Meta's independent monitoring committee ruled on Wednesday that the controversial anti-Israel slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is not hate speech.
Users of Meta's Facebook and Instagram apps can continue to use the slogan in their posts as long as they do not contain any praise for Hamas or calls for violence, the committee said in a majority decision.
The slogan, which has been criticized by Jewish groups as inherently anti-Semitic, calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state spanning land currently occupied by Israel between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Some council members disagreed with Wednesday's decision, arguing that because the phrase appears in Hamas' 2017 charter, it should be understood as essentially praising Hamas.
The committee reviewed three cases in which users reported posts that used the phrase and determined that the posts did not violate Meta's hate speech rules because they did not explicitly call for violence against Jews or Israelis.
“Rather, the three pieces of content contain contextual signals of solidarity with the Palestinian people,” the committee said.
“We welcome the committee's review of our guidance on this matter,” Mehta told The Post in a statement. “All of our policies are developed with safety in mind, but we know there are global challenges involved and we regularly seek input from experts outside Mehta, including from our supervisory committee.”
The phrase “from the river to the sea” is not new, but it has become a popular slogan at pro-Palestinian protests since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip.
Defenders of Israel and the Jewish people have condemned the use of the phrase, which Hamas has adopted in calling for the violent destruction of Israel.
“Palestine is ours from the river to the sea, from south to north,” former Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said in a speech in Gaza in 2012. “We will not concede a single centimetre of this land.”
The Anti-Defamation League said it “respectfully disagrees” with Meta's board's decision.
The federation said the phrase was an anti-Semitic call for the establishment of a Palestinian state from the river to the sea and “it means the dismantling of the Jewish state.”
“It is important to note that demanding justice for Palestinians or calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state should not mean denying the right of the State of Israel to exist, as this hateful language asserts,” the ADL said.
Some Palestinian activists say the words do not call for the destruction of Israel, but for freedom and equality for Palestinians after years of Israeli military rule.
Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who was censured by the House of Representatives last November, has argued in support of the phrase.
“From the River to the Sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction and hatred,” Tlaib tweeted in November.
One of the posts identified on the Meta message board showed a phrase made up of a floating watermelon emoji, which social media users have adopted as a pro-Palestinian symbol.
The post has been viewed 8 million times and generated 951 reports, the commission said.
The remaining two cases have low viewership.
One was a comment urging people to “speak up” about the conflict, while the other was a share of a post by a pro-Palestinian group, the commission said.
“Because the phrase has no single meaning, a blanket ban on content containing the phrase, a default rule to remove such content, or using the phrase as an enforcement or review trigger would impermissibly interfere with protected political speech,” the board ruled.
More than 2,300 individuals and organizations submitted comments after the Meta Commission announced in May that it would review the three cases.
This is the second-highest number of comments the committee has received on a case review since it discussed banning former President Donald Trump from the platform in 2021.
of The committee is made up of journalists, lawyers and free speech advocates. From all over the world.
The board also includes former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg created the committee in 2019.
