“From the River to the Sea” Anti-semitism, Anti-Palestinianism, or both/neither?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea“

‘From the river to the sea’: related to the Bible

Genesis 17:7-8 “I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.”

Psalm 72:8 “He (king’s rule) shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.”

Deuteronomy 11:24 “Every place where you set your foot will be yours: Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea.”

Joshua 23:4 “Remember how I have allotted as an inheritance for your tribes all the land of the nations that remain—the nations I conquered—between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea in the west.”

The Land of Canaan (Heb. אֶרֶץ]כְּנַעַן ,כְּנָעַן]), was promised to the Israelites by God (e.g., Gen. 17:8; Ex. 6:4)

“The name “Canaan” appears throughout the Bible as a geography associated with the “Promised Land.” The demonym “Canaanites” serves as an ethnic catch-all term covering various indigenous populations—both settled and nomadic-pastoral groups—throughout the regions of the southern Levant or Canaan. It is by far the most frequently used ethnic term in the Bible. Biblical scholar Mark Smith, citing archaeological findings, suggests “that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from Canaanite culture… In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Canaan was a Semitic-speaking civilization and region of the Southern Levant in the Ancient Near East during the late 2nd millennium BC. Canaan had significant geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna Period (14th century BCE) as the area where the spheres of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni, and Assyrian Empires converged or overlapped. Much of present-day knowledge about Canaan stems from archaeological excavation in this area at sites such as Tel Hazor, Tel Megiddo, En Esur, and Gezer.” ref

“Mention of the Land of Canaan predominates in the Bible in the four books of Genesis, Numbers, Joshua, and Judges, but less so elsewhere. No single geographical definition for the land of Canaan exists in the Bible (Num. 34:2–12; Ezek. 47:13–20; 48:1–7, 23–29) or in other sources. The term occasionally indicates an extensive area encompassing all of Palestine and Syria, while at other times, it is confined to a strip of land along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean (for the southern boundary, see Josh. 15:2–4, and for the northern boundary, see Josh. 19:24–31). According to Genesis 10:19, Canaan extended in a restricted fashion from Sidon in the north to Gaza, Gerar, and the southern end of the Dead Sea in the south. The inclusion of Zemar, Arvad, and Sin (Siyanu, to the south of Ugarit) in Genesis 10:15–18, and the mention of Ammia (near Tripoli) as a city “in the Land of Canaan” in the inscriptions of Idrimi, king of *Alalakh (dated by various scholars to the 15^th–13^th centuries BCE.), indicate that even areas north of Sidon were included in the land of Canaan.” ref

“However, the mention of a Canaanite among other foreigners in a merchant list from Ugarit from around 1200 B.C.E. suggests, therefore, that at that time Ugarit was not considered a part of Canaan. According to the detailed description of the borders of the land of Canaan in Numbers 34:2–12, the southern border began at the southern tip of the Dead Sea and continued southwest to the ascent of Akrabbim and Kadesh-Barnea, reaching to the Brook of Egypt (probably Wadi El-Arish). On the west was the Mediterranean. The northern border started at the coast near a place known as Mount Hor and extended east to Lebo-Hamath, the present-day Labwa in the valley of Lebanon (the Biqāʿ), north of Baalbek (ancient Heliopolis).” ref

“From there, the border continued east to Zedad, the present-day Ṣadad, about 65½ miles (c. 100 km.) north-northeast of Damascus. The northeast corner of Canaan was marked by the settlements of Ziphronah and Hazar-Enan, identified today with Ḥawārīn and Qaryatayn, southeast of Ṣadad. The eastern boundary included the region of Damascus and the Hauran to the east and the Bashan and the Golan to the south, touching the southeast corner of the Sea of Galilee and continuing south along the Jordan River to the Dead Sea (cf. Ezek. 47:17–18). Neither Numbers 34 nor other biblical passages include Transjordan within the land of Canaan (Num. 33:51; 35:10; Josh. 22:10–11).” ref

“It is reasonable to assume that the political and demographic realities reflected broken in the boundaries of Canaan given in Numbers 34 are roughly similar to those existing at the time of Egyptian rule in Ereẓ Israel and Syria in the third quarter of the second millennium BCE. This area is given in one instance, in a  and doubtful context, as [p-i?]-ḫati ša ki-na-ḫi, which would mean “the province (?) of Canaan.” According to certain biblical passages, the name Canaan applied to an area along the coast of the Mediterranean, including the important cities of Tyre and Sidon (e.g., Num. 13:29; Josh. 5:1; Isa. 23:11).” ref

“Canaan’s population was not homogeneous. The names of various peoples living in Canaan are given in Genesis 10:15–18. In some passages, the Canaanites are only one of several peoples settled in the land allocated to the Israelites (Ex. 3:8; 34:11). At times, the term *Amorite occurs as a general name for the inhabitants of Canaan (Gen. 15:16; I Sam. 7:14). Canaan’s population was primarily Semitic, as is indicated by place-names such as Jericho, Megiddo, Gebal, and Sidon, and by documents from the first half of the second millennium BCE. containing names of places and rulers. During the first centuries of the second millennium, West-Semitic tribes known in the sources as Amurru penetrated into Canaan. The movement of the Hyksos brought considerable change to the ethnic composition of the population, since in its wake, Hurrian and Indo-European elements penetrated the country during the 17^th and 16^th centuries. The ethnic heterogeneity of Canaan’s population is illustrated by the names of rulers of the country, appearing in the *El-Amarna letters and in Egyptian documents from the time of the New Kingdom.” ref

“Canaan was never consolidated into a unified political whole. Rather, it was split up into small political units, each usually under the rule of a king. Many Canaanite city-states are mentioned in inscriptions of the Egyptian pharaohs; most of the Tell el-Amarna letters were sent by Canaanite kings to the pharaoh. Thirty-one kings whom the Israelites fought during the conquest of the country are listed in Joshua 12. The most important city-states were Gebal, Sidon, Amurru, Hazor, Ashtaroth, Megiddo, Acre, Shechem, Jerusalem, and Ashkelon. The borders of the Canaanite city-states were fluid, each ruler attempting to expand at the expense of his neighbor. Some kings did not hesitate to enlist bands of nomads, such as the Shutu and the Apiru- *Habiru, in their support. The internal struggles of the Canaanite kings were concurrent with the competition of the larger powers for domination of Syria and Palestine. At first, the struggle was between Egypt, Babylonia, and Mitanni (15^th–14^th centuries) and later between Egypt and the Hittites (14^th–13^th centuries).” ref

