Pro-Israel ad campaigns are always problematic, while anti-Israel ones are neutral, and that is the American way, the Supreme court ruled.
The US Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a pro-Israel group that wants to put ads on Boston-area mass transit that authorities rejected as inflammatory.
The justices on Monday let stand court rulings that upheld rejection of the ads by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA).
The agency said ads from the American Freedom Defense Initiative using the word “savage” were “demeaning or disparaging” to Palestinians and Muslims.
The group claimed the rejection violates its right to free speech and shows a double standard on the part of the transit agency because it allowed a pro-Palestinian group to run a subway ad.
The ads in question described the conflict as between “civilized man and the savage.” The MBTA accepted a different version that was critical of people engaged in “savage acts.”
Pamela Geller. (AP/David Karp)
“Imagine, the city of the Boston jihad bombings refusing to run anti-jihad ads. Despicable,” Pamela Geller, a pro-Israel activist behind the campaign, said.
Referring to the bombing of the Boston marathon in April 2013 by Islamic terrorists that killed 3 and wounded 264, she wrote ”you would think that officials in Boston would have more sense. In the city where Islamic jihadists sowed murder and mayhem at the Marathon, the MBTA claimed our ads criticizing Islamic anti-Semitism and jihad terror were demeaning to Muslims – as if all Muslims were Jew-haters and jihadists.”
However, in November the MBTA did approve anti-Israel advertisements, claiming that the ads meet “viewpoint-neutral standards.”
One of the ads features a supposed Palestinian child with the word “violence” written in bold letters. The text reads: “Since September, 2000 Israel’s military has killed one Palestinian child every 4 days, using US tax dollars.” The poster demands the end of US military aid to Israel.
Others posters include the words “homeless” and “stolen” and asks, “Does Israel want peace… or land?” alluding to the fact the Israel has allegedly stolen Palestinian lands.
By: AP and United with Israel Staff