Please see the press release and action alert by member group Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign and take action to protest King County's discriminatory advertising policies. (See bottom for people to contact!)

KING COUNTY METRO PLANS TO RUN HATE GROUP’S FALSE BUS AD ABOUT PALESTINIANS


You are being sent this email alert by The Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign (SeaMAC)


King County Metro has plans to place false and misleading ads on Metro buses that violate Metro’s own advertising policy guidelines (Section 6.2.4).  The planned ad, paid for by the notorious Pamela Geller and her Islamophobic organization The American Freedom Defense Initiative, copies and uses the same photo as SeaMAC's recent bus ad which said "Equal Rights For Palestinians – The Way To Peace,"changing the text to read: “The Palestinian Authority Is Calling for a Jew-Free State - Equal Rights for Jews.” It is both false and misleading.

The statement in the planned ad is contradicted by numerous statements made over the years by representatives of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Most recently, Mahmoud Habbash, the Palestinian minister of religious affairs, told Politico that a future Palestinian state “will be open to all its citizens, regardless of their religion. We want a civil state, which in it live all the faiths, Muslim, Christian and Jews. . . .” 

The misleading ad distorts current policy of the Palestinian Authority. Some Israeli officials have tried to insist that a Palestinian state should contain military posts for Israeli soldiers and even special settlements for Israeli settlers with special rights and privileges. Palestinian officials have stated that this is not acceptable.

The planned ad falsely suggests that Palestinians are persecutors. In fact, the Palestinian people are currently stateless with 4 million Palestinians living under an Israeli military occupation, more than 1.5 million Palestinians living in Israel as second-class citizens denied equal rights, and millions of other Palestinians still living in refugee camps and denied the right to return to their homes.

This is not the first time that Pamela Geller has made false statements meant to incite hatred toward other people and religions.  The respected Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, has profiled both Geller and her fellow co-founder of the AFDI, David Yerushalmi. The Center called Geller the “anti-Muslim movement’s most visible and flamboyant figurehead.” Geller has claimed that President Barack Obama is the “love child” of the late Malcolm X. In April 2010 she accused the President of having “Islamic overlords” and of wanting “jihad to win.” She has slandered the religion of Islam as the “most radical and extreme ideology on the face of the Earth” and has accused black South Africans of conducting a “genocide” against white South Africans.  Similarly, the Law Center has noted Yerushalmi’s blatantly racist statements and calls for violence. In 2007 Yerushalmi called for “WAR AGAINST ISLAM and all Muslim faithful” and referred to blacks as “the most murderous of peoples.”


Please demand that King County Metro explain why it has accepted a false and misleading ad from a known hate group, while censoring fact-based ads on the same topic. In December 2010, King County Metro refused to run a SeaMAC ad which called attention to Israeli war crimes committed against Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009, despite the fact that these crimes were documented by the United Nations Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Red Cross. 

In censoring SeaMAC’s fact-based, well-documented ad and then accepting the current ad with its baseless accusations, King County and King County Metro are demonstrating unequal treatment and discrimination.

•    We support equal rights for all people. This ad does not just call for equal rights for Jews, but includes false and misleading statements about Palestinians.


We believe that the ads are scheduled to begin to run this week. Please let King Country Metro know what you think by immediately emailing or calling one or more of the following people. (Everyone on the list has a part to play in the ad.) You can cc the list in an email; personal phone calls are also effective


(A complete list of the email addresses is located at the end of this list for easy pasting into an email)


King County Metro (206) 553-3000


Media Relations: (206) 762-2531 & 684-1474


"Ads on Buses" Department: (206) 553-3000


Kevin Desmond, General Manager


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206-684-1619


Sharron Shinbo, Project/Program Manager


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206-684-1547


Bob Virkelyst, Supervisor


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206-684-1348


King County Executive


Dow Constantine, King County Executive


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206-263-9600


Rhonda Berry, Assistant Deputy County Executive


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206-263-9661


King County Department of Transportation


Harold S. Taniguchi. Director


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Phone: 206-684-1481


Laurie Brown, Deputy Director


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(206) 684-1570


Titan


Pamela Quadros (General Manager)


(206) 762-2531


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The complete email list:


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