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Anti-Israel Subway Ads Raise Hackles in New York & Beyond

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A new spate of billboard advertisements in New York subway stations condemning Israel for allegedly “stealing” Palestinian land has drawn immediate opposition from Jewish leaders in the area as well as beyond. The large, eye-catching ads use maps and numbers to “demonstrate” how Palestinian territory has, under Israeli control, continuously decreased over the years, and they describe the 4.7 million Palestinians in the area as “refugees.” The eyebrow-raising images have been posted in