Israel-Palestine bus ads controversy in Seattle
In Seattle, where I live, a flap is brewing about ads that have been purchased by a group critical of Israel, set to run on the sides of twelve King County Metro buses starting Dec. 27. I first learned of this on Dec. 17 when a local acquaintance sent me a link to an article on the website of a Seattle TV station. If you read the comments below that article, you’ll see that it has generated a dismayingly predictable range of responses. Here’s a passage from the article:
A group calling itself the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign has paid King County $1,794 so that 12 buses will carry that message around town, starting two days after Christmas. That’s December 27: the two-year anniversary of Israeli attacks on Gaza, aimed at stopping rocket attacks and weapons smuggling.
Ed Mast, a Seattle man who is a spokesperson for the group, says it’s not meant to be an anti-Israel message, but a message designed to generate discussion and awareness.
This morning I got a broadcast email sent out by Jafar “Jeff” Siddiqui, a longtime Seattle-area real estate agent who served as one of the first-ever Muslim presidential electors in the 2008 election, about a campaign to pressure King County Metro to cancel the ad. I’m reproducing Jeff’s email in full below because, although I fear it might prompt the same tedious range of unimaginative and ungenerous comments as most writing on the subject does, I believe we Americans need to be discussing Israel and Palestine, rather than avoiding the subject or only attacking each other.
Although I long avoided the subject myself, the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla in late May compelled me to write an article prompted by a sense of responsibility, not as a Jew or Muslim (I’m neither), nor as a friend of Jews or Muslims (I’m both), but as an American concerned about the civic health of my own country. My article, titled ”Israel and the Distortion of American Politics,” and the comments it generated at the time, are published on this website.
The bus ads are what my friend Stephen Silha likes to call a “glocal” issue: local and global at the same time. We’re all in this together, right? And we all want what’s best for our species and the world, right?
Here is Jeff Siddiqui’s full message:
* * *
Greetings all,
It looks like King Co Metro is about to kill the ads on Israel’s war crimes in response to “outrage” by residents. Obviously the blindly pro-Israel groups are strong and can field a large number of calls when they need to “defend” Israel.
Unless you are okay with voices against Israel’s atrocities being stifled, it is time to drop the neutrality and make the call and send the e-mail (like mine below).
Your e-mail does not have to be long; it can simply be a few sentences saying that you support the right of organizations to criticize Israel’s atrocities in bus ads. You can also ask Kevin Desmond (the general manager of Metro) to do nothing to stop the ads.
You also need to copy Dow Constantine, the County Executive, County Councilmember Pete von Reichbauer, who has objected to the ads in response to the “outrage,” as well as the Clerk of the County, so it may be shared with other members of the County Council.
Jeff Siddiqui
206.228.5732
We can have justice whenever those who have not been injured by injustice are as outraged by it, as those who have been. – Greek lawyer Solon, ca. 594 BC
P.O. Box 7002
Lynnwood, WA 98046
December 20th, 2010
Kevin Desmond, Gen. Mgr.
King County Metro Transit
206-684-1619
kevin.desmond@kingcounty.gov
Dear Mr. Desmond,
I am writing as a concerned citizen, resident of Washington State, and taxpayer in the City of Seattle.
Recently there has been a lot of excitement about a proposed bus ad noting Israeli war crimes, and I understand that Metro is re-thinking its advertising policy and I sincerely hope that this re-thinking is not going to lead to finding some way to ban ads that are perceived as “anti-Israel.”
There are many of us who do not support Israel’s occupation and who condemn Israel’s war crimes, for this is what they are. If some people pay to take out ads that highlight what our tax dollars are supporting in Israel, it should not be the concern of the transit service to seek to stifle such action.
Some may suggest that these ads promote hate and anti-Semitism, but I do not believe this is so. I can tell you personally, that while I hate what Israel is doing to Palestinians, I have no fear or hate towards Jews, either here or in Israel. I simply wish to have Israel stop its atrocities. Those who would seek to connect protest against Israel with “anti-Semitism” are not being honest either with themselves or with the public.
