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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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Bryan Singer Secretly Filmed Period Drama With Jon Voight Critical of Israel for Lebanon War: Report
Jon Voight at the opening night of the 2023 Beverly Hills Film Festival held at TCL Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood, California, on April 19, 2023. Photo: FS//AdMedia/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Jewish-American filmmaker Bryan Singer has returned to the director’s chair after a long hiatus with a film starring Oscar winner Jon Voight that is set in the Middle East and critical of Israel, Variety revealed on Wednesday.
Singer secretly filmed the period drama and one source who saw the final cut, but is not involved with the production, thinks the feature is “going to be a huge hotbed of controversy” because of its attention on the Middle East. “It makes Israel look really bad and could be polarizing,” the insider told Variety.
The source said the film is set in late 1970s or early 1980s. On June 6, 1982, Israel launched the First Lebanon War against Palestinian terrorists based in southern Lebanon following the attempted assassination of Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom Shlomo Argov by a terrorist cell.
The “Superman Returns” director shot the new film in Greece in 2023, and it focuses on the relationship between a father and son, Variety added. Israeli filmmaker Yariv Horovoitz is also reportedly collaborating on the project. There are no details about a release date.
Voight is a longtime supporter of Israel and said in 2018 that he feels an obligation to combat antisemitism. Last year, he was critical of his daughter, actress and filmmaker Angelina Jolie, when she slammed Israel’s defensive military campaign against Hamas in Gaza following the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
Singer – who was raised Jewish in suburban New Jersey – has not directed in mainstream Hollywood since he was infamously fired by 20th Century Fox from “Bohemian Rhapsody” in 2017 and replaced during shooting, after several absences during the film’s production. He was signed on to direct a remake of the action film “Red Sonja,” but was reportedly fired from the project amid allegations in 2019 of sexual misconduct involving minors, which he denied.
The director’s past credits include four films in the “X-Men” franchise, “Valkyrie,” and the Oscar-winning film “The Usual Suspects.”
Singer faced sexual misconduct allegations starting in 1997, when two teenage boys claimed the director ordered them to strip naked for a scene in his film “Apt Pupil.” The filmmaker has never faced criminal charges for the sexual misconduct allegations made against him in 1997 or in later years.
Singer has been living in Israel for several years and Variety reported in 2023 that he was looking to make a comeback into the mainstream Hollywood film industry with features set in and around Israel.
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Italian Law Professor Faces Backlash Over Viral Antisemitic Social Media Posts
An Italian law professor is facing mounting backlash after past antisemitic social media posts went viral, sparking outrage among the local Jewish community and public officials.
Professor Luca Nivarra, who teaches in the Faculty of Law at the University of Palermo in Sicily, has come under scrutiny after several of his social media posts went viral, spreading antisemitic and hateful content.
“I don’t want to meddle in matters that don’t concern me directly, but, having very few tools at our disposal to oppose the Palestinian Holocaust, a signal, however modest, could be to unfriend your Jewish ‘friends’ on Facebook, even the ‘good’ ones, who declare themselves disgusted by what the Israeli government and the IDF are doing,” Nivarra wrote in one of his posts.
“They lie, and with their lies, they help cover up the horror: it’s a small, tiny thing, but let’s start making them feel alone, face to face with the monstrosity to which they are complicit,” he continued.
On Tuesday, the university issued a public statement distancing itself from Nivarra’s antisemitic remarks. Despite mounting public outrage, Nivarra has not faced any disciplinary action yet.
Massimo Midiri, Dean of the University of Palermo, condemned such hateful rhetoric, calling it “a personal and culturally dangerous initiative, far removed from our academic principles.”
“Nivarra’s statements risk fueling the very dynamics he claims to oppose. Complex issues like the Middle East conflict require dialogue and critical engagement, not exclusion or ideological censorship,” Midiri said in a statement.
Italy’s Minister of University and Research, Anna Maria Bernini, also denounced Nivarra’s remarks, saying they “not only offend the Jewish people but also all who uphold the values of respect and civil coexistence.”
“Conflicts are overcome through dialogue, not isolation and it is only through this path that an authentic journey toward peace can be built, an objective to which Italy and the international community continue to dedicate their efforts,” the Italian diplomat wrote in a post on X.
This is not the first time Nivarra has made public antisemitic statements and spread anti-Jewish hateful rhetoric. In his previous Facebook posts, he also wrote that “there are no good Israelis” and that “Israeli society is morally rotten.”
Nivarra also compared the Israeli Defense Forces’ defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas to the actions of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann during the Holocaust.
