Why “from the river to the sea” is wrong

It needs to be said: We, the Jewish people who live in Israel, are not going anywhere. Too often we hear calls to “go back where we came from”, or “from the river to the sea..”, and the only answer to that is the simple fact that millions of Jews are going to remain on this land.

Like it or not, it’s a fact. And unless you’re supporting a forced transfer or a genocide... we need to work with this fact. Now, we need to understand the completing fact: the Palestinians are not going anywhere as well (hope you listen, Bibi!)

And if both people who live on this land, millions of Palestinians and millions of Jews, are to remain here, that’s the only starting point to any solution. It does not help to the end the occupation, to achieve peace or the end the killing of innocent people, to ignore this.

As any other society, we have here in Israel fears, hopes, clashes with our government, which does not serve our interests. Our fight, my movement’s fight, is against the occupation and the killing and for full equality to all.

We fight for peace not only because we stand with the Palestinians in the West Bank and in Gaza, but also because it is our self-interest. Because it is the only way to achieve security and safety to our people...

Our call to our allies around the world is to understand the complexity of our society, to understand that we have Jewish and Arab-Palestinian citizens who are fighting together to change our country and to end the endless wars and killing. To save lives on both sides.

If you’re forgetting this fact, that also in Israel we have people, or if you live in a fantasy world of academic terminology of colonisation and decolonisation, remember we are not in the New School’s library [in New York], but here on the ground. And on the ground, we have to fight to win.

This fight - for the end of the killing and occupation, for an independent Palestinian state and for full equality for all people on this land - can only be won by organising the people who live here, Jews and Palestinians, and by building a majority here. Please support that. §

• Taken from a Twitter thread. Alon-Lee Green is co-director of Standing Together in Israel.