Pamela Geller plans yet another ad series in response to AMP “apartheid” ads

by Sheila Musaji

American Muslims for Palestine AMP was established in 2005, and operates on donation based funding.  Their mission statement:  American Muslims for Palestine is to educate the public about the just cause of Palestine and the rights of self-determination, liberty and justice. Through providing information, training and networking with like-minded individuals and organizations that support peace, AMP will raise awareness of the issues pertaining to Palestine and its rich cultural heritage. 

They have placed this ad on New York public transit.  Kristin Szremski, a spokeswoman for AMP said that the ads are in response to advertising last year by AFDI.         

Here is the AMP Press Release about the ads.  I have highlighted key text:

The American Muslims for Palestine, a national grassroots organization educating the public about Palestine and its rich cultural and historical heritage, today announced the launch on March 25 of its new nationwide outdoor advertising campaign, calling for an end to Israeli apartheid and to unconditional American aid for Israel. The ads, which will appear at 25 stations on the New York City Transit Authority’s Metro North line, will run for four weeks before moving to another metropolitan area elsewhere in the nation.

“We timed the release of our ads with President Obama’s visit to the Middle East to underscore his administration’s failure to address the true cause of conflict: Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands and its racist apartheid policies, which subject Palestinians on a daily basis to humiliation, deprivation and a loss of their basic rights, including the freedom of movement,” said Dr. Hatem Bazian, AMP chairman.

While Israel denies its policies constitute apartheid, one who knows the colonial, racist policies best, Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, recognizes Israel as an apartheid state.  AMP’s ad quotes Tutu asserting, “I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa.”

A study by the South African Human Science Research Council in 2009 used several international laws such as the Hague Regulations of 1907, the Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Law of Armed Conflict and the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination of 1965 to prove its case comparing apartheid in South Africa and Israel. Among similar tactics used by both regimes are the use of murder, indefinite detentions without charge, torture, and extrajudicial killings, the study found. The report also underscored how Palestinians are governed by a network of military orders and are subject to a military court system while Jewish settlers are under the jurisdiction of civilian laws and court system.

Visiting Herzl’s grave

President Obama told a group of American Jewish leaders in a private meeting on March 7 that prospects for peace are bleak, according to published reports. And instead of working to shift US foreign policy to one that is more fair and balanced for everyone living in the Middle East, Mr. Obama chose instead to visit the gravesite of Theodore Herzl, the founder of political Zionism. It’s a message of dispossession and discrimination not lost on Palestinians.

Each year, the US gives Israel more than $3 billion in unconditional military aid. Even with this year’s sequestration cut, Israel will receive that amount and more, when all grants, loan guarantees and other aid are taken into account. AMP asserts that our financial support, as well as our unconditional political and diplomatic support of Israel, in light of its continued and flagrant violations of international law, weaken America’s position throughout the international community and hurts our national interests.

Apartheid runs counter to every principle Americans hold dear. Israel’s military occupation violates the values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness enshrined in our own Declaration of Independence.  Therefore, AMP is calling on President Obama and Congress to end US aid to Israel, which only enables and supports Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies against oppressed Palestinians.

Can Israel be called an apartheid state based on its policies and actions?  Does calling some Israeli policies “apartheid” make an individual an anti-Semite?  Is asking for an end to aid (particularly military aid) to countries whose human rights record is questionable constitute bigotry? (Actually, I believe that we should not be providing aid (except for humanitarian relief provided by international relief agencies) to any country that violates the human rights of its’ citizens and legal immigrants, or that is in violation of international law.) 

In October of 2012, I published an article Israeli Apartheid has been a topic of serious discussion in Israel which speaks directly to this question:

The word “apartheid” is making a comeback in relation to Israeli policies regarding treatment of Palestinians.  This week, American Christian Religious leaders ask Congress to condition Israel military aid on human rights compliance, resulting in a great deal of controversy, including a call by the Israel lobby for Congressional Investigation of Churches calling for restricting U.S. military aid.   In the past few weeks, we have also seen the escalating ad wars across the country with the Israel-Palestine crisis as their foundation, and painting the issue as a black and white, good versus evil, civilization versus savages conflict.  Also, this week, a new Israeli poll was released that once again raised the issue of whether or not “apartheid” is a fair description of Israeli policies.

