Case Description
Due to a technical glitch, our public comments portal for cases related to the "From the River to the Sea" phrase closed earlier than planned. To ensure everyone has a chance to share their input, we've reopened it for 24 hours. The portal will now close at 12pm BST on May 23rd.
These three cases concern content decisions made by Meta, all on Facebook, which the Oversight Board intends to address together.
The three posts were shared by different users in November 2023, following the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7 and the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Each post contains the phrase “From the river to the sea.” All three were reported by users for violating Meta’s Community Standards. The company decided to leave all three posts on Facebook. For each case, the Board will decide whether the content should be removed under Meta’s policies and according to its human rights responsibilities. Numbers of views and reports are correct as of the end of February 2024.
The first case concerns a comment from a Facebook user on another user’s video. The video has a caption encouraging others to “speak up” with numerous hashtags including “#ceasefire” and “#freepalestine.” The comment on the post contains the phrase “FromTheRiverToTheSea” in hashtag form, as well as several additional hashtags including “#DefundIsrael.” The comment had about 3,000 views and was reported seven times by four users. The reports were closed after Meta’s automated systems did not send them for human review within 48 hours.
In the second case, a Facebook user posted what appears to be a generated image of fruit floating on the sea that form the words from the phrase, along with “Palestine will be free.” The post had about 8 million views and was reported 951 times by 937 users. The first report on the post was closed, again because Meta’s automated systems did not send it for human review within 48 hours. Subsequent reports by users were reviewed and assessed as non-violating by human moderators.
In the third case, a Facebook page reshared a post from the page of a community organization in Canada in which a statement from the “founding members” of the organization declared support for “the Palestinian people,” condemning their “senseless slaughter” by the “Zionist State of Israel” and “Zionist Israeli occupiers.” The post ends with the phrase “From The River To The Sea.” This post had less than 1,000 views and was reported by one user. The report was automatically closed.
The Facebook users who reported the content, and subsequently appealed Meta’s decisions to leave up the content to the Board, claimed the phrase was breaking Meta’s rules on Hate Speech, Violence and Incitement or Dangerous Organizations and Individuals. The user who reported the content in the first case stated that the phrase violates Meta’s policies prohibiting content that promotes violence or supports terrorism. The users who reported the content in the second and third cases stated that the phrase constitutes hate speech, is antisemitic and is a call to abolish the state of Israel.
After the Board selected these cases for review, Meta confirmed its original decisions were correct. Meta informed the Board that it analyzed the content under three policies – Violence and Incitement, Hate Speech and Dangerous Organizations and Individuals – and found the posts did not violate any of these policies. Meta explained the company is aware that “From the river to the sea” has a long history and that it had reviewed use of the phrase on its platform after October 7, 2023. After that review, Meta determined that, without additional context, it cannot conclude that “From the river to the sea” constitutes a call to violence or a call for exclusion of any particular group, nor that it is linked exclusively to support for Hamas.
The Board selected these cases to consider how Meta should moderate the use of the phrase given the resurgence in its use after October 7, 2023, and controversies around the phrase’s meaning. On the one hand, the phrase has been used to advocate for the dignity and human rights of Palestinians. On the other hand, it could have antisemitic implications, as claimed by the users who submitted the cases to the Board. This case falls within the Board’s strategic priority of Crisis and Conflict Situations.
The Board would appreciate public comments that address:
- The origin and current uses of the phrase: “From the river to the sea.”
- Research into online trends in content using the phrase.
- Research into any associated online and offline harms from the use of the phrase.
- Meta’s human rights responsibilities in relation to content using the phrase including freedom of expression, freedom of association, and equality and non-discrimination.
- State and institutional (e.g., university) responses to the use of the phrase (e.g., during protests) and the human rights impacts of those responses.
As part of its decisions, the Board can issue policy recommendations to Meta. While recommendations are not binding, Meta must respond to them within 60 days. As such, the Board welcomes public comments proposing recommendations that are relevant to these cases.
Comments
This slogan has been in used since ever and it doesn't imply any violence or hate speech against any community.
https://progressive.org/latest/the-chilling-effect-of-equating-criticism-of-israel-to-antisemitism-zunes-20240517/
From the river to the sea is a call for Palestinian liberation. Freedom here refers to the fact that Palestinians have been denied their right to self-determination since the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The “controversy” here is the ongoing denial of the right of Palestinians to live in equality, freedom, and dignity like everyone else. You’ll notice the only people saying this is a call for genocide against the Jews is Zionists. This “controversy” is the result of people refusing to actually listen to what those in the liberation movement have been saying. A key tenet of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement (BDS) is that we are opposed to all forms of discrimination, including anti-semitism! This is a bold-faced attempt by Zionist and pro-Israel propagandists to blur the clear distinction between anti-semitism and criticism of a state based in Jewish supremacy. A call for the end of a racist apartheid state can only be seen as an existential threat through the lens of Jewish supremacy.
This phrase is not hate speech or genocidal. It is a call for the liberation of an oppressed people to regain access to their ancestral homeland. Banning this phrase would be an egregious overstepping of the right to freedom of speech and the right of people in an occupied land to express their dreams and rightful desires to live free in their land.
The current usage of “From the river to the sea” does not constitutes a call to violence or a call for exclusion of any particular group, nor that it is linked exclusively to support for Hamas.
It is being used in protests and calls for an end to the genocide as a a means of stating that the Palestinians will be free from their oppression and will be able to travel their lands freely and for the displaced to be able to return to the homeland without consequence or limitations.
They are a people that have been restricted and limited for so long, and who deserve to be free in their land from “the river to the sea”.
There is historical context, yes, but this is the current usage of the term and does not hurt/offend anyone other than the oppressors.
Thank you for considering my input.
Saudia
I do not believe that the phrase from the river to the sea calls for violence.
R3D Comments for the Oversight Board
“From the Land to the Sea” case
2024-004-FB-UA, 2024-005-FB-UA, 2024-006-FB-UA
Introduction
R3D (Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales) is a non-governmental organization dedicated to defending and promoting human rights in the digital environment based in Mexico. One of our central lines of work is the defense of freedom of speech and the agenda of content moderation in social media. We address this analysis on a contextual basis and from an InterAmerican perspective, considering the legal framework established in the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR) and in the work of both the InterAmerican Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) and the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights (IAHR Court). This framework is desirable for content moderation due to its solid standards for freedom of expression on the Internet.
In the following paragraphs, we divide our comments into different sections to emphasize the questions made by the OB and the issues we consider related to them that are important to exercising freedom of expression.
Removing posts referring to the phrase “From the land to the sea” would imply establishing an anti-arab and anti-Palestinian bias within Meta policies.
Recently, the Oversight Board recognized in the “Shaheed” case (PAO 2023-1) that Meta has been applying an approach that over-moderates speech related to arab expressions related to their cultural background and their language use, taking the term “shaheed” as a reference to the glorification or exaltation of terrorist violence (reason why Meta considered every expression containing that reference as a violation of the Violence and Incitement, and the Dangerous Organizations and Individuals [DOI] norms). In that case, the OB demonstrated that Meta had a biased moderation to that term, which was discriminatory and restrictive regarding the right of freedom of expression.
In that case, one of the key points was to understand that the context and the use of an expression are of capital importance when we address matters related to the legitimate exercise of the right of freedom of expression. Freedom of expression is a right exercised contextually, so its limits and scope must always be addressed while considering the context and cultural background. In Meta’s specific case, its policies must avoid decontextualized moderation and any general approach that takes an expression with a universal and unique meaning.
In the present case, removing the reference to “From the land to the sea” as a general approach would mean adopting a similar reasoning to that used in the “shaheed” case. Moreover, it would take a culture and the story of an oppressed people as a story related uniquely to the promotion of violence and terror, in open contravention to the principle of non-discrimination that should guide every Meta’s decision.
