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How Facebook Whitewashes ‘From the River to the Sea’
The brilliance of the slogan “From the river to the sea,” is that it allows protesters to call for dismantling the State of Israel, and then insist that they have articulated nothing more than “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence.”
Or at least that’s how Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D) describes the hateful chant.
Even if Tlaib’s argument doesn’t carry the day, it does a very effective job of persuading uninformed observers that the meaning of the slogan is disputed — and that it’s a perfectly acceptable phrase to use.
The latest authority to validate this artifice is Facebook, which used its Oversight Board to adjudicate the issue.
Last month, its board issued a decision stating that “From the river to the sea” does not violate the platform’s rules governing hate speech or violence and incitement.
The fundamental premise of the decision is that the phrase has “multiple meanings,” and is “often used as a political call for solidarity, equal rights and self-determination of the Palestinian people.”
The Oversight Board should have known better.
In May, the board announced that it was taking up the case and invited the submission of written comments from all quarters. The board received 2,142 comments, most of which simply take a side, yet dozens of civil society organizations submitted polished opinions.
Defenders of the slogan included the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Human Rights Watch, and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
Organizations on the other side included the World Jewish Congress (WJC), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), and my own organization, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
The FDD submission, which I co-authored with my colleague Ahmad Sharawi, sought to pre-emptively dismantle the claim that the meaning of the phrase is in the eye of the beholder. Rather, the phrase originated as a call for the use of force to replace Israel with a Palestinian state. We also emphasized that, in its original Arabic form, the phrase explicitly calls for Arab supremacy.
Footage from this past spring shows protesters at Harvard and MIT chanting “Min al-mayah lil-mayah, Falastin arabiyah” — literally, “From the water [the Jordan River] to the water [the Mediterranean Sea], Palestine is Arab.”
Yet in English, what follows “From the river to the sea” is invariably “Palestine will be free.” Influential media outlets have devoted considerable space to parsing this slogan, generally noting its use by Hamas and other advocates of violence, then retreating to the comfortable relativism of the view that its meaning is uncertain or disputed.
The FDD brief also explained that the effort to reframe the slogan as a call for justice began 20 years ago in a bid to sanitize it for use on campus. The earliest dispute for which there is a solid documentary record took place at Rutgers in 2003, when Jewish students challenged protesters who unfurled a banner bearing the slogan in the university’s student center.
Protest leader Charlotte Kates told The New Jersey Jewish News that the slogan “is about liberation” and “doesn’t have to do with kicking anybody out.”
In a separate interview with The New York Times, she refused to condemn suicide bombings and said that all of the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean should be returned to Palestinians. Kates would go on to become a career activist; Canadian police arrested her earlier this year on hate crime charges for leading a Vancouver crowd in chants of “Long live October 7.”
In their submissions to Facebook, the slogan’s defenders do not just ignore its history as a call to dismantle Israel by force of arms. Rather, they insist it is actually an expression of a desire for a “Palestinians and Israelis to live together in a single state with equal rights for all,” as CAIR would have it.
Yet CAIR is an unlikely advocate of co-existence. In November, its national executive director, Nihad Awad, declared that on October 7, “I was happy to see people breaking the siege” of Gaza and denied Israel has a right of self-defense.
Even the Biden White House, amid its scramble for Arab-American votes in Michigan and other swing states, felt compelled to denounce Awad’s comments as antisemitic.
In its brief, AMP described the slogan “as a call for liberation from all forms of oppression and as a call for equality for all.”
This rings hollow when coming from a group which issued a statement on October 7 that did not even mention Hamas, while asserting that the “unfolding crisis in Gaza” had been “precipitated by increased Israeli aggression.”
Strangely, AMP even claimed, regarding “From the river to the sea,” that “Critique of this slogan has only emerged after October 7,” demonstrating the critics’ disingenuity. A more accurate description of the situation would be that CAIR, AMP, and their fellow travelers are simply gaslighting Facebook.
To be sure, the slogan’s defenders also include genuine civil libertarians, like those at FIRE. Yet their scant knowledge of history leads them into error.
FIRE acknowledges that the slogan’s association with Hamas has led to some “to hear it as a call for genocide and ethnic cleansing,” but “the phrase predates Hamas and holds different meanings depending on who is using it.” Human Rights Watch also notes the tie to Hamas while crediting the good intentions of those who use the phrase to “demand that Palestinians, wherever they live, including in Israel, be free.”
As numerous Jewish community organizations pointed out in their submissions, the interpretation of the slogan as innocuous depends on ignoring its plain, direct meaning.
If one insists that the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea constitute an entity known as Palestine, then one must dismantle the entity known as Israel. Given that Israelis prefer their country continue to exist, it requires a good measure of ingenuity to claim that its dismantling would occur through peaceful means, especially given the actual conduct of those who sought to initiate the dismantling on October 7 or previous occasions.
