A coalition of Jewish groups from across the world wants Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to strike down the company’s decision to not remove a controversial phrase commonly chanted at pro-Palestine protests from its platforms.
The Large Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism, the J7, including major Jewish organizations from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Argentina, and Australia, sent a joint letter to Zuckerberg, pleading with him to overrule the recent decision made by Meta’s Oversight Board.
The Oversight Board reviews decisions from individuals who have exhausted the appeal processes available through Facebook, Instagram, or Threads. The board members review whether Meta’s decision to remove or leave up content aligns with the company’s policies, values, and human rights commitments.
On Sept. 4, 2024, the board decided that saying “From the River to the Sea,” a quote usually followed by “Palestine will be free,” should not lead to automatic content removal.
The decision concluded that the phrase does not violate Meta’s rules on hate speech and violence. The quote allegedly does not refer to or glorify Hamas, which the board said Meta has determined as dangerous.
Hamas has governed Gaza since 2007 and has a presence in other regions.
Richard Marceau, vice president of external affairs and general counsel for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said his organization has regularly communicated with Meta’s staff over the years. However, this is the first time the seven biggest diaspora Jewish communities have jointly written to Zuckerberg.
“We believe Meta’s oversight board got their ruling wrong and that, as CEO, Mr. Zuckerberg should overrule it. ‘From the river to the sea’ is blatantly antisemitic; it calls for the destruction of Israel and the establishment of one Palestinian state in the land,” Marceau told True North. “We encourage all social platforms to treat this phrase with the seriousness it deserves and to recognize that those that utter it intend it — it’s clearly meant to be divisive as it is hateful.”
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs has previously called for stronger regulations to combat online hate, supporting government efforts like the Online Harms Act, which Marceau applauded.
“Part of the solution lies in diminishing the level of Jew-hatred online because what happens online does not stay online. It affects our community, our children, in real life,” said Marceau.
The Online Harms Act, Bill C-63, includes fines of up to $70,000 and life imprisonment for online hate crimes. With this Bill, Canadians can also report others who they fear might commit a hate crime, despite them having not yet done anything.
Despite showing support, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs hosted a webinar with two legal experts that raised significant concerns about the bill. They argued it was too vague and had serious gaps in oversight and regulatory guidelines.
The Jewish communities writing the letter represent 90% of Jews globally outside of Israel. They said that their communities have not recovered from Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, which saw over 1,200 Israelis brutally murdered, over 4,000 wounded, and over 250 taken hostage, some of whom remain captive in Gaza.
Despite making up less than 1% of Canada’s population, Jewish people accounted for 70% of all religiously motivated hate crimes in 2023, according to Statistics Canada.
“We are profoundly dismayed at the Oversight Board’s decision, and we urge Meta to reject it and amend its hate policy to prohibit this phrase that effectively calls for the expulsion of half of the world’s Jews,” reads the letter.
The J7 wrote that accepting this decision would show that Meta has an indifference to online hate and harassment, which they said has been a pattern at the organization.
“From the decade it took Meta to realize that Holocaust denial is indeed hate, to your well-documented role in the Genocide of the Rohingya Muslim community, to the ongoing failure to address hate against the LGBTQ community that has led to severe offline harms, to your role in fomenting movements rooted in conspiracy theories like Qanon that ultimately lead to the January 6 insurrection against the United States government, Meta has sadly made itself a haven for radicalization and extreme ideologies in the pursuit of profit,” reads the letter.
The phrase “From the river to the sea” is enshrined in the charter of Hamas, and hate speech that has been historically used by anti-Israel voices said the J7.
“It is fundamentally a call for a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, territory that includes the entirety of the State of Israel, which would mean the dismantling of the Jewish state. It is an antisemitic charge denying the Jewish right to self-determination, including through the forced removal of Jews from their ancestral homeland,” reads the letter.
A recent study conducted by the University of Chicago showed that 66% of Jewish college students polled understood that the chant meant the expulsion and genocide of Israeli Jews. Only 14% of Muslim students said the chant meant the same thing.
“As the leaders of communities representing the largest Diaspora Jewish populations, we call on Meta to recognize the harm this phrase poses to the Jewish community worldwide, reject the Oversight Board’s short-sighted decision and urge it instead to take steps to address the ongoing issues with online hate and harassment that continue to proliferate across Meta’s many platforms.,” concluded the letter addressed to Zuckerberg.
It was signed by top Jewish organizations from Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
