This site's item on the planned Seattle bus ads that denounce aid to Israel for war crimes hit a nerve. Well it's a groundswell, as I said. Here's the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign that is spending the $1794 on the ads. Political awareness is coming to your community's consciousness soon!
Apparently those ads are getting opposition out in Seattle, and Cindy Corrie sent out the following appeal, via the US Campaign to End the Occupation, to take part in a readers' poll online:
Friends,
The Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign's effort to publicize Israeli War Crimes support with U.S. tax dollars on city buses is getting considerable attention. Story broke about this on Seattle King 5 TV Friday evening. The Jewish Federation has put out a letter opposing the ads.
If you haven't taken the simple step of voting in The King 5 TV poll about the effort, please do! And please pass along to your lists and let others know. Seattle activists will need support this week. Note that those supporting the ads surged ahead in the unofficial poll yesterday after we put word out - but today the opposition has taken the lead.
Over 4500 have voted in the poll in just over a day, and the story has been the first or second most read story for the past day - and the most frequently emailed. Comments are welcome.
link to bit.ly
I say let the ad run. It will be detrimental to the anti-Israeli campaign in the long run. If the Seattle buses approve those ads, will they be able not to approve ads showing the results of suicide bombings and asking people not to support Palestinians, or ads of this nature? Imagine those ads running with a budget of $1 million dollars instead of $1,794. You don’t come to a gun fight armed with a knife.
A smear campaign that escalates has one result. Both sides are liked less and the one with the bigger coffers “wins”. The Palestinians can only win in the US running a positive campaign explaining why they should be supported. That is how the Jews gained support in the US. It takes time and money, but that is the only thing that works.
That is how the Jews gained support in the US. It takes time and money
Oh, yes, eee, people are going to really appreciate Jewish organizations pouring their money into propaganda, buying support.
Given that the suicide bombings have ended and the resistance has shifted to nonviolence civil disobedience, what will Israel show, O EEE? Israel knocking down Palestinian homes? shooting protesters in the face with tear gas grenades? harassing old women at checkpoints? dissecting Palestinian corpses for transplant parts? how about IDF goons breaking Palestinian arms with rocks? Unfortunately, the visuals just aren’t there any more.
Here’s an idea: Alan Dershowitz in a bikini.
Please start fund-rasing eee. Palestine and Israel is EXACTLY what Americans need to be talking about, and the more the better – they need to get acquainted with some facts. I’ve already written rough copy for a reply ad:
“In Gaza, using weapons your taxes paid for, Israel killed more Palestinian civilians in 22 days than 15 years of suicide bombing”
And of course there’s a wealth of suitable imagery to accompany that text – in particular of the 300+ slaughtered children. Maybe with some fundraising we can run TV ads showing the [graphic] footage of a father in Gaza at the morgue with the bullet-ridden bodies of his 4 dead babies, and the news reporter on the verge of breaking down after the clip. The father is speaking Hebrew – so it’ll reasonate particularly with the American jewish community. Americans need to know what their tax dollars and President and Congress are supporting. Time for some real “reality” TV. And of course there’s plenty more, all that stuff the US networks like to pretend never happened.
I don’t think so. More than half a century of lies and deception, more like it. See Grant F Smith’s IRMEP (Institute for Research: Middle East Policy) and in particular the Israel lobby archive. Declassified documents from the Kennedy-era Senate Foreign Relations Committee goes into the nefarious activities of AIPAC and other zionist organisations, including their pro-Israel stealth PR campaign. Jeffrey Blankfort’s extended interview on the material with Smith from September this year is available here as mp3.
Do you honestly think Israel would win a PR battle if it we were to compare Palestinian violent resistance (which hardly exists anymore) to Israeli military occupation (which is in full force)?
You can’t even compare the two. The Israelis have a monopoly on violence in this conflict with their F-16′s, 2000 pound bombs, Advanced Battle Tanks, fully mobilized military etc. The Palestinians don’t have a single tank, airplane, or even advanced assault rifle to fight back with. They’ve resisted the Israeli juggernaut with home made weapons and rocks.
So do you honestly believe its in Israels best interest to highlight violence in this conflict, considering that Israel is responsible for more than 90% of the violence and deaths?
Your problem is that you think this is an “anti-Israel” campaign. This is a campaign against immorally reprehensible acts and criminal behavior.
But, since you and many other Zionists who support Israel, no matter how wrong, commit crimes and justify state terrorism on the ground that it is OK, so long as it’s in support of Israel, then you’ve already lost the campaign a long time ago.
You have long lost the moral high ground and have nothing but brutality and violence to offer.
Pro running the ads was at 51% when I voted.
Please also see this video, it’s intensely moving:
link to gilad.co.uk
Rachel giving a school speech as a little girl, Rachel in Gaza, etc.
link to gilad.co.uk
>> If the Seattle buses approve those ads, will they be able not to approve ads showing the results of suicide bombings and asking people not to support Palestinians, or ads of this nature?
They will pale in comparison with ads of past AND ON-GOING Israeli aggression, oppression, theft, destruction and murder.
>> Imagine those ads running with a budget of $1 million dollars instead of $1,794. You don’t come to a gun fight armed with a knife.
Y’see? That’s why you Zio-supremacism cultists are just so much better at being thugs!
>> A smear campaign that escalates has one result. Both sides are liked less and the one with the bigger coffers “wins”.
So why, in your first paragraph, did you threaten escalation?
>> The Palestinians can only win in the US running a positive campaign explaining why they should be supported. That is how the Jews gained support in the US. It takes time and money, but that is the only thing that works.
Pro-Israel campaigns have used intimidation, slander and falsehoods to make their case. Palestinians have been portrayed as terrorists; Israel’s neighbours have been demonized as “existential threats”; Israel’s crimes have been whitewashed; critics of Israel have been defamed; and WWII and [Remember] the Holocaust[!] have been dredged up time and again as fraudulent justification for the violent take-over of Palestine.
But, yes, with enough money you can even make (some) people believe that ethnic cleansing was necessary in order to create “a good in the world”.
” It takes time and money, but that is the only thing that works.”
Got a high opinion of Gentiles, don’t you? Say, “eee” why don’t you tell us about their “epistemology”.
I wish people would not get caught up in these useless online polls. Everyone knows that these mean next to nothing. so it’s about even now. it says nothing about what the people of Seattle, or the nation as a whole thinks of the issue, since there is no control about who is voting, and how many times they are voting.
Do something constructive. Write a letter to the editor. start thinking about how you can get a similar ad up in your community. This should be replicated in every city in the US.
I called Seattle’s Metro Transit (Metro 206-553-3000) and thanked a customer service rep who sounded rather rattled, indeed. She told me that there were “a lot” of angry phone calls, and that it is Metro Transit’s policy to support free speech, even if there are people who are angry at the messages.
They need to hear from people who feel that Israel’s actions *can* be discussed.
i called them too, they appreciated it.
Thanks, Annie! I appreciate it, too.
The silencing of discussion – making some opinions taboo, as blasphemy has been – says very scary things about the prevailing religion in this country.
Their number is 206.553.3000, call and thank them, I just did. I bet they are getting lots of abusive calls.
I spoke to Lynn, there, and she said that my call was one of the very few supportive ones. I think we need to pull together and get everyone who cares about open debate involved.
And I’m sure you don’t use the word “abusive” lightly. My experience with Zionists is that they are some of the nastiest, most uncivil people on the face of the Earth. I’ll bet there were a lot of threats about getting people fired or drummed up on hate crimes charges or spurious law suits or comparing them to Nazis and such.