In the
last 75 years, radio, television, and now the Internet, have radically altered
the ways people are able to get their messages out to the public. Ironically,
however, in America it seems to be the old fashioned billboard on the side of
the road, highway, or railroad track that is most arousing Zionist jitters
these days.
Over the
past few years, billboard advertising campaigns have been launched in a number
of cities calling for an end to US aid to Israel. Reaction from Zionists has
varied from city to city. In 2010 Zionists in Seattle waged a successful
campaign to halt ads timed to coincide with the second anniversary of Operation
Cast Lead and which were contracted to appear on the sides of city busses. The
ads bore the words “Israeli war crimes,” but were effectively killed before
they even saw the light of day.
However,
by spring of this year, things seemed to have changed somewhat. A series of
billboards in Denver launched by The Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel was met not
with demands for removal, but by a counter campaign from the local chapter of
Stand With Us, a pro-Israel organization. One SWU member, Dr. Shaul
Gabbay, likened
the “dueling billboards” in Denver to a somewhat spirited dinner conversation.
“Both
perspectives are legitimate in terms of trying to influence the discourse here
in the United States,” he said. “When you have just one voice, we make
mistakes. When we have different and sometimes heated positions, then we can
make better decisions.”
Fascinating!
Israel supporters had progressed, so it appeared—from outright calls for
censorship, such as was seen in Seattle, to at least putting on an appearance
of being fair-minded and respectful of free speech, as portrayed in Denver.
And
indeed, to Coalition members it seemed like a definite change in the wind had
arrived, for they had fought long, hard battles with Israel supporters in an
effort to get their ads accepted by billboard companies—battles going all the
way back to 2009 when the Coalition put up its first billboards in Albuquerque,
New Mexico. That campaign—featuring a picture of a young Palestinian girl and
the words “Stop Killing Children: No More Military Aid to Israel”—got axed a
mere three weeks into what had initially been a two month contract period.
Now,
however, SWU seems, once again, to have done an about-face on the issue, and it
isn’t only them. Recently the ADL
criticized a New
York-area billboard campaign showing dispossession of Palestinians from their
land through a series of maps, and a New York Assembly member has called for
the ads to be taken down.
This controversy comes on the heels of the squelching of the Coalition’s recent
Los Angeles campaign, a campaign featuring ads identical to the ones in Denver
but which, as it turned out, met a far different fate.
The L.A.
ads were contracted with CBS Outdoor Advertising, a subsidiary of CBS, and went
up June 11 at 23 billboard locations throughout the city. Their removal just a
week later was cheered by SWU:
“People
and companies should avoid getting entangled with these anti-Israel activists,”
said SWU CEO Roz Rothstein. “They distort facts, exploit the good name of
organizations and companies, and harass those who disagree with them. We
certainly hope that well-meaning people who want peace in the Middle East are
not duped by their manipulations.”
What
distortion of facts? What manipulations? The ads read simply, “Tell Congress:
Spend Our Money at Home, Not on the Israeli Military”—with the American flag as
a backdrop. More importantly, in calling for “people and companies” to “avoid
getting entangled with these anti-Israel activists,” is Rothstein not issuing
what in effect amounts to a call for censorship?
“Yes,
Stand With Us appears to be calling for censorship,” said Armen Chakerian and
Susan Schuurman, of the Coalition to Stop 30 Billion, who recently discussed
the matter in an email exchange with this writer. “Contrast their position with
our position, which invites everyone with a fact-based perspective on Israel’s
treatment of the Palestinians and American support for that treatment to debate
these issues in the sunshine-filled open, not behind closed doors of members of
Congress’s offices.”
They
add: “We are confident that a rational debate will educate the American people
who are too busy putting food on the table and paying their mortgages to wade
through the myths in the AIPAC-scripted rhetoric we hear coming out of too many
politicians’ mouths.”
But an
open debate in the marketplace of ideas appears to be what Zionists cannot
tolerate. At its website, SWU, in rather exultant tones, announced the removal
of the ads in two separate articles (here and here ), lambasting the Coalition for
“distorting the facts,” and labeling the group “a fringe, extremist movement
that seeks to harm the U.S. and one of our most valuable allies, Israel.”
The
“before” and “after” graphic you see at the top of this post accompanied one of
the SWU articles, appearing underneath the headline “Anti-Israel Billboard Campaign Removed in Los Angeles,” while
the other article, headlined “Anti-Israel
Billboards Are Taken Down,” featured just the photo of the censored
billboard by itself.
SWU got
one thing right. The billboards were indeed taken down. But what facts
did the Coalition distort? It is here SWU engages in some fact distortion of
its own, as it accuses the group of implying “through its literature and
fundraising appeals that CBS Outdoor actually supported its anti-Israel cause.”
Did the
Coalition really claim that CBS
agreed with its call for an end to US military aid to Israel? Well, Stand With
Us says they did—and to bolster this
allegation they point to a) an online petition the Coalition set up calling on
people to thank CBS for accepting the ads; and b) an article that appeared at Mondoweiss under the headline “Billboard
campaign to end US aid to Israel hits LA—thanks to CBS.”
Taking these
in order: the online
petition praises
CBS for “posting billboards in Los Angeles that call for an end to American
military aid to Israel” and lauds the company for “demonstrating its support
for the basic American tradition of free speech.” Nowhere in the four sentences
of the petition can there be found any assertion that CBS agrees with the
Coalition’s political views on Israel.
The article at
Mondoweiss,
announcing the “exciting news” that the billboards had appeared in L.A., was
posted on June 13—two days after the ads went up. In it, reporter Annie Robbins
points out that “this is the largest advertising campaign launched by Stop 30
Billion thus far,” and that “millions of Americans will be exposed to these
billboards every day as commuters in the country’s second largest metropolitan
area are stuck in traffic on some of the most congested roads in the world.” But
as in the case with the petition, nowhere in Robbins’ story is there any
assertion that CBS agreed with the message on the billboards.
Nonetheless
Rothstein insists that “factual distortions” occurred, and alleges that such distortions
“characterize the anti-Israel campaigners.” She also faults the Coalition for
failing to “let the public know how much U.S. aid to Israel benefits America
and the American economy because 75 percent of it must be spent in this county”
and comments additionally, “They also mislead the public about who supports
their movement, as they did with CBS Outdoor.”
“People
and companies should avoid getting entangled with these anti-Israel activists.
They distort facts, exploit the good name of organizations and companies, and
harass those who disagree with them. We certainly hope that well-meaning people
who want peace in the Middle East are not duped by their manipulations,” she
concludes.
“We
would never have been so naïve as to assume or claim that CBS shared our point
of view regarding U.S. foreign policy,” counter Susan and Armen. “There’s a big
difference between supporting free speech and endorsing our specific position.
Our petition thanked CBS for giving us the same opportunity to put up our message
as any other advertiser without discrimination or censorship.”
They
also point to the fact that both articles at the SWU site are filed under the
tag “Anti-Semitism,” which in their view “says a lot.”
“Activists
working on Palestine solidarity work can only hear that charge so many times
before that label becomes nearly meaningless. Many of our members are Jewish
and we reject the notion that they are ‘self-hating’ Jews.”
Ads
critical of Israel are also under fire in Westchester County, New York, although
they apparently have not, at least as of yet, been taken down. Some locals,
however, are endeavoring mightily to achieve that. One is New York State
Assembly member Robert Castelli, who on July 13 wrote a
letter to the president of MTA Metro-North calling for the ads to be expunged. Somewhat like a
child trying to have his cake and eat it too, Castelli in his letter presents
himself as a supporter of the First Amendment—while at the same time advocating
censorship:
I
am a strong supporter of the First Amendment right of free speech in the
Constitution, and certainly a proponent that the people of Israel and Palestine
should live in harmony together.
However,
the subliminal message that this particular billboard carries is an
anti-Israeli message that I believe has just the opposite effect of creating
peace and harmony between the Israeli and Palestinian people. I therefore
believe that it would be in the best interest of our communities to remove the
billboard, for the sake of peace and harmony in our community.
 |
| New York State Assembly member Robert Castelli
called for the removal of these billboards in Westchester County, NY. |
Appearing
mainly in train stations, the ads were placed by the Committee for Peace in
Israel/Palestine, or COPIP, and depict a series of four maps that are familiar
to most Palestine solidarity activists. There is nothing offensive or
“anti-Semitic” about the text or imagery. Nonetheless Castelli seems to feel
local Jews are in danger of being traumatized by the message:
I
submit to you that by its very nature, it is inflammatory and directs a
negative message towards the State of Israel and her people…
Therefore, I respectfully request that you consider, out of respect for the
many Jewish members of our community, and people of Israeli origin living in
our community, the prudence of removing this, post-haste.
The ads
have also come under fire from the ADL, which views COPIP as “virulently anti-Israel,”
a label that seems more than a tad bit overblown. If you go to the COPIP
blogsite you’ll
find an article by Uri Avnery, as well as links to Jewish Voice for Peace, the
Middle East Children’s Alliance, and other relatively moderate organizations. The
blog roll even includes a link to the liberal Zionist J Street—but none of this
seems to be taken into account by ADL.