In the three cases under review by the OB, the messages on the posts that users reported include messages of support to the Palestinian people, in one case explicitly calling for the ceasefire of the recurrent attacks of the State of Israel against Palestinian civilians, referring to the freedom of this people and to the “senseless slaughter” that it has suffered. Taking the context into account, in this case, must mean recognizing the well-documented instances of crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed against the Palestinian people by the attacks of the Israeli Army (with a clear intent to commit genocide). These facts have been so overwhelmingly brutal that the International Criminal Court, the specialized institution international law regarding international criminal law (and to the gravest criminal acts such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity), has decided to apply for an arrest warrant against the Presiden of Israel for the violence committed against the Palestinian people (https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applications-arrest-warrants-situation-state). Likewise, the International Court of Justice has recognized that as a result of the actions of the State of Israel, there is “a real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused to the rights” asserted under the Genocide Convention. (https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240126-ord-01-00-en.pdf ).
The biased discriminatory approach we refer to would be instituted if, as some of the reporting users alleged, Meta interprets these messages of support and protest against the well-documented international crimes committed by the State of Israel as automatic support for international crimes committed by Hamas in this context (also referred into the application of the arrest warrant of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court against some of their organization leaders). Articles 1 & 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognize the equality of all human beings in their rights and dignity, with full entitlement without distinction of language, religion, political opinion, national origin, or the jurisdictional status of the country or territory to which a person belongs. If Meta includes the reference in question as a violation of its policies, it will implicate discriminatory treatment of expressions of Palestinians or Palestinian supporters.
The expressions under Meta’s review are legitimate manifestations of the right to freedom of speech and the right to social protest.
Freedom of expression and the right to social protest are two sides of the same coin. Especially in contexts of social discontent such as this, those in charge of the duties related to guaranteeing these rights must take them seriously and recognize that a strong and vehement criticism against a State is by no means outside the legitimate use of freedom of expression and protest. If genocide is being committed in daylight, constantly televised, and committed beyond the limits of any humanitarian constraint, why should people distressed by these facts avoid criticism of the State committing those crimes?
The existence of harsh expressions that can question the legitimacy of any government, especially when they result from acts of war in clear violation of international laws, is at the heart of these rights. In the Inter-American System of Human Rights (IASHR), for example, a well-established interpretation of the scope of freedom of expression gives a reinforced character to speeches that constitute political criticism against a government. This means that expressions of this kind of questioning are especially protected from censorship and restrictions. They have a heavier weight to be given in the public sphere and should be tolerated.
It is far from the discussion that expressions related to religion and its practices are essential to personal identity and to the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion as established by Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The expression “From the Land to the Sea” clearly fits in this framework, and it has historical and cultural relevance to the Palestinian People. In the IASHR, another specially protected speech is one that expresses essential elements of personal identity or dignity precisely because of their importance in exercising other human rights or the consolidation, proper functioning, and preservation of democracy. This case is also an iteration of this kind of protected speech.
Meta must interpret what we propose as compatible with its community norms because it is the only possible interpretation compatible with the right to freedom of expression, the principle of non-discrimination, and its commitments to inclusion and respect for human rights. The dishonest allegations that any criticism against the State of Israel is tantamount to antisemitic statements must be rejected clearly by Meta as a part of its compromise to the principles abovementioned. Any other decision would result in an over-moderation of a legitimate expression and even have a chilling effect on these expressions. It would also trivialize anti-semitism to the point that it endangers Jewish people, including many who are taking part in protests against the actions of the State of Israel.
For those reasons, the OB must consider Meta’s decision as the correct approach to this question and should continue in the direction established by the “shaheed” case recommendations related to the transparency of Meta and the contextual and culturally inclusive moderation of content on the platform. The OB must be clear by stating that the automated systems of Meta shouldn’t incorporate this phrase as one in tension with the figures of Violence and Incitement, Hate Speech, or DOI.
