November 1, 2012

Billboard Wars -- An Analysis

Pamela Geller and her billboard message

PART I - The Savage vs. the Civilized

Back on 1 August 2012 I posted a piece entitled History on a Billboard.  It reported on the placement, in the northern suburbs of New York City, of informational billboards with maps of Palestine showing the steady growth of Israeli confiscated territory and the corresponding shrinkage of territory available to the indigenous Palestinians.  It also told the observer that “4.7 million Palestinians are classified by the UN as Refugees.”  Although Zionists labelled the billboard as “anti-Semitic,” it was nothing of the kind.  It was wholly informational, and completely accurate. 

As it turns out that informational effort is now part of a growing number of ads, signs and messages which collectively make up what I call the “billboard wars.”  From San Francisco to Washington D.C. and New York City, both Zionists and pro-Palestinian groups have launched competing billboard efforts. This is going on mostly in publicly owned spaces because Zionist pressure often results in private billboard companies refusing to display pro-Palestinian messages.  Now, depending on how you want to read the message of the latest Zionist effort, the billboard wars battleground has widened beyond the issue of Palestine to encompass a worldwide clash between the “civilized” and the “savage.”  It is to be noted that this was the sort of language used by imperial colonizers, including the U.S. in its conquest of the American Indians, to compare themselves to the indigenous populations they oppressed.

Here is what has happened.  There is a Zionist group calling itself “American Freedom Defense Initiative” (AFDI) led by the infamous American Islamophobe Pamela Geller.  This organization has produced a sign that reads,

1. Defeat Jihad."  

Geller and AFDI aimed at placing this message on buses, subways, and in other public venues but initially had difficulty because most transportation agencies saw it as discriminatory and provocative.  However, AFDI went to court and a federal judge found that their sign was an act of “free speech” protected by the First Amendment.  Therefore, in late September, those people of New York City who ride the buses and subways found Pamela Geller’s message in their faces. Most, of course, will pay it little mind.  Yet, we should not ignore it.  It is part of a propaganda effort with potentially damaging consequences. 

Part II - Analyzing the Message

Second - Is the AFDI correct in telling us that Israel is the “civilized man?”  Only in their own ahistorical fantasy.  If you care to live in a world driven by the facts then Israel is rendered “the savage.”  There is a lot of evidence for this.

1. This is genocide in slow motion.

2. Sara Roy is an extremely knowledgable American Jewish academic, but there are plenty of other sources, some of them Israeli, that will back up and expand on her critique.  Here are a few of them:

-- B’tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights

-- Rabbis for Human Rights

-- Palestine Center for Human Rights

-- Jewish Voices for Peace

Looking at the websites of these organizations reveals a litany of on-going barbaric policies and actions perpetrated upon mostly unarmed Palestinians who have nothing at all to do with Jihadists.  Indeed, to act as Israel does in this regard is to qualify a good number of its citizens (though not all) as savages. So to be true to the facts AFDI’s sign should really read as follows,

"In any war between savage one (Israel) and savage two (Al Qaeda), AFDI urges Americans to support savage number one.  This is so even though Israel is not fighting Jihadists but rather genocidally destroying Palestinians."

That would be historically accurate, although it would put the situation in a distinctly different light than does Ms Geller’s propaganda. 

The end of the billboard wars is not yet in sight.  AFDI’s message is aimed at an American audience and thus can also be read as an attempt to promote Islamophobia just before a presidential election. 

To counter the racist aspect of this message, the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has placed sixteen foot signs in the metro stations of Washington D.C. that are designed to “promote mutual understanding and challenge hate.”  Their signs quote from the Quran: “show forgiveness, speak for justice and avoid the ignorant.”

Part III -- Conclusion

The unfortunate thing is that, in these sorts of confrontations, Geller and her ilk have the odds on their side.  This is because all the peace seekers are ultimately at the mercy of the violent and hateful extremists on both sides.  However, in the U.S. the media will only tell you about the Jihadists.  Therefore, all it takes is one Al-Qaeda attack on an American target to send the CAIR message into oblivion.  On the other hand the Israeli government and its settler allies can act out the Zionist version of ethnic cleansing daily and the American public will rarely, if ever, hear about it.

The truth is there are fewer civilized men and women than we like to believe.  The ones in power, regardless of the nationstate, only rarely behave in civilized ways.  The bulk of the citizens either gives support to or are indifferent toward their leader’s actions.  The small remainder, who are indeed candidates for the category of civilized people, are left to struggle against a strong and consistent counter-current.  This is nowhere more true than in the state of Israel. 

Such then, for all of us, is the heart of darkness.