Stop Funding Hate staff member accused of sharing inflammatory content online
A staff member of Stop Funding Hate, a group that encourages advertisers to boycott media that the organisation considers to be hateful, has been accused of sharing inflammatory content online.
Amanda Morris, a community organiser for Stop Funding Hate, shared posts with the hashtag “FromTheRiverToTheSea”.
The full line from which that phrase is taken, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, only makes sense as a call for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state — and its replacement with a State of Palestine — and is thus an attempt to deny Jews, uniquely, the right to self-determination, which is a breach of the International Definition of Antisemitism.
According to the Definition, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour)” is an example of antisemitism.
It has been reported that Ms Morris also previously described Israel as “genocidal”.
In a report, published by the Centre for Media Monitoring in 2021, Ms Morris allegedly disputed the description of the antisemitic genocidal terrorist group, Hamas, as an “Islamist group”.
In the same report Ms Morris suggested that journalists should “differentiate between Hamas the political party, and their military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigade” and argued that spokespeople for Hamas should be “given a platform to respond to allegations”.
In 2021, the UK Government proscribed Hamas as a terrorist organisation in full following several months of advocacy from Campaign Against Antisemitism.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “It is hard to square Amanda Morris’ history of comments, posts and associations with Stop Funding Hate’s philosophy of ‘open, inclusive and participatory campaigning’.
“Promoting antisemitic phrases like ‘From the River to the Sea’, which calls for the destruction of Israel; urging the media to give a platform to spokespeople from Hamas, an antisemitic genocidal terrorist group banned by the UK; and defending inflammatory politicians whose views have been rejected by their own political parties, are all red flags.
“How could Jewish people possibly feel included in any of SFH’s campaigning led by such an individual? And how on earth SFH could work with her?”
Stop Funding Hate has previously been accused of having “militant prejudice” after it was revealed that one of its strategic advisors had defended inflammatory tweets made by others.
Amanda Morris said: “I do not consider that the retweets in question are antisemitic. I have been critical of some of the actions of the state of Israel, but that does not mean that I am antisemitic – on the contrary, I am an opponent of all forms of racism including anti-Jewish racism.”