“Egyptian sovereignty over Canaan began in the Old Kingdom (third-millennium BCE.), continuing until the last quarter of the second millennium. Ethnic and political changes rocked Canaan following the penetration of West Semitic tribes, including the Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Israelite tribes, and the Arameans from the east, and the Sea Peoples from the north and west. Israelite settlement in Canaan was about 1200 BCE. marks the end of the Canaanite period in Palestine, although Canaanite culture endured in the large coastal cities to the north (e.g., Tyre, Sidon, Gebal). The name Canaan began to be limited to the strip of land along the coast, which was later known as *Phoenicia, but it was rarely used after the Iron Age, though some third century BCE coins have been found in Beirut inscribed in Phoenician “Laodikea which is in Canaan.” ref

Israeli/Jewish “From the River to the Sea”

“The precise origins of the phrase are disputed. According to American historian Robin D. G. Kelley, the phrase “began as a Zionist slogan signifying the boundaries of Eretz Israel.” Israeli-American historian Omer Bartov notes that Zionist usage of such language predates the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and began with the Revisionist movement of Zionism led by Vladimir Jabotinski, which spoke of establishing a Jewish state in all of Palestine and had a song which includes: “The Jordan has two banks; this one is ours, and the other one too,” suggesting a Jewish state extending even beyond the Jordan River. In 1977, the concept appeared in an election manifesto of the Israeli political party Likud, which stated that “between the sea and the Jordan there will be only Israeli sovereignty.” ref

“Middle East scholar Elliott Colla says that the relevant historical context for understanding ‘from the river to the sea’ is the history of partition and fragmentation in Palestine, along with Israeli appropriation and annexation of Palestinian lands. In his opinion these include: the 1947 UN Partition plan for Palestine, which proposed to divide the land between the river and the sea; the 1948 Nakba, in which that plan materialized; the 1967 War, in which Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza; the Oslo Accords, that (in his view) fragmented the West Bank into Palestinian enclaves (that he describes as “an archipelago of Bantustans surrounded by Israeli settlements, bases, and checkpoints”); and the Israeli separation wall first erected after the Second Intifada.” ref

“The phrase was also used by the Israeli ruling Likud party as part of their 1977 election manifesto which stated “Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” This slogan was repeated by Menachem Begin. Similar wording has also been used more recently by other Israeli politicians, like Gideon Sa’ar and also Uri Ariel of The Jewish Home. In 2014 Ariel said, “Between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea there will be only one state, which is Israel.” The phrase has been used by the Israeli Prime Minister, Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu, in speeches. Similar wording has also been used more recently by other Israeli politicians.

“Similar formulations have been used by Zionists and Israelis. Omer Bartov notes the song “The East Bank of the Jordan” by the Revisionist Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky used the formulation שתי גדות לירדן: זו שלנו, זו גם כן “The Jordan has two banks; this one is ours, and the other one too.” The phrase appeared in a 2021 B’Tselem report entitled “A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This Is Apartheid” that described Israel’s de facto rule over the territory from the river to the sea, through its occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza Strip, as a regime of apartheid. The Likud Party used the formulation בין הים לירדן תהיה רק ריבונות ישראלית “Between the sea and the Jordan, there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” Most recently, this has been stated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 18 January 2024.” ref

Palestinian “From the River to the Sea”

“From the river to the sea” is a political phrase that refers geographically to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an area described as Palestine, which today includes Israel and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. The phrase was popularised among the Palestinian population in the 1960s as a call for liberation from living under Israeli, Jordanian and Egyptian control. In the 1960s, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) used it to call for an Arab state encompassing the entirety of Mandatory Palestine, which was initially stated to only include the Palestinians and the descendants of Jews who had lived in Palestine before 1947, although this was later revised to only include descendants of Jews who had lived in Palestine before the first Aliyah (1881).” ref

“Many Palestinian activists have called it “a call for peace and equality” after decades of Israeli military rule over Palestinians while for most Jews it has been “a clear demand for Israel’s destruction.” Islamist militant faction Hamas used the phrase in its 2017 charter. Usage of the phrase by such Palestinian militant groups has led critics to argue that it advocates for the dismantling of Israel, and calls for the removal or extermination of the Jewish population of the region.” ref

“An old Zionist slogan, envisaged statehood extending over the two banks of the Jordan river, and when that vision proved impractible, it was substituted by the idea of a Greater Israel, an entity conceived as extending from the Jordan to the sea. The Palestinian phrase has also been used by Israeli politicians. The 1977 election manifesto of the right-wing Israeli Likud party said: “Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” Similar wording, such as referring to the area “west of the Jordan river”, has also been used more recently by other Israeli politicians, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 18 January 2024. Some countries have considered criminalizing use of the phrase. On 16 April 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a resolution condemning the phrase as antisemitic.” ref

“Palestinian usage of this phrase is also unclear. Kelley writes that the phrase was adopted by the Palestine Liberation Organization in the mid-1960s;  while Elliott Colla notes that “it is unclear when and where the slogan “from the river to the sea,” first emerged within Palestinian protest culture.” In November 2023, Colla wrote that he had not encountered the phrase – in either Standard nor Levantine Arabic – in Palestinian revolutionary media of the 1960s and 1970s and noted that “the phrase appears nowhere in the Palestinian National Charters of 1964 or 1968, nor in the Hamas Charter of 1988.” From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”—the translation of min an-nahr ʾilā l-baḥr / Filasṭīn sa-tatḥarrar—is the version that has circulated among English speakers expressing solidarity with Palestine since at least the 1990s.” ref

“The 1964 charter of the PLO’s Palestinian National Council called for “the recovery of the usurped homeland in its entirety”. The 1964 charter stated that “Jews who are of Palestinian origin shall be considered Palestinians if they are willing to live peacefully and loyally in Palestine”, specifically defining “Palestinian” as those who had “normally resided in Palestine until 1947”. In the 1968 revision, the charter was further revised, stating that “Jews who had resided normally in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion” would be considered Palestinian. In 1979, the phrase was invoked by delegates attending the Palestine Congress of North America. The concept of “from the river to the sea” has appeared in various pro-Palestinian protest chants, typically as the first line of a rhyming couplet.” ref

“Colla notes that activists of the First Intifada (1987-1993) “remember hearing variations of the phrase in Arabic from the late 1980s onwards” and that the phrases have been documented in graffiti from the period in works such as Saleh Abd al-Jawad’s “Faṣā’il al-ḥaraka al-waṭaniyya al-Filasṭīniyya fi-l-arāḍī al-muḥtalla wa-shu’ārāt al-judrān” (1991) and Julie Peteet’s “The Writing on the Walls: The Graffiti of the Intifada” (1996). The phrase appeared in a 2021 B’Tselem report entitled “A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This Is Apartheid” that described Israel’s de facto rule over the territory from the river to the sea, through its occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza Strip, as a regime of apartheid.” ref

“Hamas, as part of its revised 2017 charter, rejected “any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea”, referring to all areas of former Mandatory Palestine and by extension, the end of Jewish sovereignty in the region. Islamic Jihad declared that “from the river to the sea – [Palestine] is an Arab Islamic land that [it] is legally forbidden from abandoning any inch of, and the Israeli presence in Palestine is a null existence, which is forbidden by law to recognize. Islamists have used a version “Palestine is Islamic from the river to the sea.” ref