Freedom of the press and freedom of expression are fundamental to informing about State abuses and protecting Palestinian people's integrity and lives. Voice's value would be undermined in how users express themselves on the platform and in exercising some essential liberties in these contexts if the expression is banned as proposed by the reporting users.
In moderating these kinds of expressions, Meta must ensure that only in cases where there is additional explicit praise, representation, or support in the sense contained in the standard of DOI could those expressions be limited as an exception. However, this exception must only result from human moderation and in conditions that ensure that specialized human moderators consider the multiple interpretations of the phrase. Meta must incorporate the social, political, and religious contexts in every moderation decision related to this expression (as it apparently has).
Transparent reports must accompany all Meta's actions to decide on this case and its policies and procedures to adapt its automated and human moderation processes to its human rights duties.
To us, it is a call for peace and justice - for equal rights for Palestinians from the river to the sea, who have existed under the longest military occupation in modern history.
It is an "aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate” - Rashida Talib, Congresswoman
It is "a demand for democratic coexistence between Jews and Arabs” - American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
It is a call for "justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty” - Andy McDonald, London labor PM
It is a desire for a state in which "Palestinians can live in their homeland as free and equal citizens, neither dominated by others nor dominating them”
It is a call for "the return of [5.9 million] refugees who have been kicked out of their homes from 1948 till now." - Rama Al Malah, organizer with Palestinian Youth Movement
So here you have it
From the River to the Sea is a call for an end to the oppression of Palestinians. It is a message of hope that has been cynically mischaracterised as a call for violence and/or antisimetic to distract from the ongoing genocide of the people of Gaza.
The origin and current uses of the phrase: “From the river to the sea.”
There are two phrases which I think often get lumped together: the shorter phrase “from the river to the sea”, and the longer phrase, which is often used today, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”. I will address the history and modern use of each phrase.
The shorter phrase, “from the River [Jordan] to the [Mediterranian] sea”, has been used by many individuals and organizations to refer to the geographic location to which the modern state of Israel lays claim, without referring to the area as “Israel” nor “Palestine”. Prominent early examples of the use of the phrase, or similar phrases, include the 1977 Likud party charter, which states that "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." and the 2017 revised Hamas charter, which states that “Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.”
Many who consider this phrase to be hate speech will point to its inclusion in the 2017 Hamas charter as evidence. I do not believe this is the case. It is important to consider context:
1. The phrase “from the river to the sea”, and similar phrases, was used by people of different political affiliations to refer to a specific geographic location for a long time before it appeared in this charter. While both Hamas and Likud are generally considered to be right-wing political parties, the phrase itself was not invented by either, and it’s use does not imply that one endorses the actions or beliefs of either. It is not a phrase that was invented by Hamas nor by Likud.
2. The context in which this phrase was used in the 2017 Hamas charter is consistent with this interpretation of the phrase as simply referring to a geographic area, and it is used in the context of Hamas softening their official stance towards peace talks:
“Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.”
Since the phrases “Palestine” and “Israel” (which this document refers to only as “the Zionist entity”) are somewhat ambiguous, and refer to entities whose jurisdiction and borders are in dispute, the phrase is important when discussing geography and borders unambiguously. In this case, the phrase “from the river to the sea” is used to distinguish the area for which Hamas desires “full and complete liberation” from “the lines of the 4th of June 1967”, borders which would define “establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state”, which they consider to be “a formula of national consensus”.
In other words, the phrase is used in this document to clarify that Hamas supports establishment of a Palestinian state along side an Israeli state, but that such support does not mean they relinquish claims to the land from which many of their parents and grandparents were expelled in 1948. Importantly, this is the first time Hamas, officially and in writing, appears to endorse a two-state solution as both practical and productive. This represents a softening of Hamas’ stance towards Israel, since they explicitly rejected peace negotiations in article 13 of their original 1988 charter, written towards the beginning of the first intifada.
I will now address the modern use of the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”
As discussed above, the exact origins of the phrase “from the river to the sea” are hard to pin down, and it has been used by parties with different ideologies to mean different things over time.
