such a comment

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who prides himself on being the only Israeli leader who can prevent a two-state solution, presented a map of Israel without the West Bank, drawing criticism from a top human rights expert who also called out the blatant hypocrisy.

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“‘From the River to the Sea.’ People in France, Germany, the US, freak out when it is chanted by youths in solidarity with a people who's been genocided. When it is presented as a political plan by the man wanted by the #ICC Prosecutor as an int'l criminal, not a peep,” Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur, posted on X.

She reposted an item from Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst with the Crisis Group, who posted the image from the Netanyahu press conference and said, “Of course, the West Bank does not exist on Netanyahu's map. And Gaza is the forever Israeli enclave.”

“This speech will go down in history as Netanyahu's open admission to that world that Israel will remain between the river and the sea indefinitely, as long as he rules,” she posted.

Assal Rad, the author of “State of Resistance: Politics, Culture & Identity in Modern Iran,” also posted that it’s wild that Netanyahu openly uses a map that erases the whole West Bank with little to no coverage or pushback from the West. The erasure of the West Bank is part of the same genocidal campaign as Gaza, a total assault on Palestinian existence made possible with US support.

In April, AIPAC’s U.S. House of Representatives easily passed the resolution to condemn the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” because they said the phrase is anti-Semitic.

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., introduced the resolution in November, and it was co-sponsored by Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-NJ, and Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla. The three claim that the saying “seeks to deny Jewish people the right to self-determination.”

Netanyahu used the phrase in January when he was rejecting the idea of a Palestinian state as long as he was in power. He said Israel will take over the entire region it currently occupies, “from the river to the sea.”

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the only Palestinian-American in Congress, was censured last year when video emerged of her using the phrase referring to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Tlaib rejected the claim that the phrase is antisemitic and said the slogan is “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate.”

Israel is carrying out a U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza and violence in the West Bank is boiling over.

Netanyahu said in an interview last month that the occupied West Bank is part of Israel’s homeland and he intends to maintain a presence there despite public clashes about the policy with some allies.

The International Court of Justice ruled last month that Israel’s continued occupation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is a “de facto annexation” enforced through “systemic discrimination, segregation, and apartheid.”

The court called on Israel to mandate the “evacuation of all settlers from existing settlements and the dismantling of the parts of the wall constructed by Israel that are situated in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as well as allowing all Palestinians displaced during the occupation to return to their original place of residence.”

Netanyahu responded to the ruling, stating that the “Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land, including in our eternal capital Jerusalem nor in Judea and Samaria, our historical homeland.”

TRENDPOST: We noted earlier this summer that Bezalel Smotrich, the extremist Israeli settler and country’s finance minister, said Israel is carrying out a “mega-dramatic” effort to prevent the West Bank from becoming a part of a Palestinian state and that will enable his country to seize authority over the entire region—in a scheme that will avoid international scrutiny.