“The phrase was used as part of its 2017 revised platform where they state “Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea […] along the lines of the 4th of June 1967”. Among the materials recovered by American forces during the killing of al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was a speech addressed to the American people, in which bin Laden proposed economic and security guarantees in exchange for a “roadmap that returns the Palestine land to us, all of it, from the sea to the river, it is an Islamic land not subject to being traded or granted to any party.” ref

“On September 27, 2008, Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah stated at a rally “Palestine, from the sea to the river is the property of Arabs and Palestinians, and no one has the right to give up even a single grain of earth or one stone, because every grain of the land is holy. The entire land must be returned to its rightful owners.” Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, in 2023, used the phrase, saying “The only solution is a Palestinian state from the river to the sea,” meaning that the only solution to the conflict would be a Palestinian state encompassing all of Israel and the Palestinian territories.” ref

“In 2003, then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, during a speech commemorating the anniversary of the Iraqi Army‘s establishment, referred to the Palestinian people and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, stating “Long live Palestine, free and Arab, from the sea to the river. ” ref

“On 30 October 2023, British Member of Parliament Andy McDonald was suspended from the Labour Party after stating in a pro-Palestine rally speech: “We won’t rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis, and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty”. The party described McDonald’s comment as “deeply offensive”. McDonald said at the time, “These words should not be construed in any other way than they were intended, namely as a heartfelt plea for an end to killings in Israel, Gaza, and the occupied West Bank, and for all peoples in the region to live in freedom without the threat of violence.” ref

“As of 1 November 2023, the UK Football Association barred the use of the phrase by its players, stating they made clear to teams “that this phrase is considered offensive to many” and that the league will seek police guidance on how [they] should treat it and respond” if players have used it. On November 5 the Met Police stopped working with an adviser who chanted the slogan during a protest saying this appears “antisemitic and contrary with our values.” ref

“On November 30, 2018, CNN fired American academic Marc Lamont Hill from his position as a political commentator after he delivered a speech at the United Nations on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People ending with the words: “…we have an opportunity, to not just offer solidarity in words, but to commit to political action, grassroots action, local action, and international action that will give us what justice requires. And that is a free Palestine, from the river to the sea.” Critics focused on his use of the phrase ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ because Hamas also uses it. The ADL accused Hill of using the phrase “from the river to the sea” as code for the destruction of Israel. Hill apologized, but later tweeted “You say “River to the Sea” is “universally” understood to mean the destruction of the Jewish State? On what basis do you make this claim? Did it signify destruction when it was the slogan of the Likud Party? Or when currently used by the Israeli Right?” ref

“On 7 November 2023, United States Representative Rashida Tlaib was censured by the House of Representatives in part for using the phrase, which Tlaib defended as “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction or hate”. Before the vote, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries criticized the phrase as something which is “widely understood as calling for the complete destruction of Israel”. On 8 November 2023, the White House condemned Tlaib for using the phrase. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that “when it comes to the phrase that was used, ‘from the river to the sea,’ it is divisive, it is hurtful, many find it hurtful, and many find it antisemitic,” and added that the White House “categorically reject[s] applying the term to the (2023 Israel–Hamas) conflict.” ref

“The phrase has been used across social media, including on TikTok. On November 15, 2023, Jewish influencers and celebrities confronted TikTok executives in a private call, to press them to moderate use of the phrase on the platform. Adam Presser, head of operations for TikTok, stated that only content “where it is clear exactly what they mean…that content is violative and we take it down,” adding that if “someone is just using it casually, then that has been considered acceptable speech.” In a statement, TikTok said that content using the phrase “in a way that threatens violence and spreads hate” is not allowed on the platform. A report by Fortune described an additional Zoom call between “about 40 mostly Jewish tech leaders,” including Anthony Goldbloom, and TikTok executives, on November 16, claiming that the platform’s algorithm favored “content that supports Palestine over pro-Israel content” and pushing the platform to “reexamine its community guidelines”, with the company rejecting “blunt comparisons” of hashtags on the platform and stating that the imbalance of content is not the result of “any kind of intended or unintended bias in its algorithms.” ref

“On November 17, 2023, Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, announced a policy change, stating that users who use terms like “decolonization” and “from the river to the sea,” or similar expressions would be suspended. He claimed these terms were used as euphemisms for extreme violence or genocide. Musk’s announcement came after he was criticized for “endorsing an antisemitic post” on the platform two days before, and companies such as IBM, Comcast, Apple, Paramount Global, Disney, and Lionsgate announced a pause of ads on the platform.” ref

“Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, applauded Musk’s action on November 17, calling it “an important and welcome move” and praising his “leadership in fighting hate.” Greenblatt’s statement was reported by The Guardian as being part of an effort to gain influence on the far right, and that the head of the ADL’s Center for Technology and Society (CTS), Yael Eisenstat, quit her position in protest. Other ADL staffers expressed their opposition to Greenblatt’s move. Rolling Stone stated that it was “doubtful” that Twitter users would be suspended for “repeating either phrase.” Noah Lanard of Mother Jones wrote that the new policy would “presumably apply only to those who use the phrase [from the river to the sea] in support of Palestinians” and argued that Musk is “trying to cover up for his own bigotry.” Pro-Palestinian users criticized Musk’s new policy, arguing he was conflating legitimate political speech with “calls for violence” and was “limiting free speech.” ref

“The phrase has been used widely in pro-Palestinian protest movements. It has often been chanted at pro-Palestinian demonstrations, usually followed or preceded by the phrase “Palestine will be free” (the phrase rhymes in English, not Arabic). Interpretations differ amongst its supporters. In a survey conducted by the Arab World for Research and Development on November 14, 74.7% Palestinians agreed that they support a single Palestinian state “from the river to the sea”, while only 5.4% of respondents supported a “one-state for two peoples” solution.” ref

“Civic figures, activists, and progressive publications have said that the phrase calls for a one-state solution: a single, secular state in all of Historic Palestine where people of all religions have equal citizenship. This stands in contrast to the two-state solution, which envisions a Palestinian state existing alongside a Jewish state. This usage has been described as speaking out for the right of Palestinians “to live freely in the land from the river to the sea”, with Palestinian writer Yousef Munayyer describing the phrase as “a rejoinder to the fragmentation of Palestinian land and people by Israeli occupation and discrimination.” Others have said it stands for “the equal freedom and dignity of the Palestinian people.” Elliott Colla traces the first evidence of use of the phrase in Palestinian protest culture to the First Intifada (1987-1993), with documentation in graffiti from the period.” ref

“On November 8, 2023, Amazon told Newsweek that they would not be removing pro-Palestinian merchandise, including garments bearing the phrase, stating that the items do not “contravene our policies,” which prohibit sale of products which “promote, incite, or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual, or religious intolerance.” ref

November 10, 2023 ‘From the river to the sea’: Why is the Palestinian nationalist slogan about Gaza a flashpoint?