Still, even if one grants that “From the river to the sea” is inherently offensive, one might argue that Facebook should allow offensive speech, hewing closely to the First Amendment.
Yet Facebook’s community standards warn it will not tolerate “content that threatens people.”
The platform’s policy on hate speech prohibits “calls for exclusion or segregation” as well as “statements advocating or calling for harm.” There is even a ban on “aspirational or conditional statements” advocating “Political exclusion, which means denying the right to political participation.” This seems to fit a slogan whose aspiration is to terminate a political entity against the will of its people.
Of course, one should not be surprised when intellectual and moral consistency prove to be less important to a major corporation than remaining in the good graces of progressive opinion. That, too, is a part of how free markets operate. So those who understand the history and meaning of “From the river to the sea” should focus on making their case in the marketplace of ideas ,despite the prospect of an uphill battle.
David Adesnik is a senior fellow and director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies
The post How Facebook Whitewashes ‘From the River to the Sea’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF: Mistakes Led to Opening Fire on Gazan Ambulances, Officer Dismissed
Khan Yunis. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
i24 News – The Israeli army has concluded its investigation into the tragic incident that occurred on the night of March 23, 2025 in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, where Red Crescent rescue teams were targeted by Israeli gunfire, according to a press release by the Israel Defense Forces on Sunday.
The findings highlight a series of misjudgments and errors in judgement on the part of the IDF that led to this tragedy. According to the final report, the incident began when a force from the Golani Infantry Brigade’s Reconnaissance unit, engaged in anti-terrorist operations, spotted and neutralized what they identified as a Hamas vehicle. About an hour later, the same unit opened fire on vehicles “approaching rapidly and stopping near the troops, with passengers quickly disembarking.”
It was only after the shots were fired that they realized it was actually a fire truck and ambulances.
“Poor night visibility” is cited as a determining factor that led to this fatal mistake. The investigation specifies that “the deputy commander did not initially recognize the vehicles as ambulances. Only later, after approaching the vehicles and scanning them, was it discovered that these were indeed rescue teams.”
In a third incident that occurred fifteen minutes later, Israeli forces also fired upon a UN vehicle. The report characterizes this act as “due to operational errors in breach of regulations.”
These events strongly contrast with the initial report which portrayed the operation as a successful anti-terrorist action. The army now asserts that out of “fifteen Palestinians [who] were killed, six of whom were identified in a retrospective examination as Hamas terrorists.” However, the IDF stressed that there was no evidence of point-blank execution of ambulance workers.
“The forces also apprehended two pedestrians who raised suspicion, and released them subsequently,” the investigation found. “This indicates that the troops did not engage in indiscriminate fire but remained alert to respond to real threats identified by them.”
The investigation also reveals serious shortcomings in the military’s conduct after the ncident. The damaged vehicles were “crushed” on the spot, a decision that the military now acknowledges as “wrong.” Moreover, the first report submitted by the Reconnaissance Battalion’s deputy commander turned out to be “incomplete and inaccurate.”
In light of these conclusions, Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir has ordered sanctions: the commander of the 14th Brigade, a reserve unit, will receive a disciplinary note in his personal file, while the deputy commander of the Golani Reconnaissance unit will be relieved of his duties.
The investigation stressed that the dismissed commander is a “highly respected officer, whose military service and personal story reflect a spirit of combat, volunteerism, and great dedication.”
The conclusions of this investigation, which highlight severe failures in the chain of command and non-compliance with identification procedures, have been forwarded to the military prosecutor’s office for further review.
“The IDF regrets the harm caused to uninvolved civilians,” the IDF said. “The examination process also serves as part of an ongoing effort to learn from operational incidents and reduce the likelihood of similar occurrences in the future. Existing protocols have been clarified and reinforced – emphasizing the need for heightened caution when operating near rescue forces and medical personnel, even in high-intensity combat zones.”
The post IDF: Mistakes Led to Opening Fire on Gazan Ambulances, Officer Dismissed first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UN Hid Details of Official’s Travel Funding Amid Alleged Pro-Hamas Financing
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – The United Nations Human Rights Office appears to have disseminated intentionally deceptive information in an attempt to cover up travel funding that pro-Hamas organizations provided to a UN official.
UN special rapporteur for Palestinian rights Francesca Albanese took a politically-charged trip to Australia and New Zealand in November 2023. The trip included a fundraiser for a Palestinian lobby group, participation in media events, as well as meetings with pro-Palestinian politicians and civil society members, and pushing New Zealand’s sovereign wealth fund to divest from Israel.
Albanese has been accused of antisemitism by the American, French and German governments, among other entities.
