Friday, March 29, 2013

American Muslims for Palestine Declare a Rather Premature Victory

To the extremist American Muslims for Palestine, the 25 ads in Metro North stations in New York and Connecticut were little more than a cheap and cynical publicity stunt.  They've made that perfectly clear with an email they sent out today, proclaiming their 2 day old campaign a "huge success":.

Keep the momentum going!AMP’s new ad campaign is getting nationwide, and even international attention! And the term ‘Israeli Apartheid’ has made it into mainstream media reports – from ABC, CBS and NBC to Haaretz. The ad will be posted at 25 stations on the Metro North line in New York and Connecticut for four weeks. It's purpose is to raise awareness about the occupation and Israel's apartheid policies, as well as to reclaim our narrative from those who have been posting virulently anti-Arab and anti-Muslim ads. AMP's ad campaign is slated for several cities throughout the country and may next appear on buses in San Francisco. More than a dozen media outlets attended our press conference in NYC on Tuesday to kick off the campaign! 
 The interest  shows the American public is ready to accept the Palestinian narrative! 
No. I don't think so.

At least one of those media outlets, the New York Daily News saw right through the incendiary rhetoric and reported:

 Why is this day different from all other days? Because a pro-Palestinian group picked the first day of Passover to unveil a button-pushing new ad campaign that compares Israel to racist South Africa.The ads, which demand “End Apartheid Now! Stop U.S. Aid to Israel,” are being plastered at 25 Metro North train stations for the next four weeks. The head of American Muslims for Palestine insisted Tuesday they didn’t time the unveiling of the ads to coincide with the Jewish holiday, which celebrates freedom.“We timed the release of our ads with President Obama’s visit to the Middle East,” said Dr. Hatem Bazian. Obama visited Israel last week.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued the following statement on the anti-Israel ads


We are deeply disturbed that American Muslims for Palestine is undertaking a billboard campaign that falsely accuses Israel of "apartheid." Their ad campaign ignores the complicated nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is part of the campaign to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish state.


It shows a profound lack of sensitivity that they chose the first day of the Jewish holiday of Passover to announce this malicious and false ad campaign.

And the American Muslims for Palestine responded:



We can’t let these Zionists and Islamophobes win! Help AMP take this ad campaign to cities across the nation.

The ADL has released a background paper on the American Muslims for Palestine.  The organization has roots in the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), an anti-Semitic group that served as the main propaganda arm for Hamas in the United States until it was dissolved in 2004. Since its creation in 2005, AMP continues to work closely with some former IAP leaders who currently hold positions as AMP board members.

Read the paper here.  This is what we are facing.  And decide now how your community will react when this special brand of AMP hate shows up in your neighborhood.


3 comments:

Shlomo Ben Hungstien said...

everything with with those people always is a "victory". there's no shortage of anti-Israel morons who will still argue today that the 2006 lebanon war and even the Yom Kippur war was a victory for the arabs.

Anonymous said...

Your commentary is irrelevant but also not surprising. It reaffirms the typical reactionary behavior of a Jewish Israeli bigot, who makes comments, however irrelevant, just to have said something in opposition.
The issue at hand here is the content of the ad and how it has been allowed to run in major cities and not it's success per say, which is also not entirely inappropriate to claim it as such. Everybody calls his or her campaigns a success. ADL would do it too, if it were theirs.
The fact is that the ad not only tells the truth about the oppressive policies of Israel--bolstered by US's unconditional backing--toward Palestinians who rightfully own the very land Israel and IDF forcefully occupy, but also gives an indication of how descent people in this country are beginning to support those who dare to tell it. Had it not been for the fear of being labeled an Anti-Semite and/or Anti-Zionist, more people would be speaking in opposition to Israel’s actions.
Israel is nothing but a proxy state of US to help expand its imperialistic capitalism in the Middle East. In exchange for being a pet government, US is allowing Israel to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians--a policy agenda that Israel began implementing with the Zionist movement back in Moshe Dayan era. That agenda is what resembles the South African government's policy with its majority black population.
The momentum has, I am afraid begun. People are gradually becoming aware and informed of this real genocide. It is that, I am afraid, you are fearful of, hence the irrelevant ranting. Not that you are bothered by the ad content being inflammatory.

Dusty said...

Firstly, I'm not "Israeli'. Secondly, how can you possibly drag out the log discredited canard of "ethnic cleansing" when the population of Palestinians has quadrupled?

Here's some facts for you to chew on and digest.

From the world renowned historian Efraim Karsh;
"During the 1970's, the West Bank and Gaza constituted the fourth fastest-growing economy in the world -- ahead of such "wonders" as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself. Although GNP per capita grew somewhat more slowly, the rate was still high by international standards, with per-capita GNP expanding tenfold between 1968 and 1991 from $165 to $1,715 (compared with Jordan's $1,050, Egypt's $600, Turkey's $1,630, and Tunisia's $1,440). By 1999, Palestinian per-capita income was nearly double Syria's, more than four times Yemen's, and 10 percent higher than Jordan's (one of the better off Arab states). Only the oil-rich Gulf states and Lebanon were more affluent.

Under Israeli rule, the Palestinians also made vast progress in social welfare. Perhaps most significantly, mortality rates in the West Bank and Gaza fell by more than two-thirds between 1970 and 1990, while life expectancy rose from 48 years in 1967 to 72 in 2000 (compared with an average of 68 years for all the countries of the Middle East and North Africa). Israeli medical programs reduced the infant-mortality rate of 60 per 1,000 live births in 1968 to 15 per 1,000 in 2000 (in Iraq the rate is 64, in Egypt 40, in Jordan 23, in Syria 22). And under a systematic program of inoculation, childhood diseases like polio, whooping cough, tetanus, and measles were eradicated.

No less remarkable were advances in the Palestinians' standard of living. By 1986, 92.8 percent of the population in the West Bank and Gaza had electricity around the clock, as compared to 20.5 percent in 1967; 85 percent had running water in dwellings, as compared to 16 percent in 1967; 83.5 percent had electric or gas ranges for cooking, as compared to 4 percent in 1967; and so on for refrigerators, televisions, and cars. "

The only thing standing in the way of peace is the Palestinian leadership. And until that changes, and they accept the right of the Jewish people to self determination , all the subway and bus ads in the world wont move us any closer to peace