“When the House this week voted to censure Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, accusing her of calling for Israel‘s destruction, her critics said it was, in part, because she repeated the Palestinian nationalist slogan, “from the river to the sea.” The phrase, perhaps unfamiliar to many Americans, has been around for decades, before the militant group Hamas even existed, and continues with the words, “Palestine will be free.” It has now become both a rallying cry for Palestinian rights chanted by supporters worldwide — and what others consider offensive code for wiping Israel off the map, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, as Hamas has vowed to do. Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., adopted the phrase in its 2017 charter. The group’s brutal attack on Israel on Oct. 7 caused the horrific deaths of 1,400 men, women, and children, according to Israeli officials. That, as the world has seen in grim detail since, set off the current war in the neighboring Gaza Strip, where more than 10,000 people have been killed, many of them innocent civilians, including thousands of children buried under blasts from Israeli bombs, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.” ref

Is ‘From the river to the sea’ hate speech?

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a slogan echoing through pro-Palestinian rallies across the United States and elsewhere, including those observed on the campuses of the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles this week. Like all aspects of the Middle East conflict, the phrase is polarizing, and interpretations vary. For the Anti-Defamation League, however, it’s clear. “What it connotes to the Jewish people, a vast majority of whom have an intrinsic tie between their Judaism and the State of Israel, ‘From the river to the sea’ means eradicating that piece of land and all Jewish life,” says Jeffrey Abrams, the ADL’s Los Angeles regional director. “That’s what we saw on October 7 by Hamas, a terrorist organization, which committed the greatest atrocity against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.” ref

For context, the State of Israel and the Palestinian territories lie between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The river, spanning over 200 miles, forms a natural border between the Jewish state, the Palestinian-controlled West Bank, and neighboring Jordan and Syria. The ADL and other Jewish advocacy groups insist that “From the river to the sea” is blatantly antisemitic and crosses the line between freedom of speech and hate speech. They argue that those who chant it are advocating for genocide rather than simply supporting the plight of Palestinians. Not true, says Palestinian-American writer and political analyst Yousef Munayyer. “When we talk about ‘From the river to the sea,’ we’re talking about a place that we call home,” Munayyer told the CBC. He argues that the phrase expresses a desire for Palestinian independence and freedom, not the eradication of Jews.” ref

“From the river to the sea today, there is one state, an Israeli state, that rules over millions of people: Palestinians who don’t have equal rights, who are not free. That’s what has to change. It doesn’t mean that there should be any violence against Israelis,” he says. What many Jews hear, of course, is something different. Their belief that the phrase is antisemitic is shared by many political leaders who can point to its adoption by Hamas over a decade ago. “Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north,” Khaled Mashaal, the militant group’s former leader, said in a 2012 speech in Gaza celebrating the 25th anniversary of the founding of Hamas. “There will be no concession on any inch of the land.” ref

“When Rep. Rashida Tlabi (D-Michigan) used ‘From the river to the sea’ in speeches and on social media last year, she was censured by the U.S. House of Representatives. In October 2023, Vienna police banned a pro-Palestinian demonstration, citing the phrase “From the river to the sea” mentioned in invitations and characterizing it as a call to violence. In the United States, law enforcement and universities have largely avoided addressing whether the slogan constitutes hate speech that incites violence, focusing instead on the actions of the protesters rather than their words.” ref

“At USC, demonstrators were removed for pitching tents and erecting banners, which violates the private school’s policy. Activists at UCLA, however, were unchecked as they took over a large plaza on the public university’s campus with tents and barricades and displayed signs with the slogan. While the ADL condemns the use of “From the river to the sea,” Abrams says his organization is more concerned with these disruptions on college campuses and the threats, both real and perceived, targeting Jewish students. “It’s not an issue of free speech. With free speech, there are obligations to each other,” he says. “Just because one group has a right doesn’t mean they have the right to trample on the rights of others, which, unfortunately, is what’s been happening across our country when it comes to the rights of Jewish students on these campuses.” ref

“Some politicians and advocacy groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee consider the phrase to be antisemitic, hate speech and incitement to genocide, suggesting that it denies the right of Jews for self-determination in their ancestral homeland, or advocates for their removal or extermination. Such critics of the phrase claim that it has been explicitly used to call for the land to be placed entirely under Arab rule at the cost of the State of Israel and its Jewish citizens. ADL regional director Jonah Steinberg stated that from the time of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and thereafter, “there was a catchphrase of ‘pushing the Jews into the sea’ and the phrase, ‘from the river to the sea’ echoes that trope in a menacing way.” ref

“Steven Lubet wrote in an opinion piece on The Hill that if the people promoting this slogan were really interested only in “freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence” as they claim, then they would have changed the slogan to “From the river to the sea, Palestinians will be free.” Lubet also says that, according to DEI norms, the racism of a certain speech can be determined not only by the intent of the speaker, but mainly by the impact it has on the people who feel offended or threatened by it. Therefore, he concludes, since most Jews view the slogan as hurtful and threatening, it should be avoided, regardless of what is the real intent of its chanters.” ref

“According to Susie Linfield in an interview in Salmagundi magazine, there is nothing wrong with both Jews and Palestinians “pursuing national self-determination”. In her opinion, the slogan ‘from the river to the sea’ represents a rejectionist unwillingness to compromise with the other nation on a two-state solution, which led the Palestinian leadership to reject the partition plan in 1947, ended in them losing everything so far.” ref

“On 9 November 2023, Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard University at the time, condemned the phrase. On 17 April 2024, Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia University at the time, said that she herself hears the phrase as antisemitic, but some people do not. On 16 April 2024 the U.S. House of Representatives approved a decision that condemns the chant as antisemitic, with a majority of 377 against 44.” ref

“Oxford researcher Ahmad Khalidi has responded to those who characterize it as genocidal, “It is perfectly possible for both people to be free between the river and the sea, is ‘free’ necessarily in itself genocidal? I think any reasonable person would say no. Does it preclude the fact that the Jewish population in the area between the sea and the river cannot also be free? I think any reasonable person would also say no.” ref

“Palestinian-American writers such as Yousef Munayyer and University of Arizona professor Maha Nassar have written that accusations that the phrase is a call to genocide, rely on racist and Islamophobic assumptions about Palestinian intent. Nadia Abu El Haj notes that critics who characterize it as “threatening”, “intimidating”, or a call to “genocidal violence” when it is used in support of Palestine do not make equivalent claims when used by Israelis.” ref

“In describing the criticism of the phrase, scholar of politics in the Arab world Elliott Colla writes:

It is the first phrase of the slogan—”from the river to the sea”—that has caused so much fury. Dominant Jewish communal institutions, most prominently the ADL and AJC, have insisted that this phrase is antisemitic. Throughout recent years, they have composed new definitions of antisemitism that render many common expressions of Palestine solidarity as ipso facto instances of anti-Jewish hate speech … the slogan “from the river to the sea” figures prominently in their accusations of antisemitic doublespeak.” ref

“In 2021, over 200 scholars in various fields signed the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. The declaration discussed common manifestations of antisemitism, as well as what kinds of speech and behavior are antisemitic and what kind of speech and behavior are not, espacially regarding the Palestine-Israel conflict. According to the authors, “between the river and the sea” is not antisemitic.” ref

Antisemitism

“Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person’s hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person’s society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person’s hostility is driven by their religion’s perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism’s successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions. The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by the concept of anti-Judaism, which is distinct from antisemitism itself.” ref

“There are various ways in which antisemitism is manifested, ranging in the level of severity of Jewish persecution. On the more subtle end, it consists of expressions of hatred or discrimination against individual Jews, and may or may not be accompanied by violence. On the most extreme end, it consists of pogroms or genocide, which may or may not be state-sponsored. Although the term “antisemitism” did not come into common usage until the 19th century, it is also applied to previous and later anti-Jewish incidents. Notable instances of antisemitic persecution include the Rhineland massacres in 1096; the Edict of Expulsion in 1290; the European persecution of Jews during the Black Death, between 1348 and 1351; the massacre of Spanish Jews in 1391, the crackdown of the Spanish Inquisition, and the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492; the Cossack massacres in Ukraine, between 1648 and 1657; various anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire, between 1821 and 1906; the Dreyfus affair, between 1894 and 1906; the Holocaust by Nazi Germany during World War II; and various Soviet anti-Jewish policies. Historically, most of the world’s violent antisemitic events have taken place in Christian Europe. However, since the early 20th century, there has been a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents across the Arab world, largely due to the surge in Arab antisemitic conspiracy theories, which have been cultivated to an extent under the aegis of European antisemitic conspiracy theories.” ref

“In the contemporary era, a manifestation known as “new antisemitism” was identified. As the State of Israel has a Jewish-majority population, antisemitic rhetoric can be manifested in expressions of anti-Israeli sentiment. Due to the root word Semite, the term is prone to being invoked as a misnomer by those who incorrectly assert that it refers to racist hatred directed at “Semitic people” in spite of the fact that this grouping is an obsolete historical race concept. Likewise, such usage is erroneous; the compound word antisemitismus was first used in print in Germany in 1879 as a “scientific-sounding term” for Judenhass (lit. ‘Jew-hatred‘), and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone. Pseudoscientific theories concerning race, civilization, and “progress” had become quite widespread in Europe in the second half of the 19th century, especially as Prussian nationalistic historian Heinrich von Treitschke did much to promote this form of racism. He coined the phrase “the Jews are our misfortune” which would later be widely used by Nazis. According to Avner Falk, Treitschke uses the term “Semitic” almost synonymously with “Jewish”, in contrast to Renan’s use of it to refer to a whole range of peoples, based generally on linguistic criteria.” ref

“Antisemitism manifests itself in a variety of ways. René König mentions social antisemitism, economic antisemitism, religious antisemitism, and political antisemitism as examples. König points out that these different forms demonstrate that the “origins of anti-Semitic prejudices are rooted in different historical periods.” König asserts that differences in the chronology of different antisemitic prejudices and the irregular distribution of such prejudices over different segments of the population create “serious difficulties in the definition of the different kinds of anti-Semitism.” ref

Anti-Palestinianism

“Anti-Palestinianism or anti-Palestinian sentiment, also called anti-Palestinian racism, refers to prejudice, collective hatred, and discrimination directed at the Palestinian people for any variety of reasons. Since the mid-20th century, the phenomenon has largely overlapped with anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians today are Arabs and Muslims. Historically, however, anti-Palestinianism was more closely identified with European antisemitism, as far-right Europeans detested the Jewish people as undesirable foreigners from Palestine. Modern anti-Palestinianism—that is, xenophobia with regard to the Arab people of Palestine—is most common in Israel, the United States, and Lebanon, among other countries. “Pakistani author and professor Sunaina Maira, citing American professor of Islamic studies Shahzad Bashir in the context of labelling, states: “…an important aspect of anti-Palestinianism, that is, the moral panic whipped up about the “radicalization” of Muslim and Arab American youth is often accompanied by the charge that they are automatically anti-Semites if they are critical of the Israeli state’s policies.” ref

Canada Anti-Palestinianism

“In 2018, author and political activist Yves Engler criticized the New Democratic Party (NDP) for its conduct in respect of the Palestine Resolution that called for support of efforts to ban “settlement products from Canadian markets, and using other forms of diplomatic and economic pressure to end the [Israeli] occupation.” Engler said it “demonstrated the need to directly confront anti-Palestinianism within the party.” In 2020, the University of Toronto allegedly blocked the hiring of Valentina Azarova as director of the International Human Rights Program (IHRP) due to her pro-Palestinian activism. Dania Majid, president of the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association (ACLA), described this as an example that “anti-Palestinian racism is alive and well” in Canada. In 2023, the principal of Park West School in Halifax, Nova Scotia, apologized after Palestinian students were told they couldn’t wear the keffiyeh during the school’s culture day. Palestinian and pro-Palestinian activists protested the banning of the keffiyeh as an act of anti-Palestinian racism in front of the Department of Education building in Halifax.” ref

France Anti-Palestinianism

“In May 2021, the French interior minister Gérald Darmanin requested that the police ban a pro-Palestinian protest in Paris. The Parisian journalist Sihame Assbague described the decision as an expression of “French colonial solidarity with the Israeli occupation forces.” ref

Germany Anti-Palestinianism

“Mati Shemoelof in +972 Magazine said Anti-Palestinian sentiment is common in Germany. The German left, particularly the Antideutsch movement, has been noted for anti-Palestinian sentiment. Many pro-Israel non-Jewish Zionists on the German left regard being anti-Palestinian as connected to their solidarity with Jews. In 2019, the Bundestag declared the BDS movement to be a form of antisemitism. In response, the BDS movement condemned the motion as anti-Palestinian. The Palestinian B.D.S. National Committee issued a statement declaring the motion an “anti-Palestinian…McCarthyite and unconstitutional resolution passed by the German Parliament.” British musician Brian Eno has argued that pro-Palestinian artists are subjected to “censorship and inquisitorial McCarthyism” due to the actions of the German government and anti-Palestinian groups.” ref

