Throughout the years we have gotten to know some of you personally - in fact, some of us have marched together in rallies during tough times in our city - especially when we were residents and activists in the Central District of Seattle. We appreciate and value each of your abilities to take a stand for what is right for our city and for our country - and not stay silent for something that is just expedient.
We have been fighting most of our lives for the rights of underrepresented and under-supported people in our society. It's not always a pleasant role to play and we do get tired at times, but in the end the satisfaction of seeing right done is always worth the battle.
And so we write to express ourselves to you about the intense feelings of outrage we have about King County granting permission for signs to be posted on buses in Seattle titled, "Israeli War Crimes." We recoil at the twisted nature of this phrase - especially when directed at the Jewish people and Israeli citizens, many of whom are survivors of the Holocaust. To accuse Israel of "war crimes" when the country has been under direct attack for its entire existence, is a complete and utter distortion.
Israel is fighting for its life and has been attacked militarily from all sides by the Arab world continually since its creation. As a tiny democracy on a sliver of land, Israel lives in a dangerous neighborhood. The surrounding Arab dictatorships are determined to de-legitimize Israel and ultimately destroy it, and as they say, "drive it into the sea." They have tried to do this repeatedly through military action and have failed. Since these attacks, the Israelis have been subjected to suicide bombers, rocket attacks, and other terrorism. Now the terrorist organizations of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood are organizing a world-wide anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish propaganda campaign. Their ultimate goal is to weaken and then destroy Israel by convincing the United States to stop providing foreign aid to support Israel's security. They have to lie and brainwash the American people with propaganda to get to that goal.
If you run these anti-Semitic ads on the buses in Seattle, you are providing direct support to this terrorism. We have already seen the fruits of anti-Semitic thinking in Seattle with terrorist attacks on Jewish cultural and religious centers, murders of Jewish female social workers and threats as well as vandalism of Jewish schools as far away from the city center as Mercer Island. These inflammatory bus ads are going to feed an already dangerous climate in Seattle that will lead to further attacks against Jews.
Make no mistake about it, the Arab leaders of this propaganda campaign
want to make life a living hell wherever Jews live, including Seattle.
want to make life a living hell wherever Jews live, including Seattle.
The Jewish community will be forced to act against this situation, which could lead to a dangerous confrontation that should be avoided. And so I ask you to pull these ads from consideration and any other ads that seek to de-legitimize Israel or Jews in any way. This propaganda campaign against Israel and against the Jewish people must be stopped and it will take all of us - not just Jews alone - to dampen this movement that has billions of Muslims behind it.