“These
billboards are deliberately misleading and biased and come with an agenda that
is fundamentally anti-Israel,” said Ron Meier, ADL’s New York regional director,
in a press release on the organization’s
website. “The
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is extremely complex and cannot be summarized in a
series of four maps.”
Is the
Palestine-Israeli conflict really that “complex”? How hard is it for a
layperson to fathom the idea that construction of illegal settlements on
unlawfully occupied land might be a hindrance to peace? The ADL press release stops
short of calling for the ads to be cancelled, yet it voices no opposition to
Castelli’s call for the same.
“This ad
campaign completely ignores the facts, including the history of land ownership
prior to 1948, Israel’s repeated efforts to exchange land for peace, and the
commitment of successive Israeli governments to achieving a two-state solution
with the Palestinians,” Meier says.
The
issue of the illegal settlements goes unmentioned, both in Meier’s statement
and in the ADL press release.
The
question arises as to how closely Castelli and the ADL may be working together.
In calling for the ads to be cancelled, did Castelli allow the Jewish
organization to avoid being sullied by having to issue such a censorship call
itself? Perhaps the lawmaker’s letter gives us a clue:
I
have forwarded, along with a photograph of the billboard, a background letter
from the Anti-Defamation League, which I believe you should read thoroughly
when considering what your options are in this case.
You have always been very receptive in the past. I hope this matter can be
resolved quickly. Should you wish to discuss the matter with me further, I am,
as always, at your disposal.
So far
as I know, the contents of the ADL letter mentioned by Castelli have not been
made public.
Castelli
isn’t the only politician joining the attack against the End Aid To Israel
billboard movement. On June 21, California Congressman Howard Berman sent a
letter to The
Coalition to Stop $30 Billion upbraiding the group for its L.A. billboard
campaign.
As
a member of the Los Angeles Congressional delegation, and the Ranking Member of
the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, I have heard from many of my
constituents in the San Fernando Valley concerned about the numerous billboard
advertisements your organization has placed throughout the LA area. As a strong
supporter of the Constitution, I do not question your right to publicly air
your views -- even if I must drive past them every morning. However, as a
Member of Congress who represents a community that overwhelmingly values the
strong bond between Washington and Jerusalem, I cannot remain silent and allow
your anti-Israel message to go unanswered.
As the
“Ranking Member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs,” Berman obviously
hopes to convey his firm grasp on how “complex” the Palestine-Israeli conflict
truly is, and he goes on to assure Coalition members that “you have a
fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship.” He
also alludes to “threats to wipe Israel off the map,” though surprisingly makes
no mention of Iran.
An
excerpt from Berman’s letter to the Coalition—publicly released and posted on
the congressman’s
website—is also
quoted at the SWU site…specifically the following passage boasting of America’s
presumed leadership of the ubiquitous but undefinable “international community”:
We
are the leading voice in the international community, and have the world’s most
powerful military, yet your organization would have us abandon our closest ally
in the Middle East and allow its deterrent capability to wither on the vine.
That is not the way to demonstrate international leadership.
But Armen
and Susan say it all kind of depends on how you look at it.
“We may
be the leading voice in the international community, but at the UN only three
nations in the world regularly agree with the U.S. government on issues
involving Israel: the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau, with a combined
population smaller than Modesto, California, and all economically dependent on
the U.S. Government,” they said.
“With
200 nuclear weapons deliverable by land-based missiles and by
submarine-launched cruise missiles, Israel’s deterrent capability is in no
danger of withering,” they added. “Israel may be our closest ally in the Middle
East, but that doesn’t mean this alliance is in our national interest. Our
support has little to do with rational considerations of strategic advantage
and much to do with American domestic politics.”
CBS did
not return phone calls requesting clarification on why it cancelled the ads. Susan
and Armen say they were informed in a curt email that the decision was made
because “your organization has used the ‘CBS Outdoor’ name without
permission”—apparently in its online petition.
“Our
belief is that CBS manufactured an excuse to pull down our billboards because
of their controversial nature,” they said. “We’ve been thrilled with the
response we’ve gotten to our campaign to call CBS and ask for our billboards to
go back up. Whether or not the billboards go back up in this community using
this company, we are confident that this message continues to resonate with a
growing number of Americans every day. In fact, another major city is already
planning its own billboard campaign inspired in part by our continued success.”
**************
Billboard Wars: Do the Same Rules
Apply to Both Sides?
The word
most in vogue with Zionists these days is “incitement.” Anytime a billboard
criticizing Israel pops up, incitement is the charge that seems to get leveled.