“On the 75th anniversary of Israel’s independence, or for Palestinians the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, prominent German politician Ursula von der Leyen referred to Israel as a “vibrant democracy” in the Middle East that made “the desert bloom” in remarks criticized by the foreign ministry of the Palestinian Authority as a “propagandist discourse” propagating an “anti-Palestinian racist trope” and a ‘whitewashing‘ of Israeli occupation.” ref

“Germany’s relationship with Palestine has been highlighted as “complex.” At present, Germany’s political class exhibits a “zealous identification with Israel” that is “often explained in terms of the country’s past.” Alternative readings, however, view this trend as a “qualitatively new phenomenon in Germany largely unrelated to moral considerations pertaining to the Nazi era.” Hannah C. Tzuberi argues that German manifestations of “anti-antisemitism” (which has been described as “a defining marker of post-war German identity”) can go beyond the identification of Germans with Jews, sometimes leading to the identification of German gentiles as Jews, and the identification of Germany as Israel.” ref

Israel Anti-Palestinianism

Two Anarchists: Cory Johnston and Damien Marie AtHope, address the Israel and Palestine conflict (BLOG POST)

Two Anarchists: Cory Johnston and Damien Marie AtHope, address the Israel and Palestine conflict (VIDEO)

The War Crimes of Israel: acting like a terrorist state would (BLOG POST)

The War Crimes of Israel: acting like a terrorist state would (VIDEO)

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

People don’t commonly teach religious history, even that of their own claimed religion. No, rather they teach a limited “pro their religion” history of their religion from a religious perspective favorable to the religion of choice. 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Do you truly think “Religious Belief” is only a matter of some personal choice?

Do you not see how coercive one’s world of choice is limited to the obvious hereditary belief, in most religious choices available to the child of religious parents or caregivers? Religion is more commonly like a family, culture, society, etc. available belief that limits the belief choices of the child and that is when “Religious Belief” is not only a matter of some personal choice and when it becomes hereditary faith, not because of the quality of its alleged facts or proposed truths but because everyone else important to the child believes similarly so they do as well simply mimicking authority beliefs handed to them. Because children are raised in religion rather than being presented all possible choices but rather one limited dogmatic brand of “Religious Belief” where children only have a choice of following the belief as instructed, and then personally claim the faith hereditary belief seen in the confirming to the belief they have held themselves all their lives. This is obvious in statements asked and answered by children claiming a faith they barely understand but they do understand that their family believes “this or that” faith, so they feel obligated to believe it too. While I do agree that “Religious Belief” should only be a matter of some personal choice, it rarely is… End Hereditary Religion!

Opposition to Imposed Hereditary Religion

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref 

Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey 

“How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements in their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In this new study, Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different animisms.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

We are like believing machines we vacuum up ideas, like Velcro sticks to almost everything. We accumulate beliefs that we allow to negatively influence our lives, often without realizing it. Our willingness must be to alter skewed beliefs that impend our balance or reason, which allows us to achieve new positive thinking and accurate outcomes.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Low Gods “Earth” or Tutelary deity and High Gods “Sky” or Supreme deity

“An Earth goddess is a deification of the Earth. Earth goddesses are often associated with the “chthonic” deities of the underworld. Ki and Ninhursag are Mesopotamian earth goddesses. In Greek mythology, the Earth is personified as Gaia, corresponding to Roman Terra, Indic Prithvi/Bhūmi, etc. traced to an “Earth Mother” complementary to the “Sky Father” in Proto-Indo-European religion. Egyptian mythology exceptionally has a sky goddess and an Earth god.” ref

“A mother goddess is a goddess who represents or is a personification of nature, motherhood, fertility, creation, destruction or who embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world, such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother. In some religious traditions or movements, Heavenly Mother (also referred to as Mother in Heaven or Sky Mother) is the wife or feminine counterpart of the Sky father or God the Father.” ref

“Any masculine sky god is often also king of the gods, taking the position of patriarch within a pantheon. Such king gods are collectively categorized as “sky father” deities, with a polarity between sky and earth often being expressed by pairing a “sky father” god with an “earth mother” goddess (pairings of a sky mother with an earth father are less frequent). A main sky goddess is often the queen of the gods and may be an air/sky goddess in her own right, though she usually has other functions as well with “sky” not being her main. In antiquity, several sky goddesses in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Near East were called Queen of Heaven. Neopagans often apply it with impunity to sky goddesses from other regions who were never associated with the term historically. The sky often has important religious significance. Many religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, have deities associated with the sky.” ref

“In comparative mythology, sky father is a term for a recurring concept in polytheistic religions of a sky god who is addressed as a “father”, often the father of a pantheon and is often either a reigning or former King of the Gods. The concept of “sky father” may also be taken to include Sun gods with similar characteristics, such as Ra. The concept is complementary to an “earth mother“. “Sky Father” is a direct translation of the Vedic Dyaus Pita, etymologically descended from the same Proto-Indo-European deity name as the Greek Zeûs Pater and Roman Jupiter and Germanic Týr, Tir or Tiwaz, all of which are reflexes of the same Proto-Indo-European deity’s name, *Dyēus Ph₂tḗr. While there are numerous parallels adduced from outside of Indo-European mythology, there are exceptions (e.g. In Egyptian mythology, Nut is the sky mother and Geb is the earth father).” ref

Tutelary deity

“A tutelary (also tutelar) is a deity or spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of “tutelary” expresses the concept of safety and thus of guardianship. In late Greek and Roman religion, one type of tutelary deity, the genius, functions as the personal deity or daimon of an individual from birth to death. Another form of personal tutelary spirit is the familiar spirit of European folklore.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Korean shamanism, jangseung and sotdae were placed at the edge of villages to frighten off demons. They were also worshiped as deities. Seonangshin is the patron deity of the village in Korean tradition and was believed to embody the Seonangdang. In Philippine animism, Diwata or Lambana are deities or spirits that inhabit sacred places like mountains and mounds and serve as guardians. Such as: Maria Makiling is the deity who guards Mt. Makiling and Maria Cacao and Maria Sinukuan. In Shinto, the spirits, or kami, which give life to human bodies come from nature and return to it after death. Ancestors are therefore themselves tutelaries to be worshiped. And similarly, Native American beliefs such as Tonás, tutelary animal spirit among the Zapotec and Totems, familial or clan spirits among the Ojibwe, can be animals.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Austronesian beliefs such as: Atua (gods and spirits of the Polynesian peoples such as the Māori or the Hawaiians), Hanitu (Bunun of Taiwan‘s term for spirit), Hyang (Kawi, Sundanese, Javanese, and Balinese Supreme Being, in ancient Java and Bali mythology and this spiritual entity, can be either divine or ancestral), Kaitiaki (New Zealand Māori term used for the concept of guardianship, for the sky, the sea, and the land), Kawas (mythology) (divided into 6 groups: gods, ancestors, souls of the living, spirits of living things, spirits of lifeless objects, and ghosts), Tiki (Māori mythology, Tiki is the first man created by either Tūmatauenga or Tāne and represents deified ancestors found in most Polynesian cultures). ” ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Mesopotamian Tutelary Deities can be seen as ones related to City-States 

