New York blogger Pam Geller is bringing her very special world view to the sides of our Muni buses, dragging the ugliness of the Middle East history, past and present into our daily commute.
40 Muni buses and light rail vehicles are now displaying black-and-white advertisement featuring images of the Palestinian Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini and Adolf Hitler, captioned "Islamic Jew-Hatred: It's in the Quran."
In November 1941, the Mufti met with Hitler, who told him the Jews were his foremost enemy. The Nazi dictator rebuffed the Mufti's requests for a declaration in support of the Arabs, however, telling him the time was not right. The Mufti offered Hitler his "thanks for the sympathy which he had always shown for the Arab and especially Palestinian cause, and to which he had given clear expression in his public speeches....The Arabs were Germany's natural friends because they had the same enemies as had Germany, namely....the Jews...." Hitler replied:
Germany stood for uncompromising war against the Jews. That naturally included active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine....Germany would furnish positive and practical aid to the Arabs involved in the same struggle....Germany's objective [is]...solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere....In that hour the Mufti would be the most authoritative spokesman for the Arab world. The Mufti thanked Hitler profusely
From Eretz Yisroel.org In 1943 the Mufti travelled several times to Bosnia,
where on orders of the SS he recruited the notorious "Hanjar troopers,"
a special Bosnian Waffen SS company which slaugh-tered 90% of Bosnia’s
Jews and burned countless Serbian churches and villages. These Bosnian
Muslim recruits rapidly found favor with SS chief Heinrich Himmler, who
established a special Mullah Military school in Dresden.
The photo is authentic, but it is presented without context, and serves not to inform or enlighten, but to incite.Thats not the path of peace, in the Bay Area or in the Middle East.
"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." Noam Chomsky:
Jewish Voice for Peace doesn’t believe in freedom of speech. We've long suspected this- after all, this is the group that made a habit of gleefully shouting down speakers they don't agree with.
In January, Carolyn Klaasen, Coordinator of JVP-NY sent out an email to her mailing list, urging them to sign a statement in support of a BDS conference at Brooklyn college, and thanking people for “ standing up for free speech, open political debate”. A second email from Klassen, days later extorted that “efforts to shut this event down are a deplorable attack on free speech”. The JVP sponsored event went on as scheduled.
The JVP commitment to free speech ended right there.
Days ago, Amy Helfant of JVP sent out another announcement, urging its supporters to pressure a New York synagogue into cancelling a talk by Pam Geller, writing “the willingness of the Great Neck Synagogue to welcome rather than condemn a person who promotes bigotry and racism is an affront to our values and has no place in the world we are creating for ourselves and our children.” JVP’s moral integrity is rather selective. Hypocrisy. That's the word we’re looking for. Hypocrisy.
Leftist Jewish groups are calling on a Long Island synagogue to cancel a speech by an outspoken Jewish blogger known for her outspoken anti-Muslim views — raising questions about a double standard on free expression.
New York activist groups Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, and Jews Say No! announced their opposition to a speech set for April 14 by Pamela Geller, an activist known for her extreme anti-Muslim rhetoric, at the Modern Orthodox Great Neck Synagogue.
In an email sent to JVP activists on April 3, the organization called on members to contact the Great Neck Synagogue and ask it to cancel the event. Rebecca Vilkomerson, JVP’s executive director, told the Forward on April 4 that at least 50 people had contacted Great Neck Synagogue at the group’s behest...
The campaign comes weeks after some of the same leftist Jewish groups organized against efforts to cancel a panel on the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement at Brooklyn College. One of the groups also opposed a decision by the LGBT Community Center in New York to block an appearance by a pro-BDS scholar.
One gay community activist, who opposed the BDS ban at the LGBT Community Center, slammed the leftist Jewish groups for their apparent free expression flip-flop.
“I’m startled [the leftist Jewish groups] didn’t learn any lessons from the controversies of two months ago at the Gay Center and at Brooklyn College,” said Bill Dobbs, a longtime gay activist. “They’ve lost the moral high ground.”
Vilkomerson said that JVP’s call for the cancellation of the event was not evidence of a double standard
Right, Rebecca. Right. We know exactly how you think: "Free speech for me, but not for thee"
Pam Geller, a New York activist decided to run offensive ads on our local bus system. The message was uncomfortable to those in the Jewish community who believed our best hope for peace is a Jewish State of Israel living side by side with an Arab state of Palestine. The ads did nothing to further the cause of peace, and were damaging to the cause of community building and interfaith relations. The MUNI system clearly felt their hands were tied- they’ve issued their own disclaimers on the buses, and have pledged to donate the proceeds of the ads to the SF Human Rights Commission for educational purposes
The Jewish community took a principled stand and denounced the ads. Additionally, the Jewish Federation has pledged to match funds donated to the HRC
The response from the Arab Resource Organizing Center rivals Pam Gellers' ads in its intractable hatred, shrilly claiming "The reality is that Zionism and structural racism have the same impact whether couched in JCRC's politesse or AFDI's vulgarity." and asserting "we cannot allow HRC to accept Zionist money".