When this issue has been raised previously, Israeli’s strongly objected saying that Israel cannot accurately be called an apartheid state because Israeli law guarantees Arab citizens of Israel the same rights as other Israeli citizens.   Apartheid By Any Other Name by Ronald Bruce St. John is an example of the discussion around the use of this term in the title of President Jimmy Carter’s 2007 book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid .  Those who have used the term “apartheid state” to describe Israeli policies have often been accused of being anti-Semites. 

This past week, Gideon Levy published two articles on Haaretz regarding a recent poll in which a majority of Israeli Jews expressed their support for discriminatory measures, not only in the West Bank and Gaza (the occupied territories), but also in Israel itself.  The poll seems to cast doubt on Israel’s claim that the use of the term “apartheid” is unfair or even anti-Semitic.  Levi’s articles are beginning to receive a lot of attention.

The first article Survey: Most Israeli Jews would support apartheid regime in Israel is very detailed and includes a helpful chart with questions and answers.  The survey, conducted by Dialog, and commissioned by the Yisraela Goldblum Fund (New Israel Fund) was based on a sample of 503 interviewees.  Here is part of that article

...  The majority of the Jewish public, 59 percent, wants preference for Jews over Arabs in admission to jobs in government ministries. Almost half the Jews, 49 percent, want the state to treat Jewish citizens better than Arab ones; 42 percent don’t want to live in the same building with Arabs and 42 percent don’t want their children in the same class with Arab children.

A third of the Jewish public wants a law barring Israeli Arabs from voting for the Knesset and a large majority of 69 percent objects to giving 2.5 million Palestinians the right to vote if Israel annexes the West Bank.

A sweeping 74 percent majority is in favor of separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank. A quarter - 24 percent - believe separate roads are “a good situation” and 50 percent believe they are “a necessary situation.”

Almost half - 47 percent - want part of Israel’s Arab population to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority and 36 percent support transferring some of the Arab towns from Israel to the PA, in exchange for keeping some of the West Bank settlements.

Although the territories have not been annexed, most of the Jewish public (58 percent ) already believes Israel practices apartheid against Arabs. Only 31 percent think such a system is not in force here. Over a third (38 percent ) of the Jewish public wants Israel to annex the territories with settlements on them, while 48 percent object.

The survey distinguishes among the various communities in Israeli society - secular, observant, religious, ultra-Orthodox and former Soviet immigrants. The ultra-Orthodox, in contrast to those who described themselves as religious or observant, hold the most extreme positions against the Palestinians. An overwhelming majority (83 percent ) of Haredim are in favor of segregated roads and 71 percent are in favor of transfer.

The ultra-Orthodox are also the most anti-Arab group - 70 percent of them support legally barring Israeli Arabs from voting, 82 percent support preferential treatment from the state toward Jews, and 95 percent are in favor of discrimination against Arabs in admission to workplaces.

The group classifying itself as religious is the second most anti-Arab. New immigrants from former Soviet states are closer in their views of the Palestinians to secular Israelis, and are far less radical than the religious and Haredi groups. However, the number of people who answered “don’t know” in the “Russian” community was higher than in any other.

The Russians register the highest rate of satisfaction with life in Israel (77 percent ) and the secular Israelis the lowest - only 63 percent. On average, 69 percent of Israelis are satisfied with life in Israel.

Secular Israelis appear to be the least racist - 68 percent of them would not mind having Arab neighbors in their apartment building, 73 percent would not mind Arab students in their children’s class and 50 percent believe Arabs should not be discriminated against in admission to workplaces.

The survey indicates that a third to half of Jewish Israelis want to live in a state that practices formal, open discrimination against its Arab citizens. An even larger majority wants to live in an apartheid state if Israel annexes the territories.

