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Oct. 25, 2013
Posters offer other side
StandWithUs creates its own TransLink ads.
LAUREN KRAMER
If there’s one thing Roz Rothstein and her team at StandWithUs International are good at, it’s getting the word out. Last week, the 12-year-old international Israel education organization posted ads in Canada for the first time – in Vancouver. Ten TransLink stations will display posters for a month that aim to counter the information in the “Disappearing Palestine” posters currently at these sites and on Vancouver buses.
“We believe there are many people who will look at the anti-Israel signs and go away thinking that’s the truth about Israel because, prior to our poster campaign, there was nothing to refute the lies,” said Meryle Kates, executive director of StandWithUs Canada. “And if we’ve studied history, we know [a] propaganda campaign can change peoples’ minds.”
Rothstein said she believes the only way to refute the Palestine Awareness Coalition ad is by matching the distortion with more accurate and complete information. The StandWithUs ads consist of two different posters. The first depicts Jewish loss of land from biblical times to the present by juxtaposing a map of the “ancient Jewish kingdom” circa 1000 BCE, a map of the land designated as the “Jewish homeland” by the League of Nations in 1920 and a map of the much smaller Israel of today. The second ad shows pictures of Israeli and Canadian children waving their national flags, celebrating the “shared values and freedom” both countries enjoy.
“The anti-Israel ads distort facts,” Rothstein said. “They presume there once was an Arab country called ‘Palestine’ when in fact no such country ever existed prior to the one being considered today. Conversely, there has been a continuous Jewish presence in the land of Israel for three millennia, and the League of Nations recognized the Jews’ historical connection to the land, which is why it carved out the Palestine Mandate as the Jewish homeland.”
The StandWithUs team has countered similar Israel-related ad campaigns over the past six years in cities including San Francisco, New York, Albuquerque, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Denver, Chapel Hill, Houston, and even in less likely places like Missoula and Helena, Mont. Rothstein said she first saw a version of the “Disappearing Palestine” maps in New York and that the Vancouver posters are pretty similar to what she’s seen elsewhere.
“It’s the same junk, the same twisted information that omits important context and distorts the land issues,” she said. “These antisemitic campaigns are showing up in books, movies and boycott campaigns, and the people behind them are relentless. They apply the same technique and ideology internationally. There has to be someone saying ‘This is not OK. It’s inaccurate and it will not lead to peace.’
“This distortion that accuses the Jewish people of having nothing and taking everything away from a Palestinian entity is just an absurdity,” Rothstein said. “But people don’t know that, so if you let it slide and stand as a lie, then guess what, it gets attention.”
Rothstein said she is the first to admit that the situation in Israel is not perfect. “Everyone dreams of peace, but you cannot get to peace with distortion and lies. Nothing good will come of promoting hostility,” she said.
Countering the anti-Israel campaigns is expensive and the coalitions behind those ads seem to have unlimited funds, she added. “Unfortunately, we don’t….”
While the “Disappearing Palestine” posters have a four-month run at TransLink stations, the two StandWithUs posters will be displayed for one month. That’s due to funding limitations, explained Kates. “We’re looking for more funding to be able to keep the posters up longer and I’d love to be contacted by donors,” she said. “If we believe the coalition behind these anti-Israel posters, this is a campaign going across the country. StandWithUs wants to find supporters to be able to put up our truth in each place.”
Rothstein is also hopeful Canadian donors will come forward to help fund StandWithUs campaigns. “StandWithUs International is paying for this effort in Canada, but Canadians who care should be supporting the Canadian office of StandWithUs if they want to increase education in the region and try to challenge these antisemitic campaigns,” she said. “Hopefully, people will like what we’re doing, be relieved that StandWithUs is countering these lies, and will come forward and help us with other cities.”
At press time, three of the “Disappearing Palestine” wall murals had been peeled off and stolen. Marty Roth, spokesperson for the Canada-Palestine Support Network, one of the groups comprising PAC, said he was taken aback by the theft. “We just didn’t think people who objected to those posters would sneak into TransLink stations and take them down,” he said. “The police have video surveillance of all of them but have made no progress in identifying who the thieves were or what organizations they represented.” Roth said the posters will either be replaced or the coalition will “do something else – we’re still meeting to decide what. This disruption will not silence our ad campaign.”
Kates said posters erected by StandWithUs have been defaced in some cities in the past, and that she would not be surprised if they were stolen, too. “We’ll just put new ones up,” she said. In fact, according to StandWithUs, one of their ads was vandalized the evening of Oct. 16. The damaged ad was removed and replaced by the transit ad company.
It was reported on Oct. 18 that the Toronto Transit Commission had rejected “Disappearing Palestine”-style ads.
Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond, B.C. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net. A version of this article appeared in the Canadian Jewish News.
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