SEATTLE — King County met privately with Jewish community leaders Wednesday afternoon over the scheduled posting of ads on Metro buses decrying “Israeli war crimes” against Palestinians, but the ads are still expected to be displayed starting Monday.
Seattle County Meets With Jewish Groups Over Israeli War Crimes Bus Ads
SEATTLE — King County met privately with Jewish community leaders Wednesday afternoon over the scheduled posting of ads on Metro buses decrying “Israeli war crimes” against Palestinians, but the ads are still expected to be displayed starting Monday.
The ad shows children and a demolished building, with the caption, “Israeli war crimes, your tax dollars at work,” and was payed for by a group called the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign.
“When the U.S. government has supported, wholeheartedly, one side of this conflict and not really educated the American public on the circumstances of the other side, we feel that we as citizens — it becomes our responsibility to then inform the public,” said Carla Curio with the campaign.
Jewish organizations in King County said they believe the ads put local Jews at risk.
“We are now worried about security in all our institutions in Seattle, and this only inflames people,” said Richard Fruchter, CEO of the Seattle Jewish Federation. “I think that that’s not going to be good for Seattle. We’ve experienced acts of hate and violence in the past in our community, even in the recent past.”
Curio said she didn’t think that would be the case.
“I don’t believe these ads will lead to any sort of violence against Jews,” she said.
Metro is reviewing its advertising policy at the request of King County Executive Dow Constantine in light of the ad, and after the Los Angeles-based David Horowitz Freedom Center said it wanted to run a rebuttal ad that read, “Palestinian war crimes — your tax dollars at work.”
But a First Amendment lawyer who represents KIRO 7 and other media outlets said King County is constrained by the Constitution.
“To the extent that the buses are public forums, the county can’t simply say these are ads we don’t want because they are too controversial,” Bruce Johnson said.
A spokesperson with King County told KIRO 7 that Jewish organizations did not ask that the ads be pulled, but they made clear their concerns and their understanding of the position the county is in.
The Jewish Federation said it would wait to see what happens on Monday to determine what action to take.
Uncle Mendel
And if I wanted to run an ad in Crown Heights highlighting the overwhelming amount of crimes committed by blacks here(which is, in fact, true), do you think it would be permitted? What about ads illustrating muslim acts of terrorism in the US?
What happened to the anti-hate law?
Jews are inviting trouble upon themselves by not demanding that Seattle uphold the anti-hate laws in America. No other group would stand for such a thing. Tear the signs off if the anti-semite ignoramus Curio is clueless-or worse yet, compliant with her sentiments about Israel. Is it really possible the Jewish organizations pointed out their concerns without insisting the propaganda be removed, like the article states. This is a pretty scarry country right now. Don’t just say we need Moshiach–DO SOMETHING!
Are these city buses?
If these are municipal buses then the content of the advertisements is condoned in fact by the government who receives payment for the ads.