Wednesday, December 22, 2010

What to do about those anti-Israel Seattle bus ads

An anti-Israel “organization,” the “Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign,” is about to run some advertisements about Israeli “war crimes” on public transportation in Seattle, Washington beginning December 27.

The ads are pretty nasty as you might expect. They will recall the Gaza War of 2008-2009 (Operation Cast Lead) and will say “ISRAELI WAR CRIMES - YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK” with photos of children contemplating destruction. The ads will give the URL of a Web site. That’s how organizations are built.

The “organization,” which probably consists of an individual named Ed Mast, insists that it is not anti-Semitic, of course. They are only calling attention to the crimes of the damn Jews you see. A local newspaper account yields some interesting facts and astute observations. The ads cost $2,760. Before they have even run, they have generated a huge amount of publicity – over 600 e-mails were received by Seattle transit – customer.comments@kingcounty.gov. – in a few days.

The county may have a legal obligation to run the ads, or they may legally bound not to run the ads, depending on how the laws are interpreted. Somewhat ironically, the “Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign” is seeking tax exempt status, the Hamas groupies think they should be financed by U.S. tax dollars.

One comment quoted in the newspaper article was especially interesting:

King County Executive Dow Constantine was advised by county lawyers that the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits Metro from rejecting the ad if the transit agency continues to accept ads from other advertisers, spokesman Frank Abe said Monday.

While declining to discuss his feelings about the ad, Constantine said in a statement that interest groups sometimes leverage a small ad buy into news coverage “worth many times their investment … .”

“These provocative ads bring in a negligible amount of revenue, but cost hundreds of hours staff time to address the intended controversy— time that is better spent providing bus service.” [Emphasis added]

You probably never heard of Ed Mast and his nascent organization of Hamas groupies before, but thanks to diligent work, mostly by pro-Israel groups, and a tiny investment, Mast and his group may become household words in the USA — all that for less than $3000. What part of an F-35 will that buy??

Mr. Mast got a lot of bang for a few bucks, didn’t he?

King County Executive Dow Constantine later said:

“Any policy change needs careful review to ensure there are no unintended consequences. Metro is now conducting an expedited and thorough review.”

Comments from people like you will obviously affect the outcome of the review, especially if you live in the Seattle area. Americans who disagree with Mast and his terror groupies should contact the Seattle transit authority at customer.comments@kingcounty.gov, 201 S Jackson St Seattle, WA 98104 , phone 206-553-3000 and contact King County officials at http://info.kingcounty.gov/about/contact/default.aspx, 516 Third Avenue Seattle, WA 98104, phone 206-296-0100 or 800-325-6165 (Toll free).

Now that the battle is joined, there does not seem to be much choice. Americans who support Israel should try to stop this ad campaign.

However, one of the rules of good Israel Advocacy is be “Be Proactive.” Why couldn’t those same Jewish organizations have invested $3000 in transit advertisements that, for example, commemorate the children killed by Hamas rockets?
Hamas terror Victim Hamas terror Victim

Hamas terror Victim

The ads could point out that Islamist terror is a problem in the American Pacific Northwest too – “Those could be you kids.”

Or someone could run ads pointing out that U.S. tax dollars finance “moderate” Palestinian Authority monuments to terrorists who killed Americans, inciteful education and “studies” that “prove” that the Wailing Wall is not a remnant of the temple. It is not to late to do it in Seattle. It surely is not too late to do it in other cities. 

In 2007 an anti-Israel ad campaign in Washington D.C. transit was countered by pro-Israel ads run by Stand With Us. Their ads looked like this:

Why can’t someone run ads like that in Seattle, or anywhere? Why can’t that someone be you and your organization?

The transit ad campaigns against U.S. aid to Israel are probably the next tactic to be adopted by American anti-Israel activists, since the boycott Israel campaign proved to be a miserable failure in the U.S. and was reduced to a pathetic failed “boycott” of hummus that was not even made in Israel.

A similar ad campaign ran in Chicago in October. It did not seem to have much impact, but successful grass-roots movements are built by failures and persistence in the face of failure. Any “issue” and any inexpensive tactic that yields publicity can be used, but we can win if we do not sit back and wait for the other side to define the rules and choose the battlefield.

Ami Isseroff

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