Billboards Criticizing US Aid To Israel Taken Down Under Pressure

[Purveyor]

A few week ago we posted about ten billboards going up around Albuquerque, NM calling for congress to cut off aid to Israel. They were put up by The Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel, a multi-ethnic, multi-religious coalition working to "end to the ten year commitment of $30 billion in U.S. taxpayer-funded military aid pledged to Israel in 2007 by the Bush administration." Today, the coalition sent out a press release saying that although Lamar Outdoor Advertising had signed a contract to run the billboards for eight weeks, they care coming down after three. From the press release:

On April 8th, the Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel erected the billboards throughout the Albuquerque area in order to inform the public about the misuse of their tax dollars, denominated in human lives. The group was motivated by concern for the Palestinian people who had recently been subjected to a massive invasion of the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military. Over 1,400 Palestinians – mostly civilian, including three hundred children – were killed and over 5,000 were injured. In 2007 the Bush administration signed a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion of U.S. taxpayer dollars to Israel over a ten year period beginning in 2008. The majority of these dollars will be used to purchase American-made weapons.

The design of the billboard had been approved by Lamar and the billboards’ wording and final image were suggested by Lamar’s graphics designer.

According to information from Lamar, it appears groups claiming to be pro-Israel have conducted a campaign to pressure Lamar to remove the billboards. The Coalition believes this is a deliberate attempt to silence its right to free speech because the humanitarian message of the billboards supports equal rights for the Palestinian people, thereby necessitating criticism of Israel.

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/04/billboards-criticizing-us-aid-to-israel-taken-down-under-pressure.html

[IndianaGreen]

1. We know how the Israel Lobby and their zombies hate the airing of different views

We are supposed to march in lockstep to the "Zionist Greater Israel and Give us a new Temple so that we can slaughter animals day and night to appease a blood thirsty deity" drummer.

[Howardx]

2. yet another indefensible act

silencing your critics has always been progressive:sarcasm:

[HowHasItComeToThis]

3. CUT THE FASCISTS OFF

[liberalmuse]

4. Well, I guess we will forever be Israel's bitches.

We're their sugar daddy because this country is chock full of religious nuts. I believe in Israel's right to exist because it's futile to make the counter argument because it does exist, though it was the biggest fucking mistake this country ever made next to W. Just try saying anything derogatory about their policies in this country, and you will be cut off. I feel like everyone in the US are slaves to this crazy Israel fetish.

[oberliner]

6. People say derogatory things about Israeli policy all the time in this country

There are countless newspaper articles, letters to the editor, blog posts, discussion board posts, and entire websites that are devoted to criticizing Israeli policy.

[aquart]

7. Do you?

"I believe in Israel's right to exist ...though it was the biggest fucking mistake this country ever made next to W."

No. You don't. And if the Arabs nations which outnumber it thousands to one should ever fulfill your dreams and wipe it from the earth, the silence of your protest will be a marvel to behold. No matter how many dead litter the streets.

[Douglas Carpenter]

8. the Arab Nations have been offering to negotiate peace with Israel for quite some time

Here is the exact translation of the 2002 peace plan unanimously adopted by the Arab League and and endorsed by the PLO. With marginally different wording, the same unanimously adopted resolutions was proffered in 1996. But the basic formula has been offered by the Arab nations going back much, much longer:

Official translation of the full text of a Saudi-inspired peace plan adopted by the Arab summit in Beirut, 2002.


The Arab Peace Initiative

http://www.al-bab.com/arab/docs/league/peace02.htm

The Council of Arab States at the Summit Level at its 14th Ordinary Session,

Reaffirming the resolution taken in June 1996 at the Cairo Extra-Ordinary Arab Summit that a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East is the strategic option of the Arab countries, to be achieved in accordance with international legality, and which would require a comparable commitment on the part of the Israeli government,

Having listened to the statement made by his royal highness Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, crown prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in which his highness presented his initiative calling for full Israeli withdrawal from all the Arab territories occupied since June 1967, in implementation of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, reaffirmed by the Madrid Conference of 1991 and the land-for-peace principle, and Israel's acceptance of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, in return for the establishment of normal relations in the context of a comprehensive peace with Israel,

Emanating from the conviction of the Arab countries that a military solution to the conflict will not achieve peace or provide security for the parties, the council:

1. Requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well.

2. Further calls upon Israel to affirm:

I- Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.

II- Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.

III- The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

3. Consequently, the Arab countries affirm the following:

I- Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region.

II- Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.

4. Assures the rejection of all forms of Palestinian patriation which conflict with the special circumstances of the Arab host countries.

5. Calls upon the government of Israel and all Israelis to accept this initiative in order to safeguard the prospects for peace and stop the further shedding of blood, enabling the Arab countries and Israel to live in peace and good neighbourliness and provide future generations with security, stability and prosperity.

6. Invites the international community and all countries and organisations to support this initiative.

7. Requests the chairman of the summit to form a special committee composed of some of its concerned member states and the secretary general of the League of Arab States to pursue the necessary contacts to gain support for this initiative at all levels, particularly from the United Nations, the Security Council, the United States of America, the Russian Federation, the Muslim states and the European Union.

[LeftishBrit]

9. Whatever one thinks of Israel, how on earth is its existence "this country's (America) biggest

mistake"? Palestine was a Turkish, then a British, colony. Israel became an independent state in 1948, along with other ex-British colonies at about the same time. The 'Balfour declaration' proposing a Jewish homeland in the region was put forward by a British ex-PM in 1917.

So if you don't like having Israel there, blame Britain; blame the UN - but why America in particular? America is currently Israel's strongest ally, but it didn't create Israel.

P.S. do you also think that other postwar independent states are 'fucking mistakes'? Many have externally imposed boundaries; many have been unstable and involved in serious conflicts. Why just Israel?

[kayecy]

10. Why America in particular?........Let's think....

So if you don't like having Israel there, blame Britain; blame the UN - but why America in particular?

Why America in particular?......Let's think.....They 'approved' Balfour before the Brits dared publish it.....They stopped all Jewish immigration to the US in 1922...They sent 1,000 refugess on the SS St Luis back to Hitler in 1939....They refused to accept ex-deathcamp Jews after WW2 and insisted that Britain let them in to Palestine...They twisted every tin-pot member of the UN to acceopt Israel as a state in 1948 even though they knew not a single country in the region accepted Israel being carved out of Mandate Palestine.

Plese don't think I'm excusing the Brits, the League of Nations members, or the UN, but I cannot for the life of me think why most Israelis think the Palestinians are more to blame for this conflict than the US.
.

[oberliner]

11. Sending Jews back to their deaths may have been one of this country's biggest mistakes

But the US by no stretch created Israel or was itself responsible for its existence.

[kayecy]

12. Really?.....Read the following extract from the Truman Library......

But the US by no stretch created Israel or was itself responsible for its existence.

Really?...... Read the following extract from the Truman library:

"At midnight on May 14, 1948, the Provisional Government of Israel proclaimed the new State of Israel. On that same date the United States, in the person of President Truman, recognized the provisional Jewish government as de facto authority of the new Jewish state (de jure recognition was extended on January 31). The U.S. delegates to the U.N. and top ranking State Department officials were angered that Truman released his recognition statement to the press without notifying them first. On May 15, 1948, the Arab states issued their response statement and Arab armies invaded Israel and the first Arab-Israeli war began."

OK, Truman wasn't "The US", but he was the US President and the US was the first state to reciognise Israel.
.

[aquart]

5. "multi-ethnic, multi-religious."

Never doubted it for a second.