The survey conductors say perhaps the term “apartheid” was not clear enough to some interviewees. However, the interviewees did not object strongly to describing Israel’s character as “apartheid” already today, without annexing the territories. Only 31 percent objected to calling Israel an “apartheid state” and said “there’s no apartheid at all.”

In contrast, 39 percent believe apartheid is practiced “in a few fields”; 19 percent believe “there’s apartheid in many fields” and 11 percent do not know.

The “Russians,” as the survey calls them, display the most objection to classifying their new country as an apartheid state. A third of them - 35 percent - believe Israel practices no apartheid at all, compared to 28 percent of the secular and ultra-Orthodox communities, 27 percent of the religious and 30 percent of the observant Jews who hold that view. Altogether, 58 percent of all the groups believe Israel practices apartheid “in a few fields” or “in many fields,” while 11 percent don’t know. ...

The second article Apartheid without shame or guilt summarizes the results of the poll and is Mr. Levy’s analysis of the meaning of these results. 

Richard Silverstein on Tikkun Olam wrote Israeli Poll: Israelis Support Ethnic Cleansing, Annexation and Apartheid State in which he characterized the poll results as having “alarming findings concerning the deterioration of democratic values in Israel’.  Mr. Silverstein says:

... The clarion call for liberal Zionists (including the New Israel Fund, which sponsored this poll) has always been that Israel is a “Jewish democratic state.”  No one was allowed to separate those two words and say Israel was only a Jewish state or only a democracy.  It had to be both.  We can no longer say this is true.  The majority of Israeli Jews hold views that are clearly antithetical to democracy.  In fact, they’ve largely embraced the agenda of Meir Kahane, who held that democracy was a type of illness imported from the west and alien to the Middle East.  Kahane favored a Jewish state that offered no democratic rights to non-Jews.  This poll shows that Israeli Jews are rapidly flocking to this point of view.

Jews favor superior rights for themselves over non-Jewish citizens.  They favor denying Palestinian citizens the right to vote.  They favor preferences to Jews over non-Jews in awarding government jobs.  They favor an apartheid transportation system.  They support the ethnic cleansing of non-Jewish citizens from the State.

...  I find it astonishing that a majority of Jews explicitly accept the term “apartheid” to describe what Israel is.  Also interesting is the finding that while 40% favor annexing the Territories, 48% oppose this.  That does not mean, of course, that this group is willing to return the Territories.  More likely it means they want to retain the status quo in which the West Bank is neither a Palestinian state nor annexed to Israel.

I do not believe Israel is a country that can save itself.  Once it has stopped being a democracy, the solution to its problems cannot come from within.  I’m afraid that we must wait for a dysfunctional country to perpetrate an act so heinous that the rest of the world cannot help but intervene to prevent something much worse.  Serbia brought such a fate upon itself through the massacre of Srebenica and subsequent genocide in Kosovo.  Syria is coming to such a crossroads with its recent likely assassination of Lebanon’s security chief.  Israel will follow in Assad’s footsteps.  It’s only a question of when.  And how much bloodshed can the world absorb before it calls Israel out for its behavior. ...

Noam Sheizaf in the article Poll: Israelis support discrimination against Arabs, embrace the term notes about his reaction to the results of this poll

...  A note about the meaning of this poll. From my own personal impression on life in Israel, the findings are very consistent with the views you encounter in the public sphere. They reflect the widespread notion that Israel, as “a Jewish State,” should be a state that favors Jews. They are also the result of the occupation, which has completely dehumanized the Palestinians in the eyes of Israelis. After almost half a century of dominating another people, it’s no surprise that most Israelis don’t think Arabs deserve the same rights.

These positions are the result of legal discrimination and the status quo on the ground. While the Israeli government is ready to try and advance Palestinians on some fields, the dehumanization narrative dominates the political conversation, and there is zero readiness to challenge the inherent discrimination in the system itself (not to mention the occupation). This poll is therefore not a failure of education – as some might want to see it – but a problem inherent in the system itself. Only an end to the occupation and a move towards an egalitarian model of citizenship – “a state for all its citizens” – can bring the desired change in attitude by Jews. When the system treats Arabs as equal, public perception will follow.

