As a member of the National NewsMedia Council, you are expected to strive for fairness in your reporting and avoid bias. In this article, you describe the chant as a "hateful antisemitic chant" without acknowledging that such a claim is highly disputed and that the phrase has many different understandings.
Dear Mr. Towie and Ms. Batra,
I am writing to you on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) to express my concerns regarding your article Bill Maher rips Billie Eilish over anti-ICE speech published on February 9, 2026.
My concern is with the sentence, “Maher compared Eilish’s remarks to the hateful antisemitic chant “From the river to the sea,” which is often heard at anti-Israel “Free Palestine” protests. The question that arises for me with this sentence is: Who has declared the use of the chant “from the river to the sea” as “antisemitic”?
Mr. Maher’s claim that “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” is “antisemitic” is both inaccurate and unsupported by the current understanding of the phrase. As many reputable Canadian outlets have shown, the chant has a variety of meanings and can be interpreted differently. It is a call for Palestinian liberation from settler colonialism, a call for the freedom and human rights of Palestinians to be respected across their homeland. As recently as July 2024, the Ontario Superior Court highlighted this very issue. The court’s ruling acknowledged the complexity of slogans like “From the River to the Sea, Palestine shall be free”. Recognizing that while some may find these phrases offensive, they do not constitute hate speech.
The irony of it all is that the “River to the Sea’ phrase was used in Netanyahu's own Likud Party’s 1977 platform and that it is being said publicly by Israeli officials to justify Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the ongoing occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people in Israel, the West Bank and Jerusalem.
As a member of the National NewsMedia Council, you are expected to strive for fairness in your reporting and avoid bias. In this article, you describe the chant as a "hateful antisemitic chant" without acknowledging that such a claim is highly disputed and that the phrase has many different understandings.
I highly recommend you modify the article by:
Removing the following sentences from the article: “Maher compared Eilish’s remarks to the hateful antisemitic chant “From the river to the sea,” which is often heard at anti-Israel “Free Palestine” protests. The people of Los Angeles will not move, and neither will all Israelis from Gaza,” Maher said.”
I urge you to seriously consider this revision.
Sincerely,
Debbie Hubbard
Kelowna, B.C.