Imagine walking into a coffee shop, ordering a cup of coffee, and suddenly someone next to you pulls out a knife and says loudly, "I'm going to stab everyone in here." Would you stay for your coffee? Of course not. You would run away from there as long as your heart is in you. And that's exactly what happened yesterday (Wednesday), only on a huge and global scale. Meta's supervisory board, a sort of "supreme court" of the social network, decided to approve the use of the phrase "from the river to the sea" on its platforms. A phrase that echoes in the ears of Jews all over the world as a call for the destruction of the State of Israel. This is not just another offensive or insulting phrase, but a genetic code of hatred that calls for genocide.
Let's start from the end, from the place where Meta's supervisory board chose to hide its face: the committee did not reveal which of its members participated in the vote or the number of supporters and opponents of the decision. Maybe they are ashamed, maybe they fear the public reaction, but their silence is louder than any words. And to be more harsh - Meta's decision to approve the use of this phrase is not only a moral error, it is a spit in the face of millions of Israelis and especially of the victims of the 7th massacre in Otkover, where hundreds of innocent civilians and soldiers were brutally murdered.
And here comes the stinging contradiction: last April, the US House of Representatives approved a resolution condemning the use of the phrase "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" as anti-Semitic. The resolution, which passed by a majority of 377 votes against 44 dissenters, is admittedly only declarative, but shows The severity of the expression and its deep understanding among the American legislators. Also in February, the Dutch House of Representatives adopted a similar resolution, which states that the call "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free" has a distinct anti-Semitic tone. The proposal, submitted by the right-wing party SGP, was passed by a majority of 100 Of the 150 legislators.
These two governments, as different as they are, recognized the danger inherent in this expression, its destructive consequences for the public discourse and the security of millions of Israelis. But Meta, the technology giant that controls our digital lives, chose to ignore these warnings, to turn their backs on reality The ground for hatred and violence.
A (not) diverse list And you will be surprised, because it is easy to understand why this anti-Semitic decision was made. The supervisory board was established in 2018 by the company Meta (formerly Facebook) with the aim of being an independent body that will supervise content on the company's platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Its establishment came as a response to growing criticism regarding how Meta handles problematic content, such as hate speech, misinformation and violence. It includes 20 members who come from 17 different countries and were chosen "to reflect the diversity among Facebook, Instagram and Threads users", according to the committee's website.
Despite this, past statements by some of its members raise questions about their ability to maintain objectivity regarding the phrase, which refers to the idea of a Palestinian state stretching between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. For example, among the members of the committee is Tawakul Karman, a Yemeni activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who stated last May in a speech at the Vatican that "the world is silent in the face of the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Also on the board of Meta you can find Alan Rusbridger, the former editor of the left-wing British newspaper "The Guardian", which claimed in a column published earlier this year that while "real and shocking" anti-Semitism exists, "the horrors of October 7 certainly did not take place in a vacuum." Digitalism in Pakistan, which in a column it published in 2018 accused Facebook of succumbing to Israeli pressure by "silencing the voices of a historically victimized people by referring to the occupying state."
In fact, it is understandable that the composition of the committee and the past statements of its members paint a disturbing picture of a deep political bias, which is ignored From the distinct historical and anti-Semitic context of the slogan "from the river to the sea".
In a related development, will the largest wealth fund in the world stop investing in Israeli companies? The Ethics Council of Norway's wealth fund, which manages approximately 1.7 trillion dollars and is considered the largest investment fund in the world, recommended that the fund's board of directors refrain from investing in Israeli companies as well as foreign companies operating in the West Bank and Gaza.
The legal basis for this recommendation is the decision of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, that all of Israel's activities in the West Bank and Gaza are illegal. The decision, states the Foundation's Ethics Council, obliges the Foundation to withdraw its investments from any company that has anything to do with Israel's activities in these areas.
The recommendation, which is usually accepted by the foundation's board of directors, is expected to affect Israel directly and indirectly. Directly, the fund will re-examine its investments in 77 companies in the country when these will be examined around the question of whether they have anything to do with activities that have been defined as illegal. This is an investment of 1.41 billion dollars, which is 0.1 percent of all the fund's investments all over the world.
The second and indirect effect on Israel stems from the enormous power of the fund in the international investment world. Today the fund holds shares at a rate of about 1.5 percent in eighty thousand companies around the world. Although this is a small amount of shares in each company, the size of the fund and its power may cause many companies, in which it invests, to consider their relationship with Israel. This is so that the fund will not withdraw its investments in them.
In addition, the fund will completely boycott global arms manufacturers that sell arms and ammunition and thus help Israel in the war. Among these companies are General Dynamics, General Electric and the RTX company, all companies that produce weapons that are also sold to Israel.
The rules of ethics for the fund's activity are determined by the Norwegian Parliament and the ethical recommendations derived from this are forwarded to the country's central bank, which is the body that manages the fund.