The Israel Hayom site reports that

... Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Monday during a visit to Jerusalem that the prospect of an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord is “vanishing,” blaming Israeli settlement of the West Bank.

Carter, a longtime critic of Israeli policies, called the current situation “catastrophic” and blamed Israel for the growing isolation of east Jerusalem from the West Bank. He said a Palestinian state has become “unviable.”  “We’ve reached a crisis stage,” said Carter, 88. “The two-state solution is the only realistic path to peace and security for Israel and the Palestinians.”

Carter is currently on a two-day visit leading a delegation known as the “The Elders,” which includes the former prime minister of Norway and the former president of Ireland. The group met with President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. ...

The NY Times reported that “Mr. Carter said Monday that the situation is “worse now than it’s ever been for the Palestinians” because of the expanding settlements and lack of prospects for change. Describing himself as “grieved, disgusted and angry,” he said the two-state solution is “in death throes,” which he called “a tragic new development that the world is kind of ignoring.”  Surveys show Palestinians and Israelis overwhelmingly support a two-state solution, but intellectuals on both sides have increasingly been talking about a binational, single state. But models for such a state generally either imagine Israel losing its Jewish character, or ruling over a Palestinian majority in an undemocratic way. Mr. Carter called the one-state option “a catastrophe — not for the Palestinians, for Israel.”

It is past time for a nuanced and reasonable discussion about what influence the U.S. might have that could result in a just and peaceful solution for both the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Pamela Geller of the hate group AFDI has weighed in on this question.  Geller wrote an article about these ads More Vicious Anti-Israel Ads to Appear in NYC Subway.  She calls the ads “vicious, disrespectful, offensive, a blood libel against the Jews, anti-Israel, the same technique that Goebbels used, appropriating the propaganda methods of the Third Reich, part of a war on the Jews, a jihad against the Jews”. 

And then she says:  “And so again, with little fanfare and no outraged opposition or media firestorm or condemnation, Muslim Jew-haters are running their fourth repulsive anti-Semitic campaign in the New York City transit system. It is important to point out that it is these campaigns that were the impetus for the AFDI pro-Israel and #MyJihad campaigns. I can assure you that this latest Goebbels-style demonization of the Jews will not go unanswered. We are working feverishly right now to get ads responding to these ready for submission.”

Actually, this AMP ad is the first that was produced by a Muslim organization.  The other ads to which Geller says her ads are a response were not produced by Muslim organizations although all of her response ads have been aimed at Muslims and Islam.  There have already been four ads about the Israel-Palestine crisis to which Geller and her partner Robert Spencer, and their hate group AFDI objected and responded.  This ad by American Muslims for Palestine would actually be the fifth, not the fourth: 

The first ad to which she objected was placed by Two Peoples One Future which part of the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation.  This is a coalition of over 250 organizations - peace groups, interfaith groups, Christian, Jewish & Muslim groups. 

The second ad to which she objected was placed by the Coalition to Stop 30 Billion to Israel  which is a coalition of many groups (including Christians and Jews). 

The third ad to which she objected was placed by The Church of Reconciliation and friends The Church of Reconciliation is a Presbyterian USA church in Chapel Hill. 

The fourth ad to which she objected was produced by The Committee for Peace in Israel and Palestine, and paid for by an individual named Henry Clifford, who is the Chairman of that organization.

All of the previous ads were characterized in the same alarmist fashion as this one.  We have a whole series of articles on TAM about these ad wars.

What I find very curious is that during the recent AIPAC conference, another series of ads were run in Washington D.C. and Geller & Spencer said nothing.  As Adam Horowitz reported Advertising campaigns target AIPAC and US aid to Israel across Washington DC.  He noted that ”... the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and Visualizing Palestine launched an advertising campaign calling on the United States to end $30 billion of military aid to Israel.  A three-day mobile truck ad highlighting the devastating impact U.S. weapons have on Palestinians will follow AIPAC attendees during their conference and as they lobby Members of Congress for more weapons for Israel.”  Here are those ads, which are much stronger than the ad from AMP, and yet were ignored by Geller.

