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| The subway ad |
I tried hard to stay away from the controversy surrounding the YouTube trailer for the movie “Innocence of Muslims” insulting to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and triggering waves
of violent protests in the Muslim world, often incited by fundamentalist regimes
such as Iran’s.
And what vindicated my thinking was a Tweet I read this
morning by Nadine Toukan (@nadinetukan). It said: “The biggest insult to Islam is calling a piece of utter rubbish an
anti-Islam film. Stop injecting the kool-aid intravenously."
But then comes along news of more inflammatory
material to be publicized in the New York subway system next week...
The advertisement will read:
In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the
civilized man
Support Israel [wedged between two Stars of David]
Defeat Jihad
I deem the ad offensive. Although I do not call
for censoring it, I am offended because I know, First Amendment notwithstanding,
it would never have passed scrutiny or been allowed had it called Israel
“savage.”
This adds insult to injury after revelations about
Republican presidential hopeful (God forbid!) Mitt Romney.
The disclosures were made on Monday and Tuesday by Mother Jones,
which
published exclusive video footage of Romney speaking to donors at a May 17
fundraiser.
Among other dreadful clips, Romney is seen
responding to a question about the "Palestine problem." Romney pontificated
that peace in the Middle East is not possible and a Palestinian state is not feasible, telling
donors Palestinians have "no interest whatsoever in establishing peace and
that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish." Mother Jones also published a full transcript of the Romney secret video today, Wednesday that you can read here.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but all
this brought to my mind former President George Bush’s famous 2001 catchphrase,
“Why do they hate us?”
The New
York Times article on Tuesday titled Ad Calling Jihad ‘Savage’ Is Set to Appear in Subway writes:
After rejecting the ads initially, then losing a
federal court ruling on First Amendment grounds, the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority said on Tuesday that the ads were expected to
appear next week at 10 subway stations.
“Our hands are tied,” Aaron Donovan, a spokesman
for the authority, said when asked about the timing of the ad…
The New
York Times article continues:
Pamela Geller, the executive director of
the American Freedom Defense Initiative, said in an e-mail Tuesday that transit officials in Washington
were “kowtowing to the threat of jihad terrorism.” She added that recent events
in the Middle East had not given her pause “for a second” about posting the ads
in New York.
“I will never cower before violent intimidation,
and stop telling the truth because doing so is dangerous,” she said. “Freedom
must be vigorously defended.”
She added, “If someone commits violence, it is
his responsibility and no one else’s.”
The transportation authority has said it did not
try to block these ads because they did not meet the agency’s threshold for
“demeaning” language, as the ad referring to a “savage” had.
Muneer Awad, the executive director of the New
York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the ads were an attempt to “define Muslims” through hate
speech.
“We’re encouraging American Muslims to go out
there and define themselves,” he said.
Mr. Awad said the group had not called for the
ads’ removal, though it has asked the transportation authority to redirect funds
it receives for the ads to the city’s Human Rights Commission.
“It’s perfectly legal to be a bigot and to be a
racist,” he said. “We want to make sure there’s a counter-voice.”