However, the phrase today is used primarily in the context of the chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, in pro-Palestinian demonstrations in English speaking countries. Many opponents of the phrase claim that these protests are advocating for the genocide of Jewish people. This could not be further from the truth.
I was raised as a conservative Jew, and I continue to proudly practice my religion. I have attended several such protests where this phrase has been used, and have observed several things which contradict the narrative that these protests, or this phrase, advocate for genocide. While my experiences are merely anecdotal, I believe they are reflective of broader trends across these protests:
1. At every protest I have attended, I have been visibly Jewish. I wear my kippah and do not hold any signs that indicate my support for the Palestinian cause, nor do I wear any clothing such as a keffiyeh that would indicate such support. I have never been harassed, confronted, assaulted, or been made to feel unsafe in any way at any of these protests. There has been one exception to this, an incident in which I was berated by pro-Israeli protestors for participating in protests despite my religion.
2. Despite the presence of pro-Israeli counter protestors at each of these protests, participants in the protests were always careful not to escalate the situation or behave in a violent way.
3. I was not the only visibly Jewish person at any of these protests. At every single protest I attended, there were people of many faiths, ethnicities, beliefs, and sexual orientations coexisting in one space, often times at very close quarters. In one case, I found enough other Jews to form a minyan, a group of 10 or more Jews that is the minimum number required by Jewish law for public prayer, and we prayed peacefully alongside Muslims and Christians. Nobody bothered us.
4. At every single one of these demonstrations, multiple speakers made it clear that this is not an anti-Jewish movement. They made it clear that “we love our Jewish brothers and sisters”, always to positive reactions from the crowd. While it is impossible to know exactly what every person in every crowd believes, it is clear that the pro-Palestinian movement as a whole, which uses “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as its rallying cry, believes that all people are equal, regardless of their race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, and that all are entitled to dignity and self-determination. One’s political beliefs about whether or not a specific government or state should exist do not dictate one’s beliefs about the right of every person to live in peace and dignity.
To summarize, in my experience, this phrase is used today to advocate for the freedom and self-determination of the Palestinian people, in rallies in which people of all religions, races, and sexual orientations can be found, by speakers who advocate for the equal treatment of all human beings, regardless of the circumstances into which they were born.
I urge the oversight board to continue to allow the use of this phrase.
Hello! I agree with Meta's standing decision that "From the river to the sea (Palestine will be free)" is a broad call for freedom, and without additional context it cannot be read as abusive.
Every rallying cry for one group of people could necessarily be used to intimidate their opposition — think of when "Black lives matter" triggered heated debate, or imagine traveling to Vietnam and talking about being from "the land of the free and the home of the brave." Although "From the river..." is broad in that it does not define freedom or prescribe a solution, it is very specific in that it only speaks about Palestine. Implications about Israel are personal both to the person saying it and the person hearing it. Further, Palestinians and those who support Palestinian sovereignty are in a difficult position in which any criticism of the human rights violations and war crimes they are facing is being scrutinized for antisemitism. It is not Palestinians' faults that Israeli policy makers and military leaders are Jewish, and that those Jewish leaders are explicitly connecting their actions with their Jewishness. They still need to be able to advocate for an end to a violent occupation, land theft, forced starvation, hostage taking (under the euphemism "administrative detention), and more.
Just as in the previous example, "Black lives matter" does not mean that other lives don't, "Palestine will be free" does not mean other peoples won't — how a person interprets the threat of that freedom is entirely individual. Of course someone who believes Palestinians must be bombed for Israeli and Jewish freedom, also believes Palestinian freedom carries the same violence. It is not reasonable to force that assumption on others, and doing so would necessarily corrupt every call for freedom. (In fact, some Israeli officials have flipped the phrase or a variation of it, responding that from the river to the sea, Israel will be sovereign. Either they are illustrating their belief that the phrase has valid applications, or they are using it as a dog whistle — both good proof that it is entirely dependent on context.)
Finally, and in alignment with my last point: If what a person is calling for is, in fact, a dissolution of the state of Israel (rather than a two-state solution, which I would argue is still represented in the rallying call — hopefully a Palestinian state with different boundaries than the river and the sea would still be safe, respected, and thus as free as any country with cooperative neighbors between those landmarks), this is an opinion on policy. It is not a call for violence. It is the hope of many that a one-state solution, which would usually mean abolishing the state of Israel as a political entity, would be done with full consideration for the safety of all parties, over years of careful negotiations. Many experts, including the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, have put forth parameters for a peaceful one-state solution that should make this very clear. Regardless of whether people agree that a single state solution is a good one, people should be allowed to express that opinion as they are allowed to express any other opinion on the validity of geopolitical boundaries.
Many people believe that Palestinians can be free by having full rights to travel, use water, consume food, build on their own land, and more without Israeli oversight. No state has an inherent right to exist, and we need to be flexible about what statehood can entail while remaining firm about human rights, regardless of what group people belong to. This is what the phrase means to me, someone who has been proud to say it. Thank you for reading.
I previously submitted an unedited copy. Please accept this copy in its place.
Thank you,
Becca Strober
The amount of education and explanation needed for someone new as shown in your section “About the Case” is a proof in itself that this phrase cannot be censored as hate speech. When so much interpretation is needed to understand that the phrase calls for violence then that means the phrase is currently not at a point where it automatically creates hatred or even instigates a violent thought.
The phrase is used by the manifesto of the Israeli Likud Party, they part currently in power.
Many unbiased and well intended academics and peace proponents also use it to signify peace for both Jewish and Palestinian population of the region.
Many areas under Israeli control are internationally recognized as occupied leading to terms like “Israel Proper” and Occupied territories. Which are sensitive in Israel. Also the use of the term Palestinians is not recognized by large population in Israel. The State of “Palestine” is also not recognized by a few countries.
Due to the many reservations on using geographical terms like these, the phrase in question has become a non specific way to denote the region.
Every hate group that calls for violence adopts certain phrases. “Vande Mataram” or “Jai Bajrang Bali” is frequently heard before killing Indian minorities by right wing groups. But these are religious phrases that cannot be censored. Therefore in the interest of uniformity and not opening a can of worms for future complaints it is best not to police such phrases.
Here's how the distinguished British-Israeli (Jewish) historian Ilan Pappe responded when federal agents interrogating him on arrival at the Detroit airport asked how he responded to the slogan 'Palestine should be free from the river to the sea'?:
"I said that everywhere where there is a river and there is a sea and people living between them, they should be free, which was a bit ironical or comical, when one of them tried to show me his geographical knowledge, and he said, “So, what about Saudi Arabia?” So I corrected my phrase, and I said, “Well, anywhere where there are countries between two sources of water, people should be free,” which seemed to satisfy them at that particular moment."
If that's enough to satisfy the FBI, it ought to satisfy FB!
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/5/21/ilan_pappe_airport_detention
“From the river to the sea” is a historic chant for the freedom and liberation of the Palestinian people. Without additional context, the chant on its own cannot be considered hateful. The chant is used by people who believe in the 2-state solution with a separate state of Palestine and a separate state of Israel but one which includes the right of return for Palestinians. The chant is also used by people who believe in the 1-state solution of Israel/Palestine where Palestinians and Israelis live side by side in freedom. The chant is not associated with any ethnic or religious hate or violence, but with a political stance of freedom and equality for the inhabitants of historic Palestine / Israel.