Now, the Australian Friends of Palestine Association, which praised Hamas terror mastermind Yahya Sinwar as “incredibly moving,” claimed publicly that it had “sponsored” Albanese’s visit, and Free Palestine Melbourne, the Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network, and Palestinian Christians in Australia stated that they “supported” the trip. All four are lobbying groups.
i24NEWS asked various UN officials and entities for months whether pro-Hamas groups actually did fund the trip. Albanese repeatedly insisted the trip, estimated by the UN Watch NGO to cost around $22,000, was paid for by the UN, calling claims to the contrary “egregiously false.”
Finally, in July of last year, the UN Human Rights Office, acknowledging it was fully aware of documentation that pro-Hamas groups had said they sponsored or organized the trip, told i24NEWS that, “With respect to the Australia trip by the Special Rapporteur, her travel was funded by the UN.”
They ignored requests to provide any documentation showing that to be the case.
Since then, a six-person panel of Albanese’s peers, who have long attacked her accusers, was assigned the task of investigating a host of accusations against Albanese. In a letter written last month to UN Human Rights Council President Jurg Lauber by that panel, known as the UN Coordination Committee of Special Procedures, they finally acknowledged Albanese had taken “partial external funding for internal trips within Australia and New Zealand.”
i24NEWS asked the media offices for UN Human Rights and Special Procedures for clarity on what seemed to be contrary claims.
Like former US president Bill Clinton’s cagey testimony in the Lewinsky affair, when he famously remarked, “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is,” for the UN Human Rights Office and Albanese, it apparently depends upon what the meaning of the word “to” is.
The Special Procedures office told i24NEWS: “With regard to the Special Rapporteur’s visit to Australia, her travel was funded by the United Nations regular budget. The Coordination Committee of Special Procedures assessed the allegations concerning partial external funding for internal travel (the bolding of the words is theirs) within Australia and New Zealand and concluded that there was no breach of the Code of Conduct. The Committee noted that it is common practice for conference organizers to cover the participation costs of mandate holders, and such arrangements do not constitute a violation of the established standards.”
With that, the UN finally conceded Albanese had in fact received external funding after all.
In follow-up conversations, it became clear: the UN was drawing a distinction between funding for travel TO a country, and funding for travel WITHIN a country – a bizarre distinction they failed to make for a year and a half, almost certainly to avoid discussing the topic of Hamas-supporting groups paying for a UN official’s anti-Israel business travel.
Even with all this, the UN Human Rights Office continues to ignore requests to clarify which group or groups funded this trip, and how much they contributed. Accused by i24NEWS of lying, the Special Procedures Media Office said it was a “regrettable and unfair mischaracterization,” though it still made no attempt to reconcile why the UN made no previous mention of external funding, or why the funding for Albanese’s trip “to” Australia should be counted differently from “external funding for internal travel.”
Asked during a press briefing whether UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres would condemn UN spokespeople for intentionally misinforming the media and whether Guterres would support finally releasing the funding information surrounding the trip, Stephane Dujarric, Guterres’ spokesperson, said, “We support transparency in the activities of any official affiliated with United Nations.”
The post UN Hid Details of Official’s Travel Funding Amid Alleged Pro-Hamas Financing first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Former Israeli Prime Minister Bennett Hospitalized, In Stable Condition
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett attends a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, May 29, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Gil Cohen-Magen
i24 News – After feeling unwell during a workout on Sunday morning former prime minister Naftali Bennett was admitted to a hospital and underwent a cardiac catheterization.
Bennett is reportedly in stable condition, and will remain at the Meir Medical Center in Kfar Sabar for further monitoring and treatment.
The incident occurred after Bennett participated in the celebrations Saturday night for the Mimouna, marking the end of Passover restrictions on leavened bread, at the home of attorney Hila Revach in the southern community of Be’er Ganim, near Ashkelon.
Likud lawmaker Osher Shekalim chose to attack Bennett in an X post, saying he was “Wishing the head of the former prime minister of the mandates government good health.” This refers to Bennett’s premiership in the fragmented previous government, after he only received seven seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
Shekalim said he was “wondering how someone who failed physical training at the age of 53 was able to manage seven war theaters at the same time. It is expected that he will disclose his medical file as required. Get well soon!”
Earlier this month, Bennett announced a party list under the temporary name “Bennett 2026.” In a statement released on his behalf, it was stated that if and when a decision is made to actually run for the elections, an official announcement will be made on the matter. Starting on October 7, 2023, Bennett has been interviewed extensively in the US and international media, and has worked for Israeli advocacy. His return, in a sense, to the public stage, when he is not serving in any public position, has raised questions over whether he plans to return to political life – and if so, with whom and in what framework.
The post Former Israeli Prime Minister Bennett Hospitalized, In Stable Condition first appeared on Algemeiner.com.