One becomes guilty either of inciting against Israel, or against the Jewish
people as a whole.
The word
incitement is used five times in a 2011 press release put out by the pro-Israel
American Freedom Defense Initiative attacking this Seattle billboard—an ad that
remained up only a few days before being censored:
More
recently, following the cancellation of this series of ads in Los Angeles…
two
articles—triumphantly announcing the ad campaign’s demise—appeared at the Stand
With Us website (see here and here ), both filed under the tag
“incitement.”
The word
is also featured prominently at numerous pro-Israel web sites ( for example here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, to name but a few), and even
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who in the past has been accused
of chronic
submissiveness
toward Israel and the US, now finds himself branded a vicious inciter of hatred against the Jewish state. If
Abbas can be so judged, what hope is there for the rest of us?
But it
isn’t only the hive-mentality adoption of certain words that we are witnessing
in the electro-magnetic hasbara waves sweeping America currently. Consider: politicians
have clout with the business community. That’s the way things work. The
business of America is business, and when powerful politicians start calling on
billboard companies to remove advertisements they dislike, the ad’s chances of
remaining up are not especially good.
On July
13, Robert Castelli, a member of the New York State Assembly, wrote a letter to
Howard R. Permut, president of the MTA Metro-North Railroad, calling for
removal of billboards that had recently begun appearing at train stations in
Westchester County, New York. The ads show the loss of Palestinian lands over a
64-year period through a series of four maps. The Metro-North Railroad is a
subsidiary of New York’s state Metropolitan Transportation Authority. How long
will such ads stay up with that kind of pressure coming down from a state
Assembly member?
“While
this billboard has been placed by an organization calling itself the ‘Committee
for Peace in Israel and Palestine’ (COPIP), and there is no offensive language
on the message, I submit to you that by its very nature, it is inflammatory and
directs a negative message towards the State of Israel and her people,” Castelli
states in his letter to Permut.
“You
have always been very receptive in the past,” the state assemblyman goes on to
remark. “I hope this matter can be resolved quickly. Should you wish to discuss
this matter with me further, I am, as always, at your disposal.”
Meanwhile,
out on the west coast, California Congressman Howard Berman has joined in a
series of attacks upon the billboard campaign of the Coalition to Stop $30
Billion to Israel and their ads featuring an American flag as a backdrop with the
words “Tell Congress: Spend Our Money at Home, Not on the Israeli Military.”
In a
June 21 letter—sent to the Coalition and also posted on his website—Berman describes Israel as “a
small nation surrounded by countries and terrorist groups that are committed to
its destruction” and lets it be known he cares little for the signs.
As
a member of the Los Angeles Congressional delegation, and the Ranking Member of
the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, I have heard from many of my
constituents in the San Fernando Valley concerned about the numerous billboard
advertisements your organization has placed throughout the LA area. As a strong
supporter of the Constitution, I do not question your right to publicly air
your views -- even if I must drive past them every morning. However, as a
Member of Congress who represents a community that overwhelmingly values the
strong bond between Washington and Jerusalem, I cannot remain silent and allow
your anti-Israel message to go unanswered.
 |
Rep.
Howard Berman would prefer not to have to drive past this billboard every
morning. He doesn’t any more. The ads were canceled by CBS Outdoor. |
In a
press release accompanying the letter, put out by his congressional staff,
Berman additionally remarks:
My
constituents sent me to Washington in large part to fight for a stronger
U.S.-Israel relationship. This has been, and will continue to be one my (sic)
top legislative priorities in Congress. I am not going to stand by and remain
silent as some outside group comes into our community with these outrageous
billboards calling for an end to our security partnership with Israel. I
believe in a strong U.S.-Israel relationship and so do my constituents.
The same
press release goes on to quote Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean with the
Simon Wiesenthal Center:
The
Simon Wiesenthal Center thanks Congressman Berman for his timely, focus (sic)
and informed rebuke of the group whose anti-Israel campaign is based on a lie.
At a time when thousands of innocent men, women and children are butchered by
the regime in Syria, when Christian Copts are targeted for terrorism violence
and threats in Egypt, it is telling that this group continues to pursue its
extreme anti-Israel propaganda campaign, something that won’t help a single
Palestinian.
Berman
has been in Congress for 29 years. How closely will billboard companies sit up
and take notice when a Congress member with this much seniority voices
displeasure at something? The answer to this perhaps remains unclear, although well
worth noting is that the ads were
cancelled.