The previous ads provoked Geller’s ““savage/civilized - jihad - Islamorealism” ads which were all attacks on Islam/Muslims, even though the ads were produced by non-Muslim organizations.  I can’t even imagine what Geller might come up with as what she considers an “appropriate response” to an ad that was actually produced by a Muslim organization.  Geller has threatened a response “I can assure you that this latest Goebbels-style demonization of the Jews will not go unanswered. We are working feverishly right now to get ads responding to these ready for submission.” 

Reasonable people may disagree on the Palestine-Israel crisis, and on possible solutions that might bring a just peace for both Israel and Palestine.  It would be a wonderful thing if this crisis which has gone on for so long could be resolved.  Based on past performance, I seriously doubt that Geller and the AFDI will offer any reasonable response to the question of whether or not U.S. military aid to Israel is prolonging this crisis, whether or not some Israeli policies can be called apartheid, and whether or not U.S. aid should be contingent on adherence to international law.

If Geller really does run another series of ads, I hope that all reasonable people will respond with wisdom. 

UPDATE 3/29/2013

Geller and Spencer must have worked feverishly, as she has already published “This is Islamic Apartheid”: New AFDI Ad Campaign to Launch in NYC to counter blood libel by American Muslims

Geller says:

We submitted the following ads (scroll) responding to the repulsive, anti-Semitic American Muslims for Palestine ads (above) that were announced yesterday. Our ads will focus on the real apartheid, Islamic apartheid: the institutionalized oppression of women, gays and non-Muslims under Islamic law (Sharia). This is the fourth repulsive anti-Semitic campaign that Muslim Jew-haters are running in the New York City transit system. It is important to point out that it is these campaigns that were the impetus for the AFDI pro-Israel and #MyJihad campaigns. I can assure you that this latest Goebbels-style demonization of the Jews will not go unanswered. We are working right now to get ads responding to these ready for submission.

She includes copies of four proposed AFDI ads - one focusing on the fact that non-Muslims are not allowed in Mecca - one focusing on the fact that gays were executed by hanging in Iran for being gay - one focusing on the fact that a woman was beaten in Indonesia for not agreeing to marry her rapist - and one making a claim that close to 1 million Jews have been killed or exiled from Muslim lands since 1948.  These are very disparate issues. It is puzzling that a response to an ad on the Israel-Palestine crisis becomes a “Muslim” issue - all Palestinians are not Muslims.  Most of the individuals and organizations also questioning Israel’s policies are not Muslims.  Why is it that AFDI sees fit to only attack Islam and Muslims?

That non-Muslims are not allowed in Mecca

where Muslims are required to do a pilgrimage once in their lifetime if they are able as one of the five pillars of Islam is a fact.  That area is considered a sacred space.  Non-Jews (gentiles)  were not allowed in the prayer area of the Temple in Jerusalem and there were stone plaques posted in Latin and Greek that read:  “No Gentile is to approach within the balustrade round the Temple and the peribolos.  Whosoever is caught will be guilty of his own death which will follow.”  If a Third Temple were to be built in Jerusalem no gentiles would be allowed within the sacred space because they are considered unclean.  Non Mormons are not allowed inside any Mormon Temple.  There are sacred spaces of many religions that are not open to anyone except members of that faith.  This is really a non-issue. 

Persecuting homosexuals, denying them their rights, or considering homosexuality to be a crime, or a death penalty offence is wrong.  Homophobia is wrong.

.  The sad fact that all over the world gays have been persecuted and killed, often in the name of religion is a tragedy.  Right here in the U.S. the most recent FBI hate crimes report states that hate crimes against gays now outnumber hate crimes against religion.  And, the highest number of anti-gay murders ever was reported in 2011.  You can find Muslims taking such extremist positions based on their interpretations of scripture, and you can find Christians and Jews taking the same extremist positions.  You can find homophobia and bigotry among all the Abrahamic faiths.  All of these extremists are wrong.  All bigots must be condemned, and the rights of all people defended.  Muslims have done so.  For example, in Britain, Muslim MP’s voted for marriage equality, and Omid Safi has strongly spoken for that equality in the U.S.  Both Muslim Congressmen, Keith Ellison and Andre Carson have come out in favor of marriage equality. 

