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From Which River to Which Sea?
(Wall Street Journal) Ron E. Hassner - 250 college students were asked if they sympathize with Palestinians' chant "From the river to the sea." Most said they supported the chant, 32.8% enthusiastically and 53.2% to a lesser extent. But only 47% of the students who embrace the slogan were able to name the river and the sea. Less than a quarter knew who Yasser Arafat was (10% thought he was the first prime minister of Israel). There's no shame in being ignorant - unless one is screaming for the extermination of millions. When 80 students who were shown on a map that a Palestinian state stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea left no room for Israel, 75% changed their view. Many students reduced their support for the slogan when they learned it would entail the subjugation, expulsion or annihilation of seven million Jewish and two million Arab Israelis. In all, after learning a handful of basic facts, 67.8% of students went from supporting "from the river to sea" to rejecting the mantra. The writer is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley.