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
The phrase “from the river to the sea” clearly has genocidal intent. It also reinforces the ahistorical falsehood that Israel is made up of stolen lands.
The use of the expression "From the river to the sea, Palestine would be free" and the context to terrorist organizations.
After 9/11 when Bin Laden was in his hiding place, he made videos with instruction of how to destroy the state of Israel, He explained that it was for the purpose of "From the river to the sea, Palestine would be free, Allah willing". He also said "We will not recognize a single inch of Jew in Palestine as other Arab leaders have done".
Saddam Hussein also called for the "Freedom of Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea".
The use of this term is found in charter of other terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, along side with other antisemitic expressions.
In the literal form this expression reject the Jewish state right to exist and the Jewish people right for self-determination, this is a form of anti-Semitism.
This expression has been used time after time by terrorist organizations, who called for the murder of jews in the middle east and globally. In addition to planning and carrying out brutal attacks against Israelis, because of their Jewishness. There is a direct connection between this phrase and the calling for violence against jews.
So I am asking you to recognize the violent aspect, that this expression is seeking to achieve and ban it.
That phrase calls for the genocidal destruction of the UN voted State that exists between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. It MUST BE BANNED.
The phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ denotes the state of Palestine and is NOT antisemitic as it is used by both Israelis and Palestinians
This is a call for the eradication of Jews from the land of Israel. Congress has already passed a resolution declaring it antisemitic and condemning its use. It serves to divide, incite fear, and outright reject peace. None of this would be tolerated by Meta when directed towards any other minority group, so it should not be tolerated in this instance either.
This statement calls for a genocide of Jews and Israelis. This statement is racist in nature! As a German, I cannot tolerate an open support of genocide as this statement preaches and it’s a disgrace this is not yet banned from social media!
By law in Germany, people calling from the river to the see are criminals who call for a genocide. They can get fined or even for a short time in prison. Please align yourself with the law.
Thank you
Of course these hateful words and all groups chanting hate speech should be eliminated.Facebook used to be this nice place to see what everyone’s up to and now it’s a place to share hate. Is that really the intent of Facebook. Someone has to make a stand if we want this world to turn around. Our kids don’t deserve this world filled with over sharing of opinions and hate. This is an opportunity for Facebook to do the right thing. Please.
The phrase "From the River to the Sea" originated in the 1960s, long before Hamas was formed, by the PLO as a call for Palestinian statehood within the land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea. Today it is a cry for freedom for oppressed Palestinians, not a call for the destruction of Israel as a country, but for equality on the land, shared between two peoples, whether as two states or as a state of dual nationality with democratic rights for all its citizens. The people who object to it want only a Jewish state on all of that land, they want an undemocratic theological state which would not belong in our usual conception of a modern democracy. Their objections are based solely on this Zionist ideology - an attempt to curtail as much as possible the right of a people to protest against their subjugation, and for justice.
In using the slogan from the River to the Sea Palestine will be free, I am calling for equality for all people who live in the land. I am not calling for an exclusive land for Palestinians.
The slogan will be upsetting to Zionists, who want an exclusive land for Jews, but not to many secular Israelis and those who abhor their own governments actions in Gaza and the settler violence in the West Bank.
By blocking this on your platforms you will be curbing free speech, whereas you should be stating that you may not agree with the statement, but you defend my right to call for freedom and equality for all.
1. Originated in a terrorist organization (Hamas) charter.
2. Palestine was a name the Roman gave to the region that included 'Eretz Israel', but no Palestinian State.
3. This phrase is calling for the creation of a new Palestinian state in place of the existing state of Israel, that means the genocide of all Israelis (of all denominations).
4. This phrase is calling for the destruction of Israel, as an Anti-Zionist call that rejects the right of Jews for self-determibation and security.
5. It is Antisemitic and a recist call for violence.
6. It is prohibitive to a peace agreement in the region.
I am Jewish and the daughter of a refugee from the Holocaust and stand with many other Jews who are opposed to what Israel is doing in our name. Not only is Palestine occupied by Israel, but Palestinians have little to no human rights in occupied territory and the Israeli government has claimed all of Palestine as theirs and do not and will not recognise a Palestinian state in any form. In fact, even within Israel the Nation State Law only applies the right of self-determination to Jews and not to any non-Jew.
To demand freedom for Palestine from the river to the sea is to seek the human rights and freedoms that Israeli Jews take for granted that are denied to Palestinians. In fact Israel even denies the existence of Palestine. I stand with other Jews who demand the right for Palestine to be free of the occupation and the oppression and the denial of its existence by Israel, who are ethnically cleansing the whole area. According Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party, https://www.independent.co.uk/.../andy-mcdonald-downing... , "between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty”. How can it be OK for Israel to make such a claim and to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from their land while not allowing the Palestinians the freedom of equality and human rights throughout the whole region currently denied to them? It is not about destroying Israel, if is about the freedoms and rights of the individual whoever they are.
It calls for the elimination of Israel and Jews worldwide. It is intended to convey Jew hatred. It is a hate filled comment intended to incite violence against Jews
The expression 'from the river to the sea' is not hate speech nor anti-semitic. It refers to the historic land of Palestine where people of all religions and none lived together in peace; muslums, Christians, Jews and people of no religion. In the 1920s there was no anti-semitism in Palestine and it was, as was the whole of the Arab world, a safe place for Jews while anti-semitism was rife in Europe culminating in the Holocaust in Germany. In 1948, we know from history, people who believed in the Zionist ideology (both Jes and non-Jews) acte d or supported the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians and many thousands killed to create the State of Israel. It was the Zionists who first stated the slogan of 'from the river to the sea' meaningthe forcable transfer of non-Jewish people out of all the land historically (for thousands of years) known as Palestine (and even more widespread by some sects of the Zionist movement). The Palestinian refugees created by the formation of Israel (and the subsequent occupations in 1967) have demanded to return home to their homes in Palestine and they created their own version of 'from the river to the sea'. However, unlike the Zionists, the Palestininas never called for the expulsion or harm to Jews living there. They purely wanted to see their rights (as enshrined in UNSC194) to return home and live in peace with all who lived there, Jews included. The land was to be shared and run in equality for all with no racist laws that discriminated between people of different ethnicity. as exists in Israel today.
In this context, to try to ban the use of the slogan 'from the river to the sea' can only be seen as a racist one defending the existance of an Apartheid and ethno-supremist state of Israel. Ultimately it is not so much what the country is called, though clearly the name Palestine has far deeper roots than any other name historically, but that the country does not discriminate between ethnicities of religion as the Sate of Israel does now.
It must be noted that a large percentage of Jews do not support the ideology of Zionism and reject the colonisation of Palestine and resulting racist policies of ethnic cleansing and denial of full civil rights to non-Jews that exist in Israel and occupied territories (which today may also include genocide as per the recent ICJ ruling). To deny this fact is anti-semitic in that it stereotypes all Jews to follow a specific ideology., Stereotyping is a racist policy.
If Meta ban the use of 'from the river to the sea' it will be a racist action denying Palestinians their inalienable rights as guaranteed by the UN and International law. Tose that complain about ots use clearly do so to express thier racism against Palestinians. They interpret the slogan the way they do because the Zionists use the same slogan to mean the elimination of all non-Jews in the land they call Israel, ignoring the fact that those who have suffered as a result of the creation of Israel and subsequent occupaions use it to express their hope and idea of people livingtogether in a land in equality.
The slogan "From the River to the Sea ..." is NOT antisemitic. It expresses the desire for freedom and democracy which have been denied to Palestinians since 1948. Objections to this slogan come from some defenders of the Apartheid state of Israel, which is currently engaged in mass slaughter and destruction in Gaza (and the West Bank". Which is a worse crime? Genocide in Gaza or trying to end it? Anyone with a clear head can see the answer. I am Jewish, active in Jewish communal organisations, and I find the Israeli assault on Gaza and the West Bank shameful, and also a danger to world peace. It know what antisemitism looks like -- my family have suffered from it repeatedly -- and this is not antisemitism
The phrase *from the river to the sea" is anti-Zionist NOT anti-semitic and has been used since the 1960s by both Israel and Palestine. It can refer to several things, including the belief in a one state solution in Palestine where Palestinians (muslim and christian), Jewish people, those of no religious belief and others can live peacefully together in a democratic state.
This slogan means that Palestinians have the right to share their homeland and the right to have recognition as a state. It does not imply,
in any way, that other religions and cultural groups should not share this land. A land where different religions have co existed for thousands of years.
Therefore it is an entirely legitimate slogan
There should be no question of banning this slogan in a free and Democratic society. We have the right to support the Palestinians who are being subjected to the most brutal genocide at the moment.
Dear members of the Oversight Board,
Generally, I do value the decision-making based on careful research of a given issue. But in practical life most of us don't have enough time and resources for such research, so we have to triage the issues and as a result of triage, decide based on intuition and/or educated guesses.
It doesn't really matter for me what is the origin of the phrase: “From the river to the sea”; I don't need any research of online trends and offline harms to feel unsafe when I encounter this phrase or tag, unless it's clear from the context that in a given particular case it doesn't assume the omitted continuation "Palestine will be free!" or, in a even more unlikely rare case, the continuation "Palestine will be free!" is assumed, but doesn't assume destroying Israel.
If you can determine from the context of a particular post with such phrase or tag that this post isn't implicitly calling to destroy Israel, e.g. if the post explicitly calls for peaceful co-existence between Israel and future Palestinian state, then there is no need to close such post. Otherwise, posts with this phrase or tag are not only breaking Meta’s rules on Hate Speech and Violence - they are breaking also rules which Meta probably hasn't formally defined yet: a rule which would forbid explicit calls to deny from a nation its right to self-determination and a rule which would forbid implicit calls for genocide.
1. Originated in a terrorist organization (Hamas) charter.
2. Palestine was a name the Roman gave to the region that included 'Eretz Israel', but no Palestinian State.
3. This phrase is calling for the creation of a new Palestinian state in place of the existing state of Israel, that means the genocide of all Israelis (of all denominations).
4. This phrase is calling for the destruction of Israel, as an Anti-Zionist call that rejects the right of Jews for self-determination and security.
5. It is Antisemitic and a recist call for violence.
6. It is prohibitive to a peace agreement in the region.
Dear friends!
Facebook is checking the option to prohibit the use of the phrase "from the river to the sea"
Everyone has an opportunity to voice their opinion on the subject in the like below:
https://www.oversightboard.com/pc/posts-that-include-from-the-river-to-the-sea/
It is an opportunity for us to make a difference! Please follow the link to voice your opinion, and why you think it should
The phrase "from the river to the sea" is:
1. Originated in a terrorist organization (Hamas) charter.
2. Palestine was a name the Roman gave to the region that included 'Eretz Israel', but no Palestinian State.
3. This phrase is calling for the creation of a new Palestinian state in place of the existing state of Israel, that means the genocide of all Israelis (of all denominations).
4. This phrase is calling for the destruction of Israel, as an Anti-Zionist call that rejects the right of Jews for self-determibation and security.
5. It is Antisemitic and a recist call for violence.
6. It is prohibitive to a peace agreement in the region.