Members of Meta’s Oversight Board have criticized Israel over Gaza – before ruling ‘from the river to the sea’ is not hate speech

Some members of Meta’s Oversight Board — which faced heavy criticism after ruling that the anti-Israel phrase “from the river to the sea” does not constitute hate speech — have embraced views critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

The advisory board, which claims to be independent from Meta, ruled that Facebook and Instagram users can use the controversial slogan – which has surfaced in anti-Israel protests across the country – as long as it is not used in a way that praises Hamas. or calls for violence.

Established in 2020 with the approval of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Supervisory Board currently consists of 21 members who “come from a variety of cultural and professional backgrounds, speak more than 30 languages, and have been chosen to be reflective of diverse users.” of Facebook, Instagram. and Threads,” according to her website.

However, past remarks by some members question their ability to remain neutral about the slogan, which refers to the idea of ​​a Palestinian state spanning all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea – land currently controlled from Israel.

Its members include Tawakkol Karman, a Yemeni activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who declared in a speech last May at the Vatican that “the world is silent in the face of the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in Gaza.” Israel denounced her speech as “flamboyantly anti-Semitic”.

Alan Rusbridger, the former editor-in-chief of the left-wing U.K. newspaper The Guardian, wrote a column earlier this year arguing that, while “real and vile anti-Semitism” exists, “the horrors of October 7 certainly did not happen. in a vacuum.” He also weighed in on the “river to sea” debate.

“Some even considered the song worthy of prosecution. However, Netanyahu recently declared that Israel “must have security control over all the territory west of the Jordan River” – thereby killing the idea of ​​a Palestinian state. Can one say no to the other?” wrote Rusbridger.

Nighat Dad, director of the Pakistan-based Digital Rights Foundation, accused Facebook in a 2018 column of caving in to Israel by “silencing the voices of a historically victimized people for calling for what can rightfully be called a state occupying is confirmation of influence. that some governments have in the tech giants of Silicon Valley.”

Endy Bayuni, a member of the Supervisory Board and senior editor at the Jakarta Post, wrote a column last April arguing that Indonesia “should be seen as advocating an independent Palestinian state and full membership in the United Nations.”

The Supervisory Board did not reveal which of its members had participated in the vote or the counting of the number of those who had voted for and against the decision. The Post has contacted the board for comment.

Other prominent board members include former Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, former United Nations spokesman Khaled Monsour and Mexico City-based human rights lawyer Pamela San Martín.

The board acknowledged that a minority of its members opposed the decision and noted that the phrase “from the river to the sea” even appears in the charter of the terrorist group Hamas.

“A minority of the Board finds that Meta should adopt a default rule assuming that the phrase constitutes glorification of a particular organization unless there are clear signals that the user does not support Hamas or the October 7 attacks,” the board’s statement said. on the decision.

Meanwhile, a majority of the board’s voters thought the phrase “has many meanings and is used by people in different ways and with different purposes.”

“Context is crucial,” said San Martín, who serves as co-chairman of the board. “Simply removing political speech is not a solution. There must be room for debate, especially in times of crisis and conflict.”

The group said its decisions “are made by five-member panels and are approved by a majority vote of the full Board” and noted that decisions “do not necessarily represent the views of all members.”

Of the 21 members listed on the Supervisory Board’s website, only one is Israeli.

Emi Palmor is a Jerusalem-born lawyer and former director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Justice, who was part of the team that negotiated with Hamas the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit after his infamous kidnapping in 2006. Her parents of survived the Holocaust as children.

In a March 2021 interview with Jewish Insider, Palmor said she had joined the Oversight Board in part to give her “perspective as a Jew on issues of anti-Semitism or on issues of genocide.”

The Movement Against Anti-Semitism, a watchdog advocacy group, called the Oversight Board’s decision “absurd” and said it would encourage the spread of anti-Semitism online.

‘From River to Sea’ is a slogan created with the sole vision of destroying the national homeland of the Jewish people,” CAM CEO Sacha Roytman said in a statement. “It is genocidal in intent and meaning and is not a legitimate political vision or ideological, because it aims at the destruction of the only Jewish state and its inhabitants.”

In May, CAM submitted a white paper to the Meta Supervisory Board outlining its position on why the slogan should be banned.

“It shows a conscious bias that some on the Meta Oversight Board use twisted logic and verbal distortions to defend anti-Semites,” Roytman added. “We sent them the history and context of the phrase and how it was coined and used only as a call for genocide by those who have openly and proudly called for the killing of Jews everywhere.”

“There is no amount of context or twisted logic that can justify this outrage.”

The World Jewish Congress said it was “deeply disappointed” by the decision.

“The phrase ‘From the river to the sea,’ part of the charter of the terrorist group Hamas, is a clear call for violence against Israelis and the Jewish world in general,” the WJC said. “Jews around the globe have an absolute right to live freely as Jews, and Meta’s decision does nothing to mitigate blatant anti-Semitism. Words matter, especially after October 7.”