I understand that you have been landed in the midst of a fearsome debate that has been going on for years, but I suggest you keep from stopping these ads unless it is CLEAR that they are anti-Semitic. I further suggest that criticism of Israel is NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, “anti-Semitic.”
Please do not allow the right to place factual advertising to be abridged.
Sincerely,
Jafar Siddiqui
American Muslims of Puget Sound
cc: King County Executive Dow Constantine Dow.Constantine@kingcounty.gov
King County Councilmember Pete von Reichbauer Pete.Vonreichbauer@kingcounty.gov
King County Councilmembers c/o Clerk of the Council clerk.council@kingcounty.gov
ETHAN CASEY is the author of Alive and Well in Pakistan: A Human Journey in a Dangerous Time (2004) and Overtaken By Events: A Pakistan Road Trip (2010) and co-editor, with Paul Hilder, of Peace Fire: Fragments from the Israel-Palestine Story (2002). He is currently writing a book about Haiti to be published in 2011 and collaborating with filmmaker Naeem Randhawa on a collection of stories by and about Muslims living in America. Web: www.ethancasey.com or www.facebook.com/ethancaseyfans
New project: Muslims in America – seeking collaborator
Award-winning filmmaker Naeem Randhawa (American Ramadan, Tea with the Taliban) and I are beginning work on a ground-breaking project about the stories and experiences of Muslims in contemporary America. The project will take several forms – online and in print, and will be hard-hitting and headline-grabbing.
We are seeking an enthusiastic and competent collaborator to work autonomously under our direction to solicit and gather contributions, promote and publicize the project, and generally to manage the project. This is an ideal opportunity for someone building a career in journalism or media and could lead to further collaborations. Must be self-starting, passionate about the subject matter, and available 10 hours per week.
Please send enquiries, resumes and other material to info@ethancaseymedia.com, and please forward this message.
Thank you!
Ethan
The Universe in a Single Atom, by H.H. The Dalai Lama
The Universe in a Single Atom
Even with all these profound scientific theories of the origin of the universe, I am left with questions, serious ones: What existed before the big bang? Where did the big bang come from? What caused it? Why has our planet evolved to support life? What is the relationship between the cosmos and the beings that have evolved within it? Scientists may dismiss these questions as nonsensical, or they may acknowledge their importance but deny that they belong to the domain of scientific inquiry. However, both these approaches will have the consequence of acknowledging definite limits to our scientific knowledge of the origin of the cosmos. I am not subject to the professional or ideological constraints of a radically materialistic worldview. And in Buddhism the universe is seen as infinite and beginningless, so I am quite happy to venture beyond the big bang and speculate about possible states of affairs beyond it.
This book is the fruit of a decades-long series of conversations the Dalai Lama has enjoyed with scientists and other thinkers, most of whom he generously names and politely debates. He fondly remembers his youthful encounters with Western technology and lifelong enthusiasm for it and writes trenchantly, as an intelligent and curious layman, about quantum physics, “The Question of Consciousness,” and the ethics of bioengineering. His approach to these issues is anything but facile, and he defends the wicket of religion – or, more properly, of the spiritual dimension of our existence as sentient beings – staunchly but courteously.
“The view that all mental processes are necessarily physical processes is a metaphysical assumption, not a scientific fact,” he insists. “I feel that, in the spirit of scientific inquiry, it is critical that we allow the question to remain open, and not conflate our assumptions with empirical fact.”
Perhaps the book’s most fascinating passages are on the contemplative tradition in Buddhism. “Unlike that of modern science, Buddhism’s approach has been primarily from first-person experience,” he explains.
The contemplative method, as developed by Buddhism, is an empirical use of introspection, sustained by rigorous training in technique and robust testing of the reliability of experience. All meditatively valid subjective experiences must be verifiable both through repetition by the same practitioner and through other individuals being able to attain the same state by the same practice. If they are thus verified, such states may be taken to be universal, at any rate for human beings.
