CHAPPAQUA — Provocative poster advertisements that are on display at Metro-North train platforms showing shrinking Palestinian land in Israel have alarmed a leader in the Jewish community who is concerned it could leads to acts of hate.
“This is anti-Semitic because when people think of Jews they think of the Jewish state,” says DovidEfune, editor of the Manhattan-based Jewish newspaper, The Algemeiner. “Jews have seen this happen so many times. It always starts with messaging that says Jews are committing a crime.”
The ads show a succession of shrinking Palestinian territory in four maps and contain a headline about 4.7 million Palestinians being classified as refugees by the United Nations. They were paid for by an 84-year-old ex-Wall Street financier who lives in Connecticut.
“If the facts are inflammatory, then they are inflammatory,” says Henry Clifford, the chairman of a 10-member group called the Committee for Peace in Israel/Palestine. “All of the Middle East is infected with the virus of the Arab-Israeli conflict. People need to know the truth of the matter.”
Clifford said he paid $25,000 through an ad agency to run the posters at as many as 10 Metro-North railroad stations, including White Plains and Chappaqua, but he was not clear about which stations they were posted.
Nowhere in this ad is there a reference to "Jews." It criticizes in a visual manner the land grab that the Israeli government, with US support, has illegally perpetrated over decades. This critique is not about religion or a particular socio-ethnic group. Millions of Jews around the world and within Israel work actively against Israel's illegal occupation and other policies that violate human rights norms and the Geneva Conventions. Kudos to Clifford for the brilliant idea to advertise the "green and white map" that tells a complicated story in a nutshell...when people see this image, they immediately "get it." Hence how threatened those that benefit from the status quo feel seeing it publicized.
ReplyDeleteThis is the truth. Sometimes the truth hurts, especially when it has been so slanted and distorted for so long. I and all the Jewish people I know do not support imperialism, land theft, or genocide in the Occupied Territories. The crimes of the Holocaust do not justify crimes against other people and we will not stand by silent while Israel commits international crimes.
ReplyDeleteIt is Jews like the guy in the video and the guy running this blog that keep "anti-Semitism" alive and well in the world. You bring it on yourselves by stealing land, displacing millions of people, stealing money, killing innocent people, creating the largest outdoor prison in the world (Gaza), and then crying victim when humanity holds a mirror in your face!
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