Junaid Jahangir has written an excellent article Can Pamela Geller Work With Straight and Queer Muslims? discussing this issue.  His article include this passage:

... It does not seem reasonable to quote Sheik Qaradawi without mentioning that over 2,500 Muslim intellectuals from 23 countries not only called for an international treaty to counter such clerics, but also called for a tribunal set by the United Nations Security Council to put them on trial for inciting violence.

It is also noteworthy that Muslim Professor Scott Kugle argues in an academic article that Sheik Qaradawi churns out his homophobia as part of “an agenda to reinforce perceived threats to Muslim masculinity.”

Cherry picking quotes from homophobic Muslim leaders and projecting on the entire Muslim community is akin to stereotyping the entire Christian community by referencing equally influential evangelical leaders who believe gays should be put to death and the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, whose links with American fundamentalist Christian groups has led to the immense persecution of the Ugandan queer community.  ...

Here are just a few examples of extremist homophobes from the Abrahamic faiths who must be countered and marginalized:

EDL Rabbi Nachum Shifren’s statements on “God’s Command to Kill Homosexuals”.  The Uganda anti-homosexuality bill with a death penalty for homosexuality - which many American Christian groups have encouraged and supported.  Rev. Fred Phelps, of the Westboro Baptist Church who teaches that “God hates fags”, “Thank God for 9/11”, “Thank God for dead soldiers”, “Fags are worthy of death” (and bases this on Romans 1:32).  Rev. Curtis Knapp, the Kansas Pastor who said “the Government Should Kill Gays”.  Rev. Charles L. Worley, the North Carolina Pastor who said we “should put Gays And Lesbians in an electrified pen to kill them off”.  Rev. Phillip G. Kayser, a pastor at the Dominion Covenant Church in Nebraska who authored a paper arguing for criminalizing homosexuality and even advocated imposing the death penalty against offenders based on his reading of Biblical law.  Rabbi Shmuel Pappenheim, editor of the Eida Haredit’s weekly magazine “Ha’eidah” and the Rabbinical Court in Israel held a special session and discussed placing a pulsa danura on those who have a hand in organizing a gay march. (this is a curse of death).  Rabbi Yaakov Teitel, a West Bank rabbi from Florida who released a book giving Jews permission to kill Gentiles who threaten Israel, and who also distributed leaflets in a religious neighborhood of Jerusalem praising a deadly shooting attack on gays and lesbians.  Pastor Steven Anderson of Tempe, AZ who said: “If you’re a homosexual, I hope you get brain cancer like Ted Kennedy”.  The gunman who killed two people and wounded at least 10 at a gay support centre in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.  Yishai Shlisel who stabbed three gay pride parade goers in Israel.  The bombing of a vineyard near Beit Shemesh in Israel which police might have been carried out by ultra-Orthodox residents of the nearby Ramat Beit Shemesh in response to a gay pride parade.  Shalom Peretz who attempted an anti-gay attack at a screening of a gay documentary in a café in Jerusalem. Rep. James Lankford (R-OK) who said he believes someone should be able to be fired for his or her sexual orientation as “it’s a choice issue”.  Bryan Fischer of the American Family Assoc. who called for[url] homosexuality to be made illegal in the U.S.  Rep. Steve King (R-IA) [url=http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/04/04/457698/steve-king-dadt-workers/]who proposed a don’t ask don’t tell approach in the workplace.  Etc. etc. etc.

The idea that a woman must marry her rapist

is a cultural idea in some societies that is counter to the principals of Islam.  Any sort of forced marriage is against Islam, and scholars like Tariq Ramadan here, Sheikh Musa Furber here and here, and many others have spoken out against such practices. 

These particular incidents are reprehensible.  However, they do not represent the beliefs of a majority of Muslims.  Such acts are not representative of Islam.  Extremist statements and acts should not be labeled “Islamic”, “Jewish”, or “Christian”, as that only validates the false claims of the perpetrators.  Only a bigot like Pamela Geller could attempt to tarnish the entire religion of Islam, and all Muslims with such acts and beliefs.  And, no matter how many times she claims that she is not attacking all Muslims, her actual actions and statements belie that claim.  For example, just today she published an article on Pope Francis washing the feet of 12 people on Maundy Thursday (this is part of the Christian tradition, mirroring Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet).  This year, women, and two Muslims were included.  Women and non-Christians have never before been included in the ritual.  Geller did not find this to be a wonderful example of tolerance and coexistence.  Geller said “While millions of Christians are being oppressed, persecuted and slaughtered under Islamic law ...... this is stomach-churning dhimmitude. This isn’t merely a lack of leadership; this is betrayal on an unimaginable level. Kill my people and I will wash and kiss your feet.  For jihadists, this image could very well replace the burning twin towers as iconic of Islamic imperialism and conquest.”  These two Muslim women are not responsible for the acts of individuals who have murdered others - unless Geller believes all Muslims are responsible for the acts of any Muslim.  If that is the case, then do Islamophobes like Pamela Geller, David Horowitz, Steven Emerson, Daniel Pipes, etc. represent all Jews? 

The last claim made in AFDI’s proposed ads about the number of Jews killed or exiled since 1948 is debatable, as is whether or not Israel is engaging in some policies which could be considered apartheid.

Here are the ads that the AFDI believes are a response to the AMP ad - look at them carefully, and see which of these ads are offensive.  None of the ads calling into question Israeli policies mentions Judaism, they mention the state of Israel.  The AFDI ads say nothing about Palestine, they only mention Islam, and certainly not all Palestinians are Muslims.  And, not all or even most of those producing these ads are Muslims.  The ads that Geller and Spencer call anti-Israel can be seen by reasonable people as pro-peace and pro-Israel & Palestine. 

SEE ALSO:

All Israel, No Palestinians http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/23/all-israel-no-palestinians.html

Jimmy Carter: Israel has dropped the two-state solution for a ‘Greater Israel’, Allison Deger http://mondoweiss.net/2012/10/jimmy-carter-israel-has-dropped-the-two-state-solution-for-a-greater-israel.html

Jimmy Carter Says Middle East Peace Is ‘Vanishing’ During Jerusalem Speech http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/22/jimmy-carter-says-middle-east-peace_n_2001826.html

The death of the Israel-Palestine two-state solution brings fresh hope, Rachel Shabi http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/23/israel-palestine-two-state-solution

The Galilee First: Equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel is essential for peace and reconciliation, Sam Bahour http://mondoweiss.net/2012/10/the-galilee-first-equal-rights-for-palestinian-citizens-of-israel-is-essential-for-peace-and-reconciliation.html

In Jerusalem, Carter Derides Netanyahu and Obama http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/23/world/middleeast/in-israel-carter-says-two-state-solution-in-death-throes.html?_r=0

Israelis favour discrimination against Arabs - poll http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/9628155/Israelis-favour-discrimination-against-Arabs-poll.html

Israeli poll finds majority in favour of ‘apartheid’ policies, Harriet Sherwood http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/23/israeli-poll-majority-apartheid-policies

Netanyahu visits Gilo to defend Jerusalem construction http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/10/23/3110061/netanyahu-visits-gilo-to-defend-jerusalem-construction

The new Israeli apartheid: Poll reveals widespread Jewish support for policy of discrimination against Arab minority http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-new-israeli-apartheid-poll-reveals-widespread-jewish-support-for-policy-of-discrimination-against-arab-minority-8223548.html

Survey reveals anti-Arab attitudes in Israel,  Gabe Fisher http://www.timesofisrael.com/survey-reveals-anti-arab-attitudes-in-israel/

Survey of Israeli Racism: 58% of Jews Label Their State ‘Apartheid’, Richard Silverstein http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2012/10/23/survey-of-israeli-racism-58-of-jews-label-their-state-apartheid/

New Israel Fund site http://www.nif.org/