Friday, December 24, 2010

Update On the Anti-Israel Seatle Bus Shinanigans

The officials in King County, Seattle decided to pull the ads that were going to be run on 12 of their buses. Most people see this as a victory for Israel. See this announcement sent out by the CUFI (Christians United for Israel) alert (found here https://secure2.convio.net/cufi/site/Advocacy?page=UserActionInactive&id=207):

At 2:00 EST today, we issued an action alert asking all of our members to e-mail officials in King County, Washington, with an urgent request to block the following inciteful ad from appearing on Seattle buses:





Your response was overwhelming. In the week leading up to our action alert, King county officials had received 2,000 e-mails to asking them to reject this ad. Within five hours -- by 7:00 pm EST -- our action alert had generated three times as many e-mails -- almost 6,000 -- to these same government officials.


We are thrilled to report that your voices have been heard and that your efforts have paid off. At 7:00 p.m. EST today, King County Executive Dow Constatine announced a new policy governing advertising on buses that, among other things, will block the proposed anti-Israel ad from appearing on city buses. Now that the anti-Israel ad will not run, we no longer see the need to respond with our own ad telling the truth about Israel.


This is a great victory. We are thankful to our friends in the pro-Israel community who called our attention to this issue and began the campaign against these dangerous ads. And we are thankful to all of you who responded with enough speed and determination to accomplish the mission so quickly. Your efforts were especially meaningful on a day when so many of us are so very busy with travel and shopping before the approaching Christmas holiday.

I am very glad that this Christian group is so pro-Israel. However, I do not see this as a real victory. The King County commissioner did not denounce these ads as lies, or did he call them despicable, rather when he was faced with immense pressure he caved. He did not think it was the right thing to do (to deny the ads), but the easy thing to do.

As I pointed out in this past post the lies that this organization (Seattle Middle East Awareness Campaign (SMEC)) puts forth are despicable. America allows for free speech, free speech for the KKK to march in Skokie (where a lot of Holocaust survivors live/d), it allows for racists to say what they want and it allows for fools to claim anything under the sun. However, how could a public company find nothing wrong with calling an ally of the USA a country that commits war crimes? Especially a country that gives so much aid to countries in need. Just check out here, here and here. That is absurd! This is especially true because, as I pointed out, every reason the SMEC gives for their claims against Israel are lies, no facts whatsoever.

There will never be a real victor for this war against the slanderers of Israel. However, we all need to stay strong and support organizations like StandWithUs, the Jewish Federation and, even, the ADL. These organizations and those like them prove their worth time and time again by combating anti-Semites, liars and and bigots. If you are Jewish or believe in truth then your support should go towards these organizations that stand up for Jews and Israel on a daily basis.

There are battles that we can win, but the war is ongoing. No one knows when it will end. That is why it is so important to support these organizations that actually fight for Israel and truth. This time we were able to win the battle on a technicality, hopefully, next time we can win because others actually believe in what we fight for, truth and justice. Israel is attacked on a daily basis by the very Palestinians that Israel gives aid to and they have the audacity to say Israel is committing war crimes? Oh the irony.

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