Why Criminalising the Phrase 'Globalise the Intifada' Is Dangerous

Neve Gordon, an Israeli professor of international law, explains the actual meaning of the controversial chant and the real reason why there are attempts to outlaw it in the UK, the US and Australia

Greta Thunberg on the July 11 protest against the start of weapons production at the Rheinmetall facility in Berlin, Germany. Photo by Craig Stennett/Getty Images

Wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Yalla Intifada”, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg joined a protest in Berlin’s Wedding district earlier this month. The peace activists marched towards a Rheinmetall facility, protesting its conversion from an automotive-parts plant to one manufacturing parts for artillery shells. Thunberg accused Germany of supporting Israel through continued arms transfers, explaining that “We are doing this because it is our duty to protest against injustice and to stand up against genocide.”

When images of the protest emerged on social media, the Combat Antisemitism Movement complained that the slogan on Thunberg’s shirt, which combines the Arabic word for “let’s go” and intifada, invokes “terror campaigns that killed thousands of people”.

But what does the word “intifada” actually mean?

Is it, as the Combat Antisemitism Movement claims, a rallying call to carry out violence against “Jews everywhere”? Or has the pro-Israel lobby ascribed a specific meaning to the term in an effort to criminalise protests and speech criticising Israel’s mass displacement, mass killing and mass destruction in Gaza and elsewhere?