Singer Church defends call for 'river to the sea Palestine will be free'

• Published date: 14 March 2024
• Author: MICHAEL STARR
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Church said in a statement that she was not an antisemite, and the phrase was not a call for the ethnic cleansing or genocide of Israelis but a call for liberation for Palestinians

"A call for one group's liberation does not imply another's destruction, and those suggesting that it does when it is, in fact, that first group who are currently being murdered in their thousands are leveraging a grotesque irony. I will not have my rhetoric around resistance and solidarity redefined by those who most violently oppose my democratic engagement," said Church. "'From the river to the sea' is a call for Palestinians to live with equal rights and to end the illegal apartheid system they have been living under. It is widely accepted all over the world that no group of people should have supremacy over another, so why is it called 'genocidal' when this is demanded by and on the behalf of Palestinians?"

Church: 'It is difficult to know the full truth' regarding October 7

Church said that she condemned the October 7 attacks as there were undoubtedly war crimes committed, although "it is difficult to know the full truth of what happened that day, and hopefully, with the fullness of time, we will have a better perspective on this."

The singer said that...