#BDS_Fail: BDS'ers cause Port of Oakland to lose business to LA
For the second time in recent weeks, a ship owned by an Israeli company was prevented from unloading at the Port of Oakland (California). But this time, instead of circling around until it could sneak in, the ship sailed for the Port of Los Angeles, arriving on Tuesday morning. If this works out, Zim may use Los Angeles, rather than Oakland as a port of call, which could result in a loss of jobs in a very hard-hit port.
The Zim Shanghai docked in Los Angeles on Tuesday morning, according to
tracking by the website marinetraffic.com. It was still carrying its
original cargo.
The ship, which is owned by Zim Integrated
Shipping Services, Israel’s largest shipping company, was unable to
unload Saturday after some 200 activists prevented workers at the
Oakland Port from getting near the ship. Approximately 50 police
officers were on hand but did not intervene.
The International
Longshore and Warehouse Union released a statement saying, “The ILWU is
not among the groups organizing the protests, and the leadership and
membership of the ILWU have taken no position on the Israel/Gaza
conflict.”
A container ship stalled by
protesters at the Port of Oakland for four days was unloaded by
longshore workers and sailed away early Wednesday, officials said.
The
unloading of the ZIM vessel Piraeus, operated by an Israeli company,
had been delayed by Block the Boat protesters responding to recent
Israeli military actions in Gaza.
The ship was unloaded at Berth 22 in the area known as Ports America Outer Harbor, Port spokesman Robert Bernardo said.
...
Because of a small number
of protesters and minimal police presence remained, longshore workers
"determined that the atmosphere did not pose a threat to their safety,"
allowing them to safely enter and work the vessel, ILWU Local 10 said in
a news release.
Jennifer Sargent, a union spokeswoman, said
Wednesday that after some delays, 30 longshore workers began unloading
the ship at 10 p.m. Tuesday and finished at 4 a.m. Wednesday.
The
ship, which departed later on Wednesday morning, was carrying crates of
sparkling wine and ceramic tiles from Spain, cheese and long-grain rice
from Italy and organic red lentils and marble from Turkey among other
items. Commodities from Israel included irrigation equipment, solar
heaters for swimming pools and tires, according to the ship's manifest.
Even though the ship was eventually unloaded, Block the Boat called the four-day delay a "historic victory."
The
delay sparked concerns by another union, the Teamsters Joint Council 7 .
During the protest, the union issued a statement calling on longshore
workers to "immediately unload the ship" and said their issue was not
the Isreal/Palestine conflict, but the impact the protests have on local
jobs.
"Our members haul containers from the Port of Oakland by
truck and rail and anything that hurts commerce hurts our members and
damages the economy of the Bay Area," said Rome Aloise, Vice President
of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and President of Teamsters
Joint Council 7.
Let the Teamsters knock some heads together - that will take care of them.
It took four days and required a fake feint toward Los Angeles, but unloading of a Zim cargo ship finally started in the Port of Oakland on Tuesday night.
Demonstrators scrambled to shore up their forces at the Port of
Oakland Tuesday night after a cargo ship they had blocked from unloading
as a protest against Israel's military actions in Gaza set sail for Los
Angeles then abruptly made a U-turn and headed back to Oakland.
Despite the protesters' efforts, longshore workers began unloading the vessel late Tuesday.
Pro-Palestinian
activists who had protested the presence of the ship Piraeus since
Saturday put out urgent mobilization calls for demonstrators to head to
the waterfront. Those calls came after online tracking databases showed
the vessel heading under the Bay Bridge and back toward Oakland shortly
after 6 p.m.
Just three hours earlier, the Piraeus had left port
with a reported destination of Los Angeles. It sailed through the Golden
Gate and into the Pacific, then turned around and headed back to a new
berth in Oakland.
Protesters, some of whom never believed that the
ship would head south, scrambled to meet the ship. About 30 marched
slowly in a circle off Maritime Street, blocking the entrance to the
port as longshore workers looked on from across the street.
