Portland’s mass transit system is the latest to become a forum for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Weeks after a pro-Palestinian group placed an advertisement on Portland buses and trains, a pro-Israel group has replied with an ad it has also been running in New York, San Francisco and Washington D.C.
“In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad,” reads the ad, which appeared on buses and trains Tuesday morning.
The American Freedom Defense Initiative, a group run by blogger Pamela Geller, bought the ad that is scheduled to run for a month.
Geller, who once led a campaign against an Islamic center near the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack site, said the ad is a direct response to the pro-Palestinian ad campaign, and it will run in any city the anti-Israel ads appear.
“We are advertising on mass transit because that is where the vicious anti-Israel campaign is running their ads,” she wrote in an e-mail.
TriMet, the financially troubled regional mass transit agency, received $5,000 for the advertisement.
Until a few years ago, TriMet’s policy was to only accept ads that promoted goods and services. But a Multnomah County judge ruled in a 2008 free-speech case that the agency must accept all advertising on its vehicles, regardless of content.
TriMet challenged the ruling and the Oregon Supreme Court is reviewing it.
“We’re disappointed our vehicles have become a medium for divisive discussion, but at this time we have no other option except to allow the ad,” marketing director Drew Blevins said.
The ad the pro-Israel group is responding to was funded by Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights. It has appeared for about three weeks on 20 train cars and nine buses. It shows maps of Israeli territory expanding at the expense of Palestinians and reads: “Palestinian Loss of Land 1946-2012 - 4.7 million Palestinians are classified by the U.N. as refugees.”
Peter Miller, the group’s president, said advertising on trains and buses is one of the few ways to reach a lot of people “without totally breaking the bank.”
He disagreed with TriMet’s suggestion that commuters shouldn’t have to confront sensitive topics.
“I’m still surprised how Americans seem fearful of free speech,” he said. “We do live in a Democracy and we do need speech. Not just the concept of speech, but actual speech.”
Miller, however, said the competing pro-Israel display goes over the line because the term “savage” is racist and could incite violence against Muslims.
When asked why she chose the phrase, Geller wrote that “it’s accurate.”
“The war on Israel is a war on innocent civilians,” she wrote. “The targeting of civilians is savage. The relentless 60-year campaign of terror against the Jewish people is savage.”
She added another nine examples of what she described as savageness before concluding: “The list is endless.”