Please read an Open Letter to the Arab Resource Organizing Center crossposted at Bluetruth Written by DrMike
The recent condemnation of Pamela Geller’s MUNI ads by the Jewish Community Relations Council and the American Jewish Committee could have provided an opening for dialogue, given the shared sentiments about those ads. Yet AROC has chosen not to use this as an opportunity to build bridges but rather to throw gasoline onto hot ashes and inflame the situation further.
Your dismissal of the JCRC’s statement begins with a statement that you reject in other contexts: “We must not equate support for free speech with support for hate speech.” I completely agree. Can I assume that you then also condemn these exercises of free speech in San Francisco? I'm sure the leaders of your group saw these in person at some of the many anti-Israel demonstrations held here.
What about the new University of California report on campus anti-Semitism which explicitly states “The Principles of Community operate under the assumption that not all speech is protected. Words and accusations which at their core demean, defame and degrademust be addressed and denounced.” Will you join me in endorsing this statement, and condemn the repeated invitations by the Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine to hate speaker Amir Abdel Malik Ali?
Unfortunately it appears that your answer will be in the negative, since your statement then moves sadly but predictably on to rhetoric that far exceeds Geller’s in explicit hate. Phrases such as “the racism that drives Zionism” are dropped throughout the rest of the statement, which labels any support of Israel,whether by JCRC or by Geller’s AFDI, as “based on racism andIslamophobia”. Any review of JCRC’s statements, whether on Israel or any other topic, is of course notably absent of any trace of either racism or Islamophobia, unless one adheres to your insistence that the very existence of a Jewish state is a racist endeavor.
Since that appears to be your position, you might want to review the Working Definition of Anti-Semitism prepared by the European Union in 2002; I’m sure you agree that many Europeans are not the strongest friends of Israel and you might even be aware that the EU funds NGO’s in Israel and overseas that promote BDS and similar anti-Israel activities.
The EU stated:
“Examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:
Denying the Jewish people their right of self-determinatione.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor
Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior notexpected or demanded of any other democratic nation
Using the symbols and images associated with classicanti-Semitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) tocharacterize Israel or Israelis
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to thatof the Nazis.”
You close by saying that “we cannot allow HRC [the SanFrancisco Human Rights Commission] to accept Zionist money.” When “Zionist” gets thrown around repeatedly as an epithet, the words of Dr Martin Luther King spoken in 1968 come to mind: “When people criticize Zionists,they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism.”
Sadly, you have lived up to the expectation that you will apply blatant hypocrisy and double standards not only to any issue involving Israel, but to concepts such as free speech as well. Not that this a surprise coming from AROC. After all, it was AROC's own program director, Lily Haskell, who exercised her free speech rights in December 2008 (a few weeks after the untimely and tragic death of Dan Kliman z"l in an elevator accident) by threatening the lives of Israel advocates by leading chants of "Israel Supporters watch your backs, or we'll push you down a shaft!"
The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) is the central public affairs and community arm of the organized Jewish community. Representing synagogues and Jewish institutions throughout the Bay Area, JCRC promotes a just society and secure Jewish future. American Jewish Committee (AJC) has, for over 100 years sought to advance the peace and security of the Jewish people around the world. Through high-level diplomacy, strong legislative advocacy, and effective interreligious and interethnic coalitions, AJC has made a significant impact on issues critical to the Jewish people. Together, they have issued a press release condemning the recent Muni Bus ads paid for by New York Blogger, Pam Geller.
San Francisco – Last week, a new advertisement appeared on Muni buses in San Francisco, placed by the American Freedom Defense Initiative. The Bay Area’s organized Jewish community takes great offense to the ad’s inflammatory and anti-Muslim language. We are steadfast in our support of Israel and our concern about the growing threat of Islamic radicalism, and steadfast in our opposition to anti-Muslim stereotypes.
We have long been concerned that the repeated appearance of offensive anti-Israel ads would turn our local public transit system into a battleground for the Israeli-Arab conflict; we are no less concerned by offensive anti-Muslim ads. We urge all transit authorities to reassess their policies and to construct advertising policies consistent with laws governing protected speech that preserve public transit as a safe space for all passengers.
From the Anti-Defamation league, as quoted in Mother Jones
"AFDI presents itself as a pro-Israel group. Our sense is that it's just a mischaracterization of who they are. They are an anti-Muslim activist group, and you don't have to be anti-Muslim to be pro-Israel," says Michael Salberg, director of international affairs for the Anti-Defamation League. "The ads are offensive and inflammatory."
In the Bay Area, the "progressive" community often resorts to fascist tactics to suppress anything that paints Israel in a positive light.
A poster talking about a revolutionary new treatment for HIV with the potential to save countless lives world wide was recently vandalized. Why? Because this innovative new procedure was developed by an Israeli team.
Israeli food is vandalized routinely.
Kosher food from Virginia that reminds the fascist brown shirts of Israeli food is vandalized routinely.
It makes me wonder how the anti-Israel forces will react to this ad, appearing on MUNI buses throughout San Francisco, for the next four weeks.
Financed by Pam Geller, whose organization Stop Islamization of America is considered a hate group by the venerable Southern Poverty Law Center these ads are sure to provoke a reaction.
Stay tuned.
UPDATE:
Annie Robbins, a Bay area "writer at Large for Mondoweiss, a mother, a human rights activist and a ceramic artist" is now encouraging people to vandalize the ads.