...
Longshore workers responsible for unloading the vessel refused to do
so, not because they are taking sides in the fight between Israel and Hamas, but because they would not work "under armed police escort - not with our experience with the police in this community," said Melvin MacKay, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10.
On
Tuesday night, however, because there was no "safety issue," longshore
workers reported for work and were unloading the ship, even as
protesters continued to block the entrance, said union spokeswoman Jennifer Sargent.
Union
officials said longshore workers have been concerned about port safety
during demonstrations since several people protesting the Iraq War were
injured in a 2003 port rally.
Oakland police fired nonlethal
projectiles, including wood bullets and bean bags, without provocation
and without allowing protesters a chance to disperse.
Protests over the Piraeus have been peaceful.
The Israeli government owns 32% of Zim. The rest is owned by banks and shipping companies worldwide. The ship was not carrying cargo to or from Israel. Sounds like a #BDS_Fail to me.
Anti-Israel protesters prevent Zim ship from unloading in Oakland... for now
For the second day running activists and community members in the Bay
Area converged at the gates of the Port of Oakland to prevent an Israeli owned
Zim Integrated Shipping Services vessel from unloading its cargo.
Let's go to the videotape.
Here's a report from Monday afternoon San Francisco time:
The activists formed pickets at several Port gates to prevent workers from unloading the Piraeus, a vessel from Zim Integrated Shipping Services, Israel's largest shipping firm. The ship docked at 5 p.m. at the port's Oakland International Container Terminal, and protesters communicating via Twitter said port employees were honoring their picket lines.
"It's
my understanding that labor did not report to work for the 7 p.m. shift
at the Oakland International Terminal," port spokeswoman Marilyn Sandifur said Sunday evening. "All other port operations are unaffected."
...
Organizing under the motto "Block the Boat," they first expected the
ship to reach Oakland early Saturday morning. Word that the ship's
arrival had been delayed led activists to rally at the port Saturday
afternoon instead, in a large procession waving Palestinian flags and
signs reading "Let Gaza Live."
Then, as the ship neared the Golden
Gate on Sunday afternoon, tracked by the online service Marine Traffic,
activists returned to the port.
The ship was carrying cargo from Asia and not from Israel. According to former Naval Intelligence Officer Jennifer Dyer, what's enabled the 'activists' to keep the ship away from the port has been cooperation from the local branch of the ILWU - the International Longshoremens' Workers Union. According to Dyer, that cooperation is unlikely to continue for very long.
Under normal circumstances, the port operator and the longshoremen’s
union would have an arbiter adjudicate such a situation, since the
longshoremen would be bound contractually to show up for work and unload
the ZIM Piraeus’s cargo. There would be a third party
imposing some accountability on the union. But this is one of a handful
of reasons why the current BDS triumph is likely to have little
impact. The longshoremen’s contract expired on 1 July, and they’ve been
working in the weeks since without one. That makes their status a gray
area – but it’s a condition specific to the present moment.
...
The ILWU (International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union) does have a unique history of showing solidarity
with organized radicals as well as with other unions, a history that
has been made largely in the San Francisco Bay area, Seattle, and
Vancouver. The ILWU split from the AFL-CIO – at the umbrella body’s request – in 2013, in part because of this very pattern.
But a very big thing has not happened in this latest
iteration of BDS anti-cargo activism, and that’s spreading the BDS fever
to the port facilities – and union workers – in southern California.
The Oakland port processes a healthy 9% of all the tonnage
handled in the major West coast ports. But the four main southern
California ports – the behemoths of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and the
ports of San Diego and Port Hueneme – between them process 64% of all
the West coast tonnage. Los Angeles and Long Beach alone account for
60%.
The BDS movement doesn’t have a triumph to claim in SoCal. The very
most the Bay-area BDSers are likely to do, if they can manage to hold
out long enough, is divert some minute percentage of container traffic
to SoCal. Even if they only succeed in diverting it to other NorCal
ports (of which there are several, and all hungry), they will be doing
the economy of Oakland no favors.
Shippers are in any case already worried about conditions up and down the coast,
given the lack of a current contract for the ILWU workers. Although
it’s possible to make ZIM America take a relatively minor loss in the
short run, what the BDSers would do, if they hung in there for days or
weeks and made problems for the port, is drive all freight-moving
contractors further away from West coast ports, and even, more
generally, from the seaborne container shipping on which thousands of
American jobs depend.
The other shippers, meanwhile, may or may not have political sympathy
for ZIM, but none of the shippers likes the idea of radicals singling
out one shipping firm for political reasons. That could happen to
anyone.
Ultimately, whatever the ILWU 10 local may want, the other union
leaders up and down the coast have a main priority of keeping their
members in good jobs with good benefits. (The parent union also has
purse strings to pull on compensation, for workers in a local that
doesn’t work its shift. ILWU 10 can’t keep this up indefinitely.)
It’s not in the union’s interest to see the Oakland situation develop
into a standoff in which SSA Marine has to consider bringing in
picket-line crossers. The “picket line” in question isn’t a labor
picket line. And the ILWU is no longer affiliated with the AFL-CIO, so
it lacks that political backing; if politicians got involved with this
as a political-economic issue for their constituents, the commitment of
even Bay-area stalwarts like Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown to
“Palestinian” radicalism would fail the test.
The BDS activists are the most expendable comrades in this mix – and
even the most radical-friendly unions can probably be divided from them
if push comes to shove. That said, readers will not be surprised to
learn that the usual suspects showed up for the protests this weekend.
Video: Anti-Semites assault pro-Israel chalk artist in Oakland
In this video, you will see a group of anti-Semites assault two people who were writing pro-Israel slogans with chalk on a sidewalk in Oakland, California. The anti-Semites showed up for a rally to mark the fourth anniversary of one Tristan Anderson, a member of the terrorist International Solidarity Movement being shot in the head with a teargas grenade while attending a demonstration in Israel.
According to Pro-Israel Bay Area Bloggers, which has much more about this story, the dirty blonde with the filthy mouth is Gabby Silverman, who is Anderson's girlfriend. They have a mug shot of her from a previous arrest, and link to this Facebook page for the event, in which she describes what was happening in the video:
Ok, so here's what's going on in the video. We created a space at the plaza to chalk the names of our dead friends and imprisoned comrades and these zionist pieces of shit chalk "am yisrael chai" over it. This is exactly the settler colonialist mindset that we are fighting against, putting their right wing bullshit over the space for our dead friends. "am yisrael chai" means "the people of Israel live", which seems mellow enough but its the main slogan of the right wing. My only regret is calling her a whore. That was inappropriate and I'm sorry. Solidarity with whores everywhere!
If you go to the Facebook page, make sure to read the comments!
San Francisco bus ad: 'Killing Jews is worship that draws us closer to Allah'
The ad above is appearing on buses in San Francisco, and this time it was not placed by the jihadis. It was placed by Pam Geller's American Freedom Defense Initiative and it's meant to show the reality of jihad. The ads have San Francisco Leftists bouncing off the walls.
Several San Francisco city leaders, including District Attorney George Gascon, have condemned the campaign.
“San Francisco won’t tolerate Islamophobic bigotry,” said Gascon.
“The only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good people to look
the other way and do nothing.”
Board of Supervisors President David Chiu said the American Freedom
Defense Initiative is made of “well-known hate extremists” and said he
is introducing a resolution at Tuesday’s board meeting to denounce the
ads.
Geller said the ads were a response to another bus ad campaign earlier this year by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
That campaign sought to disassociate the word “jihad” with violence
and reclaim its meaning as “the struggle,” which is a central tenet of
Islam.
