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Welsh singing star Charlotte Church leads ‘from the river, to the sea’ chants

The musician is pushing back on accusations of antisemitism because of her embrace of the slogan.

Charlotte Church performs at the Victorious festival at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, Aug. 25, 2013. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Charlotte Church performs at the Victorious festival at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, Aug. 25, 2013. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

At a “Sing for Palestine” event in Caerphilly, South Wales, musician and actor Charlotte Church led a choir that included children in singing a protest chant calling for the destruction of Israel.

In a video of the performance, Church can be seen wearing a keffiyeh. Near the end of the show, she sang with the group, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

“I stand by everything that we sang on Saturday. It was really beautiful,” Church said. The singer called the event “a deeply spiritual experience for me, and I would do it again 100 times and plan to.”

She interprets the slogan as advocating for “the human rights and for the equal liberty of Palestinian people as well as Israeli people on the lands of Israel and Palestine.”

The singer shifted the focus away from her statements and to the war in Gaza, saying “This is about the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people, the slaughter of children. What is happening in Gaza is a hell on Earth. A hell has been created, people are being purposefully starved and it’s emotional.”

“I feel nothing has ever affected me more than what has been happening in the last couple of months,” she said.

Church has defended former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has long faced accusations of antisemitism.

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