The Mideast War of Words Continues

By Rachelle Marshall

The debate over the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has once again moved into San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) stations. As reported in the February Washington Report (page 3 1), last December the Bay Area Middle East Peace Network bought space in local subway stations for 15 advertising posters calling for a cut-off of US aid to Israel until Israel withdraws from the occupied territories. The ads also called for a peace settlement that provided for "two states for two peoples living in peace."

The posters immediately aroused protests from members of the Jewish community and were mysteriously removed only a few days after they were installed. The advertising agency agreed to put them back, however, when the American Civil Liberties Union threatened legal action.

Now supporters of the Israeli government have responded with an ad campaign of their own. In mid-May the newly formed Committee for Democracy and Peace in the Middle East, composed of about 10 East Bay residents, sponsored 15 subway station ads attacking the PLO. The posters' overall message is that the PLO is a terrorist organization, and therefore not fit to take part in peace negotiations. Each poster features a large picture of Yasser Arafat embracing Saddam Hussain and describes the two men as "masters of deception, terror, and murder, bent on war and destruction. " The cost of creating and installing the ads was $ 10,000. They will remain in the stations for a month.

Natan Nestel, spokesman for the new committee, says his group is planning similar projects in the future to counter "deceptive propaganda" by "organizations that call themselves peace organizations." Larry Harris, of the International Jewish Peace Union, said that the UPU had no plans for a direct reply to the Committee for Democracy and Peace in the Middle East but would continue to press for an end to US aid to Israel.

"The one and a half million Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem want and need an independent state," Harris said. "The three and a half million Palestinians in the Diaspora want and need a homeland in Palestine. To obtain this peacefully requires negotiation between the representative of the Israelis—the Israeli government—and the representative of the Palestinians—the PLO.

"Opposition to Israeli negotiation with the PLO means opposition' to Palestinian national rights and is anti-democratic in its very essence. The UPU, together with other member groups of the Middle East Peace Network, will continue to expand its efforts to have Congress cut off US aid to Israel until Israel agrees to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem."

Rachelle Marshall is a free-lance editor living in Stanford, CA. She is a member of New Jewish Agenda and writes frequently on the Middle East.