“Historical city-states included Sumerian cities such as Uruk and Ur; Ancient Egyptian city-states, such as Thebes and Memphis; the Phoenician cities (such as Tyre and Sidon); the five Philistine city-states; the Berber city-states of the Garamantes; the city-states of ancient Greece (the poleis such as Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth); the Roman Republic (which grew from a city-state into a vast empire); the Italian city-states from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, such as Florence, Siena, Ferrara, Milan (which as they grew in power began to dominate neighboring cities) and Genoa and Venice, which became powerful thalassocracies; the Mayan and other cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (including cities such as Chichen Itza, Tikal, Copán and Monte Albán); the central Asian cities along the Silk Road; the city-states of the Swahili coast; Ragusa; states of the medieval Russian lands such as Novgorod and Pskov; and many others.” ref

“The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BCE; also known as Protoliterate period) of Mesopotamia, named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia and the Sumerian civilization. City-States like Uruk and others had a patron tutelary City Deity along with a Priest-King.” ref

“Chinese folk religion, both past, and present, includes myriad tutelary deities. Exceptional individuals, highly cultivated sages, and prominent ancestors can be deified and honored after death. Lord Guan is the patron of military personnel and police, while Mazu is the patron of fishermen and sailors. Such as Tu Di Gong (Earth Deity) is the tutelary deity of a locality, and each individual locality has its own Earth Deity and Cheng Huang Gong (City God) is the guardian deity of an individual city, worshipped by local officials and locals since imperial times.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Hinduism, personal tutelary deities are known as ishta-devata, while family tutelary deities are known as Kuladevata. Gramadevata are guardian deities of villages. Devas can also be seen as tutelary. Shiva is the patron of yogis and renunciants. City goddesses include: Mumbadevi (Mumbai), Sachchika (Osian); Kuladevis include: Ambika (Porwad), and Mahalakshmi. In NorthEast India Meitei mythology and religion (Sanamahism) of Manipur, there are various types of tutelary deities, among which Lam Lais are the most predominant ones. Tibetan Buddhism has Yidam as a tutelary deity. Dakini is the patron of those who seek knowledge.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) The Greeks also thought deities guarded specific places: for instance, Athena was the patron goddess of the city of Athens. Socrates spoke of hearing the voice of his personal spirit or daimonion:

You have often heard me speak of an oracle or sign which comes to me … . This sign I have had ever since I was a child. The sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do anything, and this is what stands in the way of my being a politician.” ref

“Tutelary deities who guard and preserve a place or a person are fundamental to ancient Roman religion. The tutelary deity of a man was his Genius, that of a woman her Juno. In the Imperial era, the Genius of the Emperor was a focus of Imperial cult. An emperor might also adopt a major deity as his personal patron or tutelary, as Augustus did Apollo. Precedents for claiming the personal protection of a deity were established in the Republican era, when for instance the Roman dictator Sulla advertised the goddess Victory as his tutelary by holding public games (ludi) in her honor.” ref

“Each town or city had one or more tutelary deities, whose protection was considered particularly vital in time of war and siege. Rome itself was protected by a goddess whose name was to be kept ritually secret on pain of death (for a supposed case, see Quintus Valerius Soranus). The Capitoline Triad of Juno, Jupiter, and Minerva were also tutelaries of Rome. The Italic towns had their own tutelary deities. Juno often had this function, as at the Latin town of Lanuvium and the Etruscan city of Veii, and was often housed in an especially grand temple on the arx (citadel) or other prominent or central location. The tutelary deity of Praeneste was Fortuna, whose oracle was renowned.” ref

“The Roman ritual of evocatio was premised on the belief that a town could be made vulnerable to military defeat if the power of its tutelary deity were diverted outside the city, perhaps by the offer of superior cult at Rome. The depiction of some goddesses such as the Magna Mater (Great Mother, or Cybele) as “tower-crowned” represents their capacity to preserve the city. A town in the provinces might adopt a deity from within the Roman religious sphere to serve as its guardian, or syncretize its own tutelary with such; for instance, a community within the civitas of the Remi in Gaul adopted Apollo as its tutelary, and at the capital of the Remi (present-day Rheims), the tutelary was Mars Camulus.” ref 

Household deity (a kind of or related to a Tutelary deity)

“A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in paganism as well as in folklore across many parts of the world. Household deities fit into two types; firstly, a specific deity – typically a goddess – often referred to as a hearth goddess or domestic goddess who is associated with the home and hearth, such as the ancient Greek Hestia.” ref

“The second type of household deities are those that are not one singular deity, but a type, or species of animistic deity, who usually have lesser powers than major deities. This type was common in the religions of antiquity, such as the Lares of ancient Roman religion, the Gashin of Korean shamanism, and Cofgodas of Anglo-Saxon paganism. These survived Christianisation as fairy-like creatures existing in folklore, such as the Anglo-Scottish Brownie and Slavic Domovoy.” ref

“Household deities were usually worshipped not in temples but in the home, where they would be represented by small idols (such as the teraphim of the Bible, often translated as “household gods” in Genesis 31:19 for example), amulets, paintings, or reliefs. They could also be found on domestic objects, such as cosmetic articles in the case of Tawaret. The more prosperous houses might have a small shrine to the household god(s); the lararium served this purpose in the case of the Romans. The gods would be treated as members of the family and invited to join in meals, or be given offerings of food and drink.” ref

“In many religions, both ancient and modern, a god would preside over the home. Certain species, or types, of household deities, existed. An example of this was the Roman Lares. Many European cultures retained house spirits into the modern period. Some examples of these include:

• Brownie (Scotland and England) or Hob (England) / Kobold (Germany) / Goblin / Hobgoblin
• Domovoy (Slavic)
• Nisse (Norwegian or Danish) / Tomte (Swedish) / Tonttu (Finnish)
• Húsvættir (Norse)” ref

“Although the cosmic status of household deities was not as lofty as that of the Twelve Olympians or the Aesir, they were also jealous of their dignity and also had to be appeased with shrines and offerings, however humble. Because of their immediacy they had arguably more influence on the day-to-day affairs of men than the remote gods did. Vestiges of their worship persisted long after Christianity and other major religions extirpated nearly every trace of the major pagan pantheons. Elements of the practice can be seen even today, with Christian accretions, where statues to various saints (such as St. Francis) protect gardens and grottos. Even the gargoyles found on older churches, could be viewed as guardians partitioning a sacred space.” ref

