FACEBOOK/INSTAGRAM Oversight Board declares the anti-Israel phrase “From the river to the sea” doesn’t constitute hate speech

Several members of Meta’s Oversight Board – which faced intense criticism after it determined the anti-Israel phrase “From the river to the sea” doesn’t constitute hate speech – have espoused views critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

NY Post The advisory board, which claims to be independent from Meta, determined that Facebook and Instagram users can use the controversial slogan – which has sprung up at anti-Israeli protests around the country – as long as it is not used in a way that glorifies Hamas or calls for violence.

Yet past remarks by several members call into question their ability to remain impartial regarding the slogan, which refers to the idea of a Palestinian state stretching across the land in between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea – the land currently controlled by Israel.

Its members include Tawakkol Karman, a Yemini activist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, who declared in a speech last May at the Vatican that the “world is silent in front of the genocide and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in Gaza.” Israel denounced her speech as “flagrantly anti-Semitic.”

The board acknowledged that a minority of its members dissented to the decision and pointed out that the phrase “from the river to the sea” even appears in the Hamas terror group’s charter.

A minority of the Board finds that Meta should adopt a default rule presuming the phrase constitutes glorification of a designated organization, unless there are clear signals the user does not endorse Hamas or the October 7 attacks,” the board’s statement on the ruling said.

The Combat Antisemitism Movement, a watchdog advocacy group, called the Oversight Board’s decision “absurd” and said it would fuel the spread of antisemitism online.  

“’From the River to the Sea’ is a slogan created with the sole vision of destroying the national homeland of the Jewish people,” CAM CEO Sacha Roytman said in a statement. “It is genocidal in intent and meaning, and is not a legitimate political or ideological vision, because it targets the one Jewish state and its inhabitants for destruction.”

Meanwhile, a majority of the board’s voters felt the phrase “has multiple meanings and is used by people in various ways and with different intentions.”

(In the video below where Palestinians are asked what will happen to the Jews if they get their wish of a  ‘Palestine from the river to the sea,’ the intentions hardly differ at all – either the Jews are all dead or all gone)