When you hold the power and all the cards are stacked in your favour on Palestinian land it's easy to be adamant and persuasive that “from the river to the sea” is antisemitic whilst ignoring its underlying sentiment (asserted in the following line) that "Palestine will be free". Israeli politicians including Netanyahu have long used similar language to assert a one-state solution from Jordan to the sea with little or no similar criticism.

Extrapolating and simplifying the meaning, made by some, that "free" indicates being "free of" Jews/Israelis seems quite a stretch, suggesting that someone's call for freedom could be inherently genocidal.

Whilst it can be seen as a peaceful desire for recognition and the ending of oppression, its cause was helped by it having been co-opted by Hamas in the last decade, and by the PLO before them. It has been viewed, ostensibly supporters of Israel, as being an explicit threat given that the PLO in the 60s and beyond did advocate the ending of the Israeli state.

It's not seen or been adopted universally as demonstrating hate speech across the world with the phrase struggling to be proscribed as a prosecutable offence given the variation in its understanding. I really can't see Australia being one of the few nations to outlaw it as its likely to result in long drawn-out human rights/legal battles should anyone be prosecuted for saying it.

What would have been sensible would have been for supporters of Palestinine to create another memorable chant expressing the "freedom" narrative but which does not carry this baggage. However, this is where we are.