“For centuries, Christianity fought a mop-up war against these lingering minor pagan deities, but they proved tenacious. For example, Martin Luther‘s Tischreden have numerous – quite serious – references to dealing with kobolds. Eventually, rationalism and the Industrial Revolution threatened to erase most of these minor deities, until the advent of romantic nationalism rehabilitated them and embellished them into objects of literary curiosity in the 19th century. Since the 20th century this literature has been mined for characters for role-playing games, video games, and other fantasy personae, not infrequently invested with invented traits and hierarchies somewhat different from their mythological and folkloric roots.” ref

“In contradistinction to both Herbert Spencer and Edward Burnett Tylor, who defended theories of animistic origins of ancestor worship, Émile Durkheim saw its origin in totemism. In reality, this distinction is somewhat academic, since totemism may be regarded as a particularized manifestation of animism, and something of a synthesis of the two positions was attempted by Sigmund Freud. In Freud’s Totem and Taboo, both totem and taboo are outward expressions or manifestations of the same psychological tendency, a concept which is complementary to, or which rather reconciles, the apparent conflict. Freud preferred to emphasize the psychoanalytic implications of the reification of metaphysical forces, but with particular emphasis on its familial nature. This emphasis underscores, rather than weakens, the ancestral component.” ref

“William Edward Hearn, a noted classicist, and jurist, traced the origin of domestic deities from the earliest stages as an expression of animism, a belief system thought to have existed also in the neolithic, and the forerunner of Indo-European religion. In his analysis of the Indo-European household, in Chapter II “The House Spirit”, Section 1, he states:

The belief which guided the conduct of our forefathers was … the spirit rule of dead ancestors.” ref

“In Section 2 he proceeds to elaborate:

It is thus certain that the worship of deceased ancestors is a vera causa, and not a mere hypothesis. …

In the other European nations, the Slavs, the Teutons, and the Kelts, the House Spirit appears with no less distinctness. … [T]he existence of that worship does not admit of doubt. … The House Spirits had a multitude of other names which it is needless here to enumerate, but all of which are more or less expressive of their friendly relations with man. … In [England] … [h]e is the Brownie. … In Scotland this same Brownie is well known. He is usually described as attached to particular families, with whom he has been known to reside for centuries, threshing the corn, cleaning the house, and performing similar household tasks. His favorite gratification was milk and honey.” ref

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ref, ref

Hinduism around 3,700 to 3,500 years old. ref

 Judaism around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (The first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew” dated to around 3,000 years ago Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Elah Valley. And many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed around 2,500) ref, ref

Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)

“Judaism is an Abrahamic, its roots as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Some scholars argue that modern Judaism evolved from Yahwism, the religion of ancient Israel and Judah, by the late 6th century BCE, and is thus considered to be one of the oldest monotheistic religions.” ref

“Yahwism is the name given by modern scholars to the religion of ancient Israel, essentially polytheistic, with a plethora of gods and goddesses. Heading the pantheon was Yahweh, the national god of the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah, with his consort, the goddess Asherah; below them were second-tier gods and goddesses such as Baal, Shamash, Yarikh, Mot, and Astarte, all of whom had their own priests and prophets and numbered royalty among their devotees, and a third and fourth tier of minor divine beings, including the mal’ak, the messengers of the higher gods, who in later times became the angels of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Yahweh, however, was not the ‘original’ god of Israel “Isra-El”; it is El, the head of the Canaanite pantheon, whose name forms the basis of the name “Israel”, and none of the Old Testament patriarchs, the tribes of Israel, the Judges, or the earliest monarchs, have a Yahwistic theophoric name (i.e., one incorporating the name of Yahweh).” ref

“El is a Northwest Semitic word meaning “god” or “deity“, or referring (as a proper name) to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ‘ila, represents the predicate form in Old Akkadian and in Amorite. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic *ʔil-, meaning “god”. Specific deities known as ‘El or ‘Il include the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in Mesopotamia’s Early Dynastic Period. ʼĒl is listed at the head of many pantheons. In some Canaanite and Ugaritic sources, ʼĒl played a role as father of the gods, of creation, or both. For example, in the Ugaritic texts, ʾil mlk is understood to mean “ʼĒl the King” but ʾil hd as “the god Hadad“. The Semitic root ʾlh (Arabic ʾilāh, Aramaic ʾAlāh, ʾElāh, Hebrew ʾelōah) may be ʾl with a parasitic h, and ʾl may be an abbreviated form of ʾlh. In Ugaritic the plural form meaning “gods” is ʾilhm, equivalent to Hebrew ʾelōhîm “powers”. In the Hebrew texts this word is interpreted as being semantically singular for “god” by biblical commentators. However the documentary hypothesis for the Old Testament (corresponds to the Jewish Torah) developed originally in the 1870s, identifies these that different authors – the Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and the Priestly source – were responsible for editing stories from a polytheistic religion into those of a monotheistic religion. Inconsistencies that arise between monotheism and polytheism in the texts are reflective of this hypothesis.” ref

Jainism around 2,599 – 2,527 years old. ref

Confucianism around 2,600 – 2,551 years old. ref

Buddhism around 2,563/2,480 – 2,483/2,400 years old. ref

Christianity around 2,o00 years old. ref

Shinto around 1,305 years old. ref

Islam around 1407–1385 years old. ref

Sikhism around 548–478 years old. ref

Bahá’í around 200–125 years old. ref

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Expressions of Atheistic Thinking:

• Around 2,600 years ago, Ajita Kesakambali, ancient Indian philosopher, who is the first known proponent of Indian materialism. ref
• Around 2,535 to 2,475 years ago, Heraclitus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor or modern Turkey. ref
• Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, according to The Story of Civilization book series certain African pygmy tribes have no identifiable gods, spirits, or religious beliefs or rituals, and even what burials accrue are without ceremony. ref
• Around 2,490 to 2,430 years ago, Empedocles, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. ref
• Around 2,460 to 2,370 years ago, Democritus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher considered to be the “father of modern science” possibly had some disbelief amounting to atheism. ref
• Around 2,399 years ago or so, Socrates, a famous Greek philosopher was tried for sinfulness by teaching doubt of state gods. ref
• Around 2,341 to 2,270 years ago, Epicurus, a Greek philosopher known for composing atheistic critics and famously stated, “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?” ref

This last expression by Epicurus, seems to be an expression of Axiological Atheism. To understand and utilize value or actually possess “Value Conscious/Consciousness” to both give a strong moral “axiological” argument (the problem of evil) as well as use it to fortify humanism and positive ethical persuasion of human helping and care responsibilities. Because value-blindness gives rise to sociopathic/psychopathic evil.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):

Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist, Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Jeweler, Poet, “autodidact” Philosopher, schooled in Psychology, and “autodidact” Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Pre-Historian (Knowledgeable in the range of: 1 million to 5,000/4,000 years ago). I am an anarchist socialist politically. Reasons for or Types of Atheism

My Website, My Blog, & Short-writing or Quotes, My YouTube, Twitter: @AthopeMarie, and My Email: damien.marie.athope@gmail.com