“The only difference between Adolf Eichmann and the IDF is that Eichmann defended himself by saying he was following orders, while Israeli soldiers happily do what they do,” he wrote in another social media post.
Since his posts went viral, Nivarra has faced mounting criticism on social media, but he has denied any accusations of antisemitism.
“You can call me an anti-Semite when I am not one at all. There is an insurmountable distance between me and the perpetrators of these horrors,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
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‘Six Million Not Enough’: Minneapolis School Shooter Scrawled Antisemitic, Anti-Israel Messages on Guns
Law enforcement officers set up barriers after a shooting at Annunciation Church, which is also home to an elementary school, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ben Brewer
The lone suspect in Wednesday’s mass shooting at a Catholic school in Minneapolis, Minnesota, scrawled antisemitic and anti-Israel messages across his weapons and allegedly shared his desire to kill “filthy Zionist Jews” in a notebook before unleashing a barrage of gunfire on students and parishioners.
Law enforcement officials identified the shooter as Robin Westman, 23, who died by suicide at the scene. According to police, Westman opened fire during morning Mass in the school’s adjoining church, killing two children (aged 8 and 10) and injuring 17 others.
Witnesses said the church erupted in chaos as stained-glass windows shattered and gunfire ripped through pews filled with children. Teachers and staff rushed to shield students, with some ushering them outside the building.
The shooting is being investigated as both a domestic terrorism case and a hate crime against Catholics, according to FBI Director Kash Patel.
However, the assailant also appeared to endorse antisemitic conspiracies and express a desire to kill Jews and Israelis.
Researchers at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported they found videos believed to be from Westman showing firearms and ammunition magazines marked with the antisemitic messages. Investigators are also reviewing the now-deleted YouTube channel allegedly linked to Westman that featured disturbing videos uploaded before the attack.
“Israel must fall and “Burn Israel” were among the writings on the weapons, as seen in the video. In addition, the messages on the guns included “6 million wasn’t enough” — an apparent reference to the 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust, and “Burn HIAS” — an apparent reference to a Jewish organization which helps settle refugees.
Westman also allegedly wrote “kill Donald Trump” on a gun magazine as well as anti-black and anti-Latino racist messaging.
The videos also included images of a notebook with writing in the Cyrillic alphabet.
“If I will carry out a racially motivated attack, it would be most likely against filthy Zionist jews,” the notebook said, according to a translation by the New York Post. Westman also allegedly wrote slogans such as “Free Palestine.”
Images of the content has been widely circulated on social media.
Robin Westman, the suspected shooter in today’s mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, appears to have had a YouTube Channel named “Robin W” which has since been deleted, that contained several video consisting of guns, a manifesto… pic.twitter.com/B3JJUOIGJp
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) August 27, 2025
Shocking antisemitic messages spotted on the Minneapolis shooter’s gun including:
– “Israel must fall,”
– “Burn Israel”
– “6 million wasn’t enough.”
– “ Burn HIAS (originally a Jewish resettlement org for refugees)Via our colleague @RealSaavedra pic.twitter.com/NFUnkRNlDs
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) August 27, 2025
An analysis of the shooter’s apparent manifesto by the ADL found no singular political motive. The assailant “scrawled numerous references and symbols on their weapons linked to a broad range of mass attackers, mimicking the 2019 Christchurch, 2022 Buffalo, and 2025 Antioch shooters, among others, who marked their weapons before launching their attacks,” the ADL wrote.
“The references found on the attacker’s weapons do not suggest a deep knowledge of white supremacy. Instead, the references point to a broader fixation on mass violence,” the group concluded.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who is Jewish, spoke with raw emotion after visiting the scene. “There are no words that can capture the horror and the evil of this unspeakable act,” he said.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said the students “were met with evil and horror and death.”
“We often come to these and say these unspeakable tragedies or there’s no words for this. There shouldn’t be words for these types of incidents because they should not happen and there’s no words that are going to ease the pain of the families today,” Walz added.
The suspect was reportedly a transgender woman who changed her name from Robert to Robin in 2020. Westman’s mother worked as a secretary at Annunciation until 2021, according to news reports, and authorities are still examining whether that connection influenced the target.
The tragedy adds to a growing list of school and faith-based shootings in the United States this year. Experts warn that antisemitic conspiracy theories, spread widely online, can inspire such violent attacks.
The tragedy came a week after the ADL released a new report highlighting how extremist online spaces are fueling not only school shootings but also a broader rise in antisemitism across the US. According to the report, many websites containing violent and gruesome material have pulled young people into white supremacist propaganda and conspiracy theories, inspiring them to commit deadly attacks.