Yitzhak Santis reports on the curious silence of non-governmental organizations during the massive 'Palestinian' rocket fire that led up to Operation Pillar of Defense, followed by massive screaming once Israel responded. What's worse, each rocket from the 'Palestinians' that targeted civilians was a war crime, while each precisely targeted Israeli missile (the civilian to combatant kill ratio of less than 1 to 1 is pretty much unprecedented even in modern warfare) was a legitimate response under international law.
In the weeks prior to Operation Pillar of Defense, one such group, the
Oakland-based Jewish Voice for Peace, lost its voice when Hamas and
other terror groups were bombarding southern Israel. JVP was silent as 1
million Israelis were forced into shelters, as dozens were wounded, and
children were traumatized.
Only after the Israel Defense Forces responded was JVP’s laryngitis
cured. In record time, they created a section on their website called
“Take Action for Gaza” complete with links to anti-Israel protests
around the world (at the Nov. 16 San Francisco protest promoted on this
list, “peace activists” chanted “Zionist scum, your time has come”) and a
“Gaza protest toolkit.” The “toolkit” offers downloadable graphics with
slogans like “Another Jew Against Attacks on Civilians. Stop the Bombs.
Stop the Siege. Stop the Blank Check to the Israeli Military with U.S.
Tax Dollars.”
But JVP offers no slogans protesting Hamas war crimes against Israeli civilians.
In a further display of cynically exploiting moral values, JVP’s
official press release explicitly blames the Gaza crisis on Israel. Not
until the statement’s fourth sentence, without naming Hamas or any other
terror group, does JVP “also urge the end of rocket attacks from Gaza
into civilian communities in Israel.” Their statement also holds Israel
responsible “for the well-being and safety of Palestinian civilians in
Gaza.” But JVP fails to hold Hamas responsible for the safety of Israeli
civilians. Nor does JVP’s statement demand that Hamas protect Gazans
situated near weapons depots and launch sites deliberately placed by
Hamas in populated areas.
Amnesty International, which has a history of intense anti-Israeli
ideological bias, was also silent during the weeks of Hamas rocket
attacks. Like JVP, Amnesty released a statement only after the IDF
responded, condemning Israel for placing “civilians in Gaza and southern
Israel at grave risk by re-igniting the armed conflict there.” In this
warped and immoral logic, it is not Hamas that is guilty of war crimes,
but rather the IDF and Israeli officials who are defending their
citizens.
The pattern of silence in the face of Israeli civilian suffering, and
thunderous condemnation when Israel defends its citizens, is repeated
by dozens of other NGOs (primarily funded by the EU, European
governments, and in some cases, the New Israel Fund), such as the
Alternative Information Center, Oxfam International, Physicians for
Human Rights-Israel, Gisha, Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Medical
Aid for Palestinians, BADIL, Sabeel, and many more.
This is nothing new.
...
For these NGOs, the rights of millions of Israelis to live in security
are secondary to their program of undermining Israel’s right to defend
its citizens. In this way these NGOs act, whether by design or by
accident, as the de facto soft power arm for Hamas and its ilk.
But these NGO's are more than just silent. They are anti-Semitic, even if they cynically use the word 'Jewish' in their name. Here's a video of one of their demonstrations.
In this video, a large crowd of Far Left and
Muslim extremists was hyped up into hateful frenzy by anti-Semitic
speakers. A 62-year old man got kicked karate style in the abdomen just
because he was filming the event.
San Francisco counters Geller ads with Sharia compliant ads
The City of San Francisco was too scared of a lawsuit to refuse to run Pam Geller's ads like the one above, but it has decided to counter them by placing ads next to each one saying "Muni doesn't support this message" (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
This is unprecedented in the history of outdoor advertising. This is the manifestation of Sharia in Western society. Any war on innocent civilians is savage. They are reading the idea that "all Muslims" or "all Arabs" want to destroy Israel into my ad. That is nowhere in my message. They are the Islamophobes and racists.