Presumably
in an effort to offer “balance” to the debate, the pro-Israel side has joined
the fight with billboards of its own. The above-mentioned American Freedom
Defense Initiative (AFDI), headed by Pamela Geller of the Atlas Shrugs blog,
sought in September of last year to place ads on the sides of New York City
busses depicting Israel and its supporters as “civilized” and opponents of the
Jewish state conversely as “savages.” Specifically, the content would read: “In
Any War Between the Civilized Man and the Savage, Support the Civilized Man.
Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” At a cost of approximately $25,000, the ads were
to have run on some 318 New York City busses for a total of four weeks.
 |
Judge
Paul Engelmayer believes this ad from the AFDI represents “core political
speech”
that must be “afforded the highest level of protection under the First
Amendment.” |
The ads
were expressly represented as a response to this ad which had been put up in
the same area by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation:
But the AFDI’s
ad was rejected by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on the grounds
that it violated its policies prohibiting “images or information that demean an
individual or group of individuals on account of race, color, religion,
national origin, ancestry, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation.” Does
a public transit authority have the legal right to refuse ads that might
promote racism? One would reasonably assume they might.
However,
AFDI took the case to court, claiming the MTA had violated its
free speech rights, and on July 20, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer
ruled that the transit agency must allow the ads:
As
a threshold matter, the Court notes that the AFDI Ad is not only protected
speech—it is core political speech. The Ad expresses AFDI’s pro-Israel
perspective on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in the Middle East, and
implicitly calls for a pro-Israel U.S. foreign policy with regard to that
conflict. The AFDI Ad is, further, a form of response to political ads on the
same subject that have appeared in the same space. As such, the AFDI Ad is
afforded the highest level of protection under the First Amendment.
Other
than upholding the “free speech” rights of corporations to purchase elections,
it is relatively rare these days to find a US court issuing a ruling validating
the first amendment. As the Occupy protests have shown, the right to publicly
assemble and engage in free speech has been all but abrogated for many average
Americans. Engelmayer’s entire 35-page opinion may be accessed here.
Another
question, of course, is would this same judge—or any other judge in America for
that matter—have issued a ruling requiring a transit authority or billboard
company to accept ads depicting Jews as “savages”? In the climate that exists
in the United States today—where people have paid heavy prices for voicing
criticism of Israel or Zionism—it is hard to imagine such a ruling being handed
down.
The
irony of all this is certainly not lost on members of the Coalition to Stop $30
Billion, which made a deliberate decision back in 2009 to soften and tone down
its message in order to increase chances of getting its ads accepted by billboard
companies. The Coalition’s very first billboard went up in the city of
Albuquerque, New Mexico on April 8, 2009. It is important to remember—this was
three months after Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, which resulted in the deaths
of some 1,400 Gazans, approximately 300 of whom were children. The ads read:
“Stop Killing Children: No More Military Aid to Israel.”
Immediately
howls of protest erupted. Local media covered the controversy, and Sean Hannity
led off one of his daily radio shows by blasting the signs. It was apparently all
too much for Lamar Outdoor Advertising, which took down the ads three weeks
into what had initially been a two-month contract period. Lamar’s local manager
in Albuquerque commented that “the advertising was removed due to numerous
complaints questioning the facts.”
Coalition
members Armen Chakerian and Susan Schuurman say a decision was made at this
time to tone down the message—to “Spend Our Money at Home, Not on the Israeli
Military”—and it seemed to work. They were able to put up two full-sized
billboards at two locations for several months each.
But the
road ever since has been filled with ups and downs. Ads identical to the ones
that were censored in L.A., were accepted in Denver earlier this year. But that
was in April. Now the campaign being waged by the pro-Israel Stand With Us
organization is (see story above) is beginning to grow rather virulent.
“People
and companies should avoid getting entangled with these anti-Israel activists,”
says SWU CEO Roz Rothstein. “They distort facts, exploit the good name of
organizations and companies, and harass those who disagree with them. We
certainly hope that well-meaning people who want peace in the Middle East are
not duped by their manipulations.”
Statements
like this could be viewed as a sign of paranoia in Zionist ranks over Israel’s
deteriorating public image and its crumbling legitimacy—and indeed that seems
to be how Chakerian and Schuurman look at it.
“It’s
really beyond the realm of credulity to think we’d be so green to think CBS was
explicitly endorsing our position. Then again, maybe we are setting the bar too
low. Perhaps we should start expecting large media corporations to see what the
rest of the world is beginning more and more to see, namely that the Israeli
government has gone too far and that the tired, old clichés about anti-Semitism
in response to justified criticism of Israeli policy just aren’t cutting it
anymore.”
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
