Meta’s oversight board announced on Wednesday that the anti-Israel rallying cry, “From the River to the Sea,” does not violate the company’s bans on hate speech and incitement of violence.  

The ruling was issued after the board conducted a review of three separate cases involving the use of the slogan on Facebook. In each case, the post was reported for violating the platform’s rules of conduct, but was not taken down. 

The board upheld Facebook’s decision not to remove the posts, claiming that “there is no indication that the comment or the two posts broke Meta’s Hate Speech rules” on the basis that “they do not attack Jewish or Israeli people with calls for violence or exclusion, nor do they attack a concept or institution associated with a protected characteristic that could lead to imminent violence.” 

“Instead,” the board claims, “the three pieces of content contain contextual signals of solidarity with Palestinians.” 

However, the phrase, which calls for the Palestinian state to extend from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea — territory which includes the State of Israel — has been identified as an antisemitic slogan by the Anti-Defamation League given that it would “mean the dismantling of the Jewish state.” 

“It is an antisemitic charge denying the Jewish right to self-determination, including through the removal of Jews from their ancestral homeland,” the ADL has claimed. 

The slogan is currently banned on X for similar reasons. “‘Decolonization’, ‘from the river to the sea’ and similar euphemisms necessarily imply genocide,” the owner of X and self-declared “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk, has stated, adding that, “Clear calls for extreme violence are against our terms of service and will result in suspension.”

In its 32-page ruling, the board argued that the phrase “has multiple meanings and is used by people in various ways and with different intentions.” However, a minority of members, the board noted, argued for a blanket ban on the phrase, given that it is featured in Hamas’s charter and serves to glorify the terrorist group.

The cases, the board wrote, “highlight tensions between Meta’s value of voice and the need to protect freedom of expression, particularly political speech during conflict, and Meta’s values of safety and dignity to protect people against intimidation, exclusion and violence.” 

The decision was met with outrage by members of the Jewish community and pro-Israel allies. 

“Meta determined that, without additional context, it cannot conclude that ‘From the river to the sea’ constitutes a call to violence or a call for exclusion of any particular group, nor that it is linked exclusively to support for Hamas,” ADL wrote in a statement after the decision was announced. “ADL respectfully disagrees with Meta’s decision about this phrase. In the past 7+ months, ‘From the river to the sea’ has seeped into the mainstream and become associated with calls for Israel’s destruction.”

The organization listed examples of the slogan being used on Facebook and Instagram to call for violence against the Jewish state. 

The World Jewish Congress voiced similar disapproval, expressing disappointment over the oversight board’s failure to recognize the phrase as being “inherently genocidal and antisemitic and should constitute hate speech.”

Senator Fetterman, an outspoken supporter of the Jewish state, responded to the ruling with a blunt post on X: “F*** that,” he wrote. “It’s blatant antisemitic hate speech calling for the elimination of Israel from the map.”