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 submissivenesstoward 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.
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| 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 werecancelled.
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.
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| 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.
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