"From the (Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea" absolutely should be allowed on Facebook, as it is a cry for freedom under the weight of a barbaric apartheid regime and 76 year long occupation of a standing army inside their country, arbitrarily "evicting" and stealing homes and land. Genocide is not acceptable at all, yet I see more support for it here on Facebook and Meta platforms than anywhere and it is disgusting and sickening to know hate speech supporting genocide isn't removed, but now a cry for liberation may be allowed to be called anti-semitic when there is nothing anti-semetic at all about preserving a semetic people. Did you know the people in Palestine being ethnically cleansed are a Semetic people? Zionism is not Judaism. They do not follow a law of a higher power except to say the land is theirs. They do not live by the rules of a God they claim to worship and they lie again and again when the whole world can see the truth. They use Facebook and Meta platforms to spread lies and hate. I report all of these and they NEVER get removed. And now you're trying to prevent the people protesting a genocide, from actually protesting it. You will choose to stifle freedom of speech, freedom of peaceful assembly, so that Meta can support a genocide of one of the oldest civilizations on earth that used to hold the oldest churches in the world, which have now been destroyed by bombardment. It is absolutely unacceptable for a social media platform, which should be neutral and against hate and genocide, to be so severely skewed in favor of wiping an innocent population off the face of the earth that its users know about it and can tell. We shouldn't see our content suppressed because we called genocide a genocide or because we told someone the way the avoid questions is with the skill of a contortionist. That comment should not have restricted my posts from reaching people for 90 days and then pretend there is no reason for it by going blank. Cries for freedom from an occupation should not be illegal, that's dangerously close to becoming fascist in ideology.
Your own description of the argument makes it abundantly clear, the phrase "from the river to the sea" HAS BEEN utilized as a call for the liberty and rights of Palestinians to exist on their own land, without oppression, nor in oppression of others. The moronic correlation to "possible" antisemitism is only serving to marginalize actual present genocidal acts against semites (Palestinians) with fearful projections/hurt feelings of the culpable parties. It is abominable that actual hate speech against Jews, Muslims, Black folks, etc is allowed and accepted, yet speech that should rightfully be protected under our first amendment calling for the freedom and dignity of a populace subjected to apartheid, siege, endless silencing campaigns by your own hand, and continuous brutalization is condemned. Meta is a monster that allows the regurgitation of false information, nay, it feeds on said proliferation. Nothing but shame bestowed upon those silencing people and their allies proclaiming their own humanity and right to life.
I believe the phrase "from the river to the sea" should be marked as hate speech.
First of all, this phrase explicitly calls for the annihilation of all Israelis and Jews that live in Israel (as it literally says from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean sea). As this saying does not call for a two state solution, and denounces any peaceful agreement between Jews/Israeli and Palestinians to live together, it is inherently Antisemitic- denying and opposing the connections that Jews have to their ancestral homeland Israel, as the indigenous people of this land. It's a call to destroy the existing country of Israel and kill all who reside in it.
Furthermore, this phrase is commonly used by various terror organisations such as Hamas and the PIJ. Which fully connects this phrase to other symbols used by those same terror organisations, meaning: symbols of hate speech. Those terror organisations have stated time after time their plan to exterminate all the Jews in the world, following by a genocide attempt on 7.10 in Israel.
Numerous countries, like Germany for example, have already passed laws against this phrase, marking it as hate speech. So, I see no reason why the virtual space of Meta should remain dangerous and full of death threats towards certain groups of people.
For all the reasons I stated above and especially because of the uprising of Antisemitism in the world and in social media since the October 7th massacre, Meta should mark "from the river to the sea" as an antisemitic hate call.
The poetic phrase is harmless. Every race, people and creed has the right to be free.
"From the River to the Sea" is a slogan that is a symbol of hope and resistance against brutal oppression, colonialism, and mass murder. To claim it is in any way problematic is to be on the side of the oppressor. It is a marginalised group's way of fighting against those that take their freedom. To be against this phrase follows a similar logic as being against the phrases "Women don't deserve to be hit" or "women deserve justice". If you oppose such phrases, you endorse the opposite, which would be violence towards women. In the case of "From the river to the sea" if you disagree with it, you are endorsing violence and genocide towards Palestinians. Palestinians are simply saying they wish to survive and live and have justice, so claiming their chant is problematic isto the benefit of the aggressor