Round-up of support for AMP and free speech in San Francisco

The American Muslims for Palestine and its Israeli apartheid ad now appearing on San Francisco buses have come under harsh attack by the Jewish Community Relations Council, the ADL and the American Jewish Committee, all pro-occupation organizations, for its attempt to educate the American public about Israel’s occupation of Palestine and US support for it. 

The JCRC has attempted to smear AMP as an “extremist” organization and is calling on the transportation authority to ban all political speech ads in the future. It has attempted to equate the constitutionally protected political speech in AMP’s ad with the hate-filled, racist rhetoric in ads placed last summer by noted Islamophobe Pamela Geller and her American Freedom Defense Initiative, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a hate group.

 AMP is heartened by the outpouring of support from a diverse range of groups and individuals from Jewish Voice for Peace to Friends of Sabeel North America. Below is a sampling of articles and statements that have come out in support of free speech and AMP’s right to use political speech to critique Israeli and US policies. 

Mondoweiss

Conjuring the ‘Jewish community’ to shut down debate of apartheid in San Francisco

By Annie Robbins
May 27, 2013

The news that San Francisco supervisors are claiming that a bus ad opposing Israeli "apartheid" is hurtful to the Jewish community has really hit a nerve. The supervisors are just mouthing what rightwing Jewish organizations said about the American Muslims for Palestine(AMP) ad, and it turns out I'm not the only one who's sick of gasbags conjuring 'the Jewish community' every time they want to shut down a conversation. The Supervisor's letter claims the ad creates "a very real danger to constructive discussion and debate."

As the National Lawyers Guild says, "While the position that Israel is an apartheid state may be controversial to some, it is an integral part of the global discussion concerning Israel’s treatment of Palestinians."

Read more.

National Lawyers Guild

May 24, 2013
An Open Letter Regarding SF Muni Bus Ads

Today, the National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter (NLGSF) sent the following letter to the Municipal Transportation Agency. The NLGSF supports ads placed on buses critical of Israeli policies and believes it is wrong to compare these ads with the hate speech of earlier ads.

Dear Mr. Reiskin and Chairman Nolan:

On behalf of the National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, we are writing you to voice our support for the advertisements commissioned by American Muslims for Palestine and express our disagreement with the substance of a letter sent by some San Francisco supervisors, led by Scott Wiener.

The most deplorable aspect of the letter from Supervisor Wiener is its attempt to equate hateful ads targeting all Muslims and labeling them “savages” with ads criticizing a state of affairs in Israel, quoting Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu, and calling for a political solution – ending U.S. aid to Israel. The anti-Muslim ads were undeniably hate speech. The ads critical of Israeli policies are pure political speech targeting a nation-state not a class of persons.

Read more.

Mondoweiss

May 24, 2013

SF officials describe ‘apartheid’ label as ‘intolerance alienating the Jewish community’

“Shmuel,” posted this comment after the article:

Why? Did someone suggest that the Jewish community in SF practises apartheid? Supports apartheid? Defends apartheid? The ad mentions Israel (not the Jewish community), Americans (not Jewish Americans) and the U.S. (not the San Francisco Jewish community).

Had someone called out the “Jewish community” (or at least its mainstream institutions and most vocal spokesmen) for its support and defence of apartheid, that would have been alienating – true, but alienating. If the “Jewish community” can’t take its political choices being challenged (even harshly), then it should stay out of politics.

It’s rather ironic that it is those claiming to defend the Jewish community — not the people behind the ad — who are blaming all Jews (by religious/ethnic association) for Israeli apartheid. Shame on them.
Read more.

Muzzlewatch

May 10, 2013

San Francisco bus ads condemn Israeli apartheid: backlash begins

By Cecilie Suransky

American Muslims for Palestine launched an ad campaign this week on San Francisco buses condemning Israeli apartheid. (See below.) Predictably, local branches of the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, as well as the Jewish Community Relations Council, immediately issued a statement in effect calling the ad hate speech for using the word ‘apartheid’. They have called on “all civic, ethnic and religious leaders who oppose bigoted lies and demonization to exercise their constitutional rights by condemning these inflammatory advertisements.”
Read more.

Jewish Voice for Peace

May 10, 2013

JVP supports San Francisco bus advertising campaign
[May 10, 2013. Oakland] The group American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) has launched a public advertising campaign on San Francisco buses quoting Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and calling for an end to Israeli apartheid.

In its press release of May 9, 2013, incorrectly titled, “Bay Area Jewish Community Condemns Deceptive Apartheid Ads”, the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) smear the ad as “deceitful” “morally reprehensible” and “inflammatory” because it characterizes Israel’s military regime as “apartheid.”
Read more.