BART, Muni and cable car commuters this week may have noticed a new ad up in a few stations. The campaign’s posters feature a warm and fuzzy photo of two smiling grandfathers — one Israeli, the other Palestinian — each holding a grandchild, with a caption that reads: “End U.S. military aid to Israel.”
The billboard campaign, co-sponsored by several local groups hostile to Israel, is one more salvo in the ongoing media war to erode public support for the Jewish state.
Of course, the First Amendment gives the sponsors of this campaign a perfect right to place these ads. No matter how misguided or misleading, the posters fall well within the parameters of free speech.
Unfortunately, many passers-by unfamiliar with the facts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may not know enough to ask the deeper questions in response to these ads.
Questions such as:
Is U.S. military aid to Israel money well spent? Considering that Israel remains our closest ally in the region, a bastion of democracy surrounded by tyrannies in various stages of upheaval, we believe the answer is “Absolutely, yes.”
Also, what is the underlying agenda of some of the groups behind the campaign? Those sponsors include Jewish Voice for Peace, Bay Area Women in Black, the Middle East Children’s Alliance, Northern California Friends of Sabeel and American Muslims for Palestine.
Let’s examine just the latter two. In the FAQ section of the Friends of Sabeel website, the organization’s international leader, Naim Ateek, calls for a two-state solution merely as a first step toward a bi-national “confederation.” Such an outcome indisputably would result in an end to a Jewish state of Israel, something that must never be allowed to happen.
The chairman of American Muslims for Palestine, Hatem Bazian, is a U.C. Berkeley professor who stood before a crowded demonstration on the Cal campus in 2004 and asked, “Why can’t we have an intifada in this country?”
And that’s from only two of the campaign sponsors.
So when their transit station posters say “Build peace with justice and equality,” we seriously question the ulterior motives of the sponsors.
These groups can plaster all the posters they wish. Now it is time for those who support Israel to step up and counter such misleading campaigns. Within the pro-Israel community there exists the will, the means and the talent to do so.
In fact, StandWithUs, which has a San Francisco chapter, is already planning to run just such a transit station counter-campaign in the near future.
The media war continues. Supporters of Israel need to win some of the battles.