Several members of the oversight board of Facebook's parent company Meta have demonstrated clear anti-Israel bias since the war with Hamas began on October 7 last year, with one even going so far as to call Israel a “terrorist government” and “the most criminal army in history.”
At least four members of the 21-member advisory group have published opinions critical of the Jewish state, and the group sparked outrage on Wednesday when it ruled that the anti-Israel rhetoric “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” does not constitute hate speech.
One of the most vocal advocates is Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman. He mentioned civilian deaths. He calls the war in Gaza a “war of ethnic cleansing” and a “war of annihilation.”
In a June 7 post on X, Kalman applauded the UN's move to place the Israeli military on its international list of entities that have harmed children, commonly known as the “List of Shame.” Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were also added..
“The United Nations has shamefully placed Israel, its terrorist government and the most criminal army in history. I applaud this decision, which is long overdue.” Kalman wrote:According to Google Translate.
Earlier this year, Kalman accused Israel of committing “genocide” in a controversial speech he delivered at the Vatican on March 11. He praised pro-Palestinian protests on US college campuses but criticized the world for being “silent.”
“To all American students, I have great respect for all of you who are not only protesting but fighting against the genocide in Gaza.” Kalman says:“They are fighting and sacrificing to put America on the right side of history.”
Israel He condemned her speech as “blatantly anti-Semitic.”
Nigat Dad, a member of the oversight committee and director of the Pakistan-based Digital Rights Foundation, has also publicly criticized Israel since a Hamas cross-border raid left 1,200 people dead inside Israel.
in X Post on October 16thThree days after Israeli forces launched a ground invasion of Gaza, my father called the area “the open air prison of the world.”
She expressed solidarity with pro-Palestinian forces. New York protesters Another post shows London, and one video shows The hashtag “Gaza is under attack.”
In a Jan. 7 post on X, my father denounced the death of “Hamza,” a Palestinian who was “martyrized in an Israeli attack.”
“How many more martyrs does the world need to see to stop the slaughter of Muslims in Gaza?” My dad wrote it.
In March, my father “Pay attention to Rafa” meme using AI-generated imagery.
Representatives for Mehta and its independent oversight committee did not respond to The Washington Post's requests for comment.
As The Post previously reported, Alan Rusbridger, former editor-in-chief of the left-leaning British news outlet The Guardian and a member of the oversight committee, wrote: In a column earlier this year, While “real and vile anti-Semitism” certainly exists, “the horrors of October 7th certainly did not occur in a vacuum.”
“The government is very strict and strict,” said Endy Bayuni, a member of the monitoring committee and senior editor at The Jakarta Post. Last April in Indonesia “They should stand up for an independent Palestinian state and full membership in the United Nations.”
Only one member of the supervisory board is Israeli.
A “majority” of the committee ruled that users can use the phrase, which refers to the idea of a Palestinian state on land currently controlled by Israel between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, as long as they don't use it in a way that glorifies Hamas or calls for violence.
The oversight committee did not release a breakdown of the voting results or details about which members participated.
Instead, the board said its decisions are “made by a five-member committee and approved by a majority vote of the full board,” noting that its decisions “do not necessarily represent the views of all members.”
The majority of members who voted decided that the slogan “has multiple meanings and is used by people in different ways and with different intentions.”
Meanwhile, Meta's approach to moderating posts containing controversial slogans remains unclear at best.
in One example pointed out by the PostIn November 2018, a Facebook account called “Palestine Liberation Group” shared a GIF of a red arrow slowly erasing the Star of David and transforming it into the Palestinian flag, alongside the phrase, “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free.”
Some Jewish advocacy groups questioned whether Meta's oversight committee could make an impartial decision about the “From the River to the Sea” slogan, given past comments by its members.
“The fact that multiple members of the Meta Oversight Board have made statements that delegitimize the October 7 attacks and unfairly criticize Israel demonstrates clear bias in their decision that 'From the River to the Sea' does not constitute hate speech,” Sasha Roitman, CEO of Campaign to End Anti-Semitism, told the Post.
“Instead of evaluating the context and history of this phrase as a direct call to violence, the committee has chosen to hold Israel to an unfair double standard that will only lead to more online anti-Semitism,” he added.
A spokesman for the Anti-Defamation League said: “We are concerned by allegations of anti-Israel bias that some members of the Oversight Board may have been involved in the recent outrageous decision regarding the phrase 'from the river to the sea.' We will be investigating further.”
The World Jewish Congress said the oversight committee “ultimately proved to be a biased organization that failed to protect vulnerable communities from hate speech.”
“The Oversight Board lacks transparency and accountability,” the organization said in a statement. “The World Jewish Congress will continue to work closely with Meta to ensure that hate speech and calls for violence are removed from the platform.”
