Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,
We write to you as leaders of seven of the largest Jewish Diaspora communities representing over 90% of Jews globally outside of Israel. As Jews, our communities continue to feel the impact of the brutal Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, with its death toll of over 1200 Israelis, over 4000 wounded, and over 250 taken hostage, and over a hundred still held captive in Gaza. Our Jewish communities continue to bear the brunt of dramatic increases of antisemitism, with huge number of attacks on our community members, our students, our institutions, both on the streets and online. Alarmingly, the Oversight Board (OB) released its September 4, 2024 decision that the phrase “from the river to the sea” is not hate. 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.
We fear that acceptance of this decision would represent an indifference to online hate and harassment. Regrettably, this has been a pattern in Meta. 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.
The phrase “from the river to the sea” is hate speech. This rallying cry, enshrined in the charter of Hamas, has long been used by anti-Israel voices, including supporters of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the PFLP, which seek Israel’s destruction through violent means. 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. Indeed, the Arabic version of the slogan is ‘From the water to the water, Palestine will be Arab’ (min el-mayeh lil-mayeh, Filastin Arabiyeh), making the meaning crystal clear: there is no space for Jews.
Usage of this phrase has the effect of making members of the Jewish and pro-Israel community feel unsafe and ostracized. A recent study of the American campus environment from the Chicago Project on Security and Threats at the University of Chicago (CPOST) found that “66% of Jewish college students understand the pro-Palestinian protest chant “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” to mean the expulsion and genocide of Israeli Jews.”
Understanding that “zero tolerance does not mean zero occurrence,” accepting the Oversight Board’s decision on this case will clearly indicate Meta’s willingness to tolerate violent hate speech on its platform. Moreover, the focus on the intent of the speaker over the impact of the speech in this decision shows a callous disregard for the experience of marginalized communities.
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.
Sincerely,
Argentina: Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas (DAIA)
Australia: Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ)
Canada: Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA)
France: Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF)
Germany: Central Council of Jews in Germany
The United Kingdom: Board of Deputies of British Jews
The United States: ADL (Anti-Defamation League) and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations