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Community responds to anti-Israel ads on RTD

JEWISHcolorado's large billboard, above, and an RTD bus ad bought by Americans Against Terrorism.

Now it’s Israel’s turn.

Hardly had a slew of anti-Israel ads — accusing the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing — been taken down from the sides of RTD buses and trains than a new series of ads designed to counter the claims of the earlier ones took their place.

The pro-Israel ads appeared on the weekend of Nov. 23-24 for a four-week run on six RTD mall shuttle buses. The ads are sponsored by the grassroots group Americans Against Terrorism.

A week later, a large pro-Israel billboard was erected by JEWISHcolorado at 6th Ave. and Lincoln St.

A spokesperson for JEWISHcolorado said this week: “We just wanted to present the other side of the argument — that Israelis help anyone who is in need around the world.

“They were some of the first on the ground here in Colorado with the flooding [in Boulder].

“People don’t see that or know it.”

The billboard shows it.

Americans Against Terrorism, composed of pro-Israel Denver-area Jews and Christians, designed its counter-advertising campaign as a response to the “untruthful attack against Israel” that appeared on RTD vehicles for several weeks in October and November, according to a statement released by the group last week.

Headlined “who really wants ethnic cleansing?” the AAT ad includes a quote from a PLO spokesman reading: “No Jew . . . will have the right to live . . . in the Palestinian state.”

It also features a photograph of Arabs burning a synagogue with the statement: “Arabs in Gaza burned synagogues after Jews withdrew” and the statement: “Arabs in Israel are elected to Parliament, are on the Prime Minister’s cabinet and the Supreme Court.”

Announcing the new bus ad last week, AAT secretary and spokeswoman Tsivya Frieder said the earlier anti-Israel ads — paid for by groups calling themselves NoTaxDollars ToIsrael.com and ColoradoBDSCampaign.org. — “were designed to be inflammatory and simply ignore the facts. They were aimed at Americans who may be unfamiliar with what really goes on in the Middle East.

“For example: After years of violence aimed at the Jews who lived in Jewish communities in Gaza, the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon instituted the 2005 ‘Disengagement Plan’ and evicted over 10,000 Jews from their homes in Gaza and the West Bank.”

Frieder noted that “within minutes” of the Israeli withdrawal, Arab mobs destroyed a number of greenhouses Israel had left behind as a goodwill gesture as well as several synagogues.

“This was a literal ethnic cleansing by fire by unimpeded mobs,” Frieder said.

“For them, even the site of something built by a Jew was intolerable. The ads that ran a few weeks ago on RTD buses and light rail clearly turn truth on its head.”

Reached by the IJN last week, Frieder said the pro-Israel ads will run for four weeks, “unless we get more donations.”

AAT chairman Neil Dobro did not disclose a precise figure for the ads purchased by AAT, but acknowledged that the group is still raising funds to pay for them.

He said that he has estimated that the earlier anti-Israel ads cost in excess of $60,000.

“The community was really outraged,” Frieder said of the anti-Israel ads that appeared on buses and trains earlier this fall. “Feelings were running high about those ethnic cleansing ads.”

And for good reason, said AAT chairman Dobro.

“The Nazi propaganda strategy against the Jews was to employ a technique that’s become known as the ‘Big Lie,’” Dobro told the IJN.

“What they found was that even the most outlandishly false accusation would gain acceptance among the public if two things happened: If the lie was repeated often enough, and if it went unanswered. While today’s’ opponents of Israel are not the Nazis, they certainly are using their ‘Big Lie’ technique.

“The Jewish people have seen what happens when the big lie is not answered,” Dobro added. “The technique was used by [Nazi propaganda chief Josef] Goebbels in the Holocaust and paved the way for the murder of Jews.

“The best weapon we have is the truth,” Dobro said of the AAT ads, “and this is the truth.”

The AAT position, Frieder said, is that such anti-Israeli ads should not be allowed to make what it considers to false claims without being answered by the pro-Israel community.

“You never know,” she said when asked whether the earlier “ethnic cleansing” message might actually have changed anyone’s mind about Israel.

“If people keep hearing the same big lie over and over again, you don’t know what affect it will have. I think most Americans are intelligent enough and informed enough to dismiss things like that out of hand.”

Still, Frieder cited a passage that AAT included in its press release last week:

“As Mark Twain once said, ‘A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.’ Americans Against Terrorism has decided to get its shoes on and respond with facts and truth.”

Inaccurate and strident anti-Israel positions must be responded to, Frieder told the IJN.

Copyright © 2013 by the Intermountain Jewish News


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IJN Assistant Editor | [email protected]


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