The rush to assure the world that the "Palestinian" jihadists [...] are not savages amazes me. The war on Israel is a war on innocent civilians. The targeting of civilians is savage. The relentless 60-year campaign of terror against the Jewish people is savage. The torture of hostage Gilad Shalit was savage. The bloody hacking to death of the Fogel family was savage. The Munich Olympic massacre was savage. The unspeakable torture of Ehud Goldwasser was savage. The tens of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel (into schools, homes, etc.) are savage. The vicious Jew-hatred behind this genocide is savage. The endless demonization of the Jewish people in the Palestinian and Arab media is savage. The refusal to recognize the state of Israel as a Jewish state is savage. The list is endless.
But what galls me are the scores of anti-Israel ads that ran without a disclaimer. Why didn't they have a problem with the anti-Jewish ads? San Francisco has run a number of anti-israel ad campaigns. Why did they not run this disclaimer next to those ads? That silence is sanction and tacit approval. Institutionalized anti-semitism. Who cares if Muni approves the message or not? It is not their job to agree or disagree.
Indeed.
And guess who's attacking Pamela again.... Is Chuckles incapable of seeing past his personal hatred of Pamela to understand that her position is reasonable, or is he in league with the anti-Semites?
Terry is a well known Bay area anti-Israel activist. Has he been bewitched by the E-vul Zionist with her E-vul eye thing? Or could he simply be a nutbar? (Psssst. My money's on "nutbar" )
Terry is another entry in a series on bright, articulate Palestinian supporters in the Bay area.
Pam Geller on ABC News in San Francisco talking about bus ads
This is Pam Geller's description of her video about the pro-Israel bus advertisements in San Francisco.
Mark Matthews of ABC News (KGO TV), San Francisco, did a news report on our pro-Israel bus ads that just hit the streets. In it, Matthews proselytizes for Islam, redefines jihad, and makes a bit of a fool of himself. He falls over himself to get the Islamic perspective but runs no counter to their claims. He spent a good deal of time during our interview arguing about the word "savage." I explained that any war on innocent civilians was savagery. Matthews countered that both the US and Israel have killed innocent civilians and I shot back that the US and Israel never target innocent civilians, ever. The deaths of innocent civilians are the tragic consequence of war sometimes. The war on Israel, OTOH, is a war on innocent civilians. Needless to say, that never made it onto the broadcast interview.
Another advertising food fight on San Francisco's BART
There's going to be another food fight on BART - Bay Area Rapid Transit - which is the San Francisco Bay area's public transportation system.
For the fourth time in this past year, StandWithUs is countering anti-Israel BART ads that call for ending US military aid to Israel. But this time, StandWithUs has decided to change the subject. Instead of correcting the misinformation, the StandWithUs ad campaign will highlight Israel’s gifts to the world and to the Bay Area in particular.
One poster underlines that “Israel Saves Water” through cutting edge water conservation technology that is being used in Sonoma County. A second poster shows how “Israel Saves Lives” through its innovative AIDS treatment which targets infected cells without harming healthy cells, and may lead to a cure for this dread disease.
The posters on water conservation and HIV will appear in key BART locations from June 18th to July 17th. They will be located above the down escalator at the BART station in downtown Berkeley and at the Civic Center station in San Francisco. There will also be platform ads in the Bart stations at the Embarcadero, the Civic Center, Powell Street, and in downtown Berkeley, the Mac Arthur station, and the 12th Street Station in Oakland.
“Instead of focusing on the misinformation in the anti-Israel ads, we decided to focus on some of Israel’s remarkable contributions to the world and to Bay Area residents specifically. The anti-Israel activists continuously try to turn Americans against Israel with negative billboard and other messages. Our ads focus on the real Israel--its vibrancy, creativity, and humanitarianism. Our goal is to inspire viewers with hope that some of the world’s toughest problems can be solved, and to let them know that Israel is on the forefront, working alongside the U.S. to solve those problems ,” explained Roz Rothstein, StandWithUs CEO.
StandWithUs’ educational resources document why U.S. military aid to Israel benefits both countries. In its print materials, lectures, and Internet resources, StandWithUs underscores that Israel and the U.S. have shared values and aspirations, and shared challenges. Most Americans are aware that Israel is on the front lines of terrorism, and faces ongoing threats from terrorist cells in the West Bank and from the terrorist group Hamas which has fired thousands of rockets from Gaza into southern Israeli communities. Americans know that Israel must be militarily strong to protect its citizens and others in the region from the fanatical Iranian regime that repeatedly spews genocidal rhetoric against Israel. Most Americans know that it is the height of irresponsibility to call for an end to military aid to Israel while Iran races toward nuclear weapons capability and regional hegemony. Above all, most Americans know that blaming Israel alone as the obstacle to peace ignores the context of Palestinian extremism, terrorism, and refusal to adhere to its signed commitments to continue direct negotiations.
“At StandWithUs we look at problems as opportunities. As anti-Israel activists continue to display their typical negative ads which omit the Palestinian responsibility for the stalled peace process, we have a choice. We could directly counter them and set the record straight, which we do in all our work, or we could inform the public about Israel’s achievements in helping make the world, and the Bay Area in particular, a better place. We decided to use this opportunity for an uplifting message,” said Rothstein.
Despite the ongoing threats it faces, Israel has put its energies into research and development and humanitarianism as highlighted in the StandWithUs posters. “We hope that those who publicize misinformation about Israel understand that every time they do, we will be there to correct the facts and to inform the public that Israel is a light among nations ,” affirmed Rothstein.
For more information about Israel’s water conservation technology, see http://www.jewishnewsdaily.com/jewish-world-news/israel-plunges-into-water-technology/ and for more information about the Sonoma County program, see: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/37046.wss
For more information about the AIDS cure, see: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/hebrew-u-researchers-develop-treatment-to-kill-hiv-cells-1.311823
For more information about the electric cars, go here A Better Place, http://www.betterplace.com/the-company-leadership and the Plug-in Car: http://www.plugincars.com/sf-bay-area-deploy-battery-swappable-electric-taxis-101948.html
I moved the ads around. One pro-Israel ad is at the top, and the second one is at the bottom with the bad guys' ad.
#Occupy proves once again that they don't represent 99%
A recent Gallup poll shows that 71% of Americans have a positive view of Israel, while only 19% have a positive view of the 'Palestinians.' But don't let that disturb the Occupy Oakland crowd - about 97 of them - who showed up last week to picket Shimon Peres at the largest synagogue in San Francisco.
Let's go to the videotape.
Many, many pictures, a full account and more video from Zombie are here. Make sure to check it all out.
Here's another video that's not part of Zombie's post, which is described as a 'Leftist freak show.'
Let's go to the videotape.
Occupy claims to represent 99% of the United States. Happily, they're wrong.
A San Francisco judge has ordered a measure that would place a ban on circumcision within the city limits off November's city ballot in San Francisco (Hat Tip: William Daroff via Twitter).
San Francisco’s circumcision ban is officially off the November ballot, after a judge ruled Thursday that state law expressly preempts local jurisdictions from regulating health care professionals.
A San Francisco Superior Court judge upheld a tentative ruling from Wednesday that sided with the Jewish Community Relations Council and other individuals suing The City and San Francisco resident Lloyd Schofield, who gathered more than 12,000 signatures to get the ban on the ballot.
If passed by voters, circumcision on males under 18 in San Francisco would have been a misdemeanor punishable by a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail. Schofield calls male circumcision is a brutal practice, just as deplorable as widely condemned female circumcision practices.
As many of you are already aware, San Francisco has an item on the ballot this year that would make performing a bris (circumcision) within the city limits a crime. Dennis Prager says it might be good for the Jews if that initiative passed.
If the most left-wing major city in America starts arresting Jews who have their children circumcised there, some American Jews might awaken to the threat to Jews posed by the Left. Obviously, San Francisco’s already-existing bans — on toys in Happy Meals, on soda in city-owned properties, on plastic bags, and the city’s proposed ban on the sale of pets, including goldfish — have not made many Jews (or non-Jews) wonder whether left-wing governance is dangerous. But perhaps a ban on circumcision will.
Of course, not everyone who is on the left — and certainly not the traditional liberal — is an enemy of the Jews. But, aside from Islamists, virtually all the enemies of the Jews are on the left.
The worldwide campaign to delegitimize Israel (i.e., to pave the way for moral acceptance of Israel’s destruction) is virtually all on the left. Universities in America and elsewhere in the Western world, as well as the mainstream news-media outlets around the globe, are all dominated by the Left. They drum into the minds of their students, readers, listeners, and viewers that Israel is one of the worst societies on earth.
The anti-Israel propaganda on the left is so great and so effective that according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “Many of the youths who survived the [Norway] massacre said they thought the killer, dressed as a police officer, was simulating Israeli crimes against Palestinians in the occupied territories.”
Yet, most American Jews still walk around thinking that Christians and conservatives are their enemies when, in fact, they are the best friends Jews have in the world today. From the present conservative Canadian government, which is probably the most vocal pro-Israel country at present, to every major conservative talk-show host in America (including the fiercely pro-Jewish and pro-Israel Glenn Beck, who has been libeled as an anti-Semite), to the leader of Holland’s Party for Freedom and member of the Dutch parliament, Geert Wilders (one of the most eloquent pro-Israel voices in Europe today), to the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page — the Right is where the Jews’ friends are.
BART: Anti-Israel ads are okay, pro-Israel ads are not
Two weeks ago, I reported that San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system had decided to accept advertising from StandWithUs to counter ads from the deceptively named Jewish Voice for Peace (which might be more appropriately called the Jewish Voice for Suicide). Those ads were supposed to start running this past Monday.
Pam Geller reports that BART has been accepting ads from Electronic Intifada for about a month and a half now. Yet, they have turned down ads from her organization - the American Freedom Defense Initiative - because they are not 'content neutral.'
Pam's ads appear in this post.
On Thursday, I reported that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing the City of Seattle and King County to force them to run anti-Israel bus advertisements from an organization called Stop30billion-Seattle.org. I trust that the ACLU will also be filing suit against the city of San Francisco and BART to force them to run Pam's ads.
StandwithUs placing ads in 6 San Francisco BART stations starting January 17
Starting January 17, StandwithUs will place ads like the one at top left in six BART stations in the San Francisco area: Berkeley, 12th Street/Oakland, MacArthur, Civic Center, Balboa Park and Embarcadero.
Dubbed "Say Yes to Peace," the campaign has been launched, organizers said, to counter a recent poster campaign co-sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace, a group often critical of Israel. Those posters, still on display at three BART stations (according to the StandWithUs release), depicted Palestinian and Israel fathers with their young children, along with the headings "Be on our side: We are on the side of peace and justice" and "End U.S. military aid to Israel."
The StandWithUs posters feature the image of a masked terrorist with the heading "Stop Palestinian Terrorism." Below that, there is a photo of Palestinian and Israeli children at an annual Palestinian-Israeli children's soccer game, and the heading "Teach Peace" with the address for a new website.
"The anti-Israel ad confuses and deceives the public," Roz Rothstein, StandWithUs CEO, said in the press release. "It declares it represents the side of ‘peace and justice' and shows happy pictures of an Israeli father and a Palestinian father with their little sons. These images and words appeal to all people of good will. But the real message is that Israel is the obstacle to peace and that the U.S. should stop all financial assistance to Israel. The ad tries to hide the real obstacles-Hamas, Palestinian terrorism, and decades of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish hate education. We cannot let this message, with its deceptive, velvet-gloved rhetoric, influence unsuspecting commuters who may not know the facts. Our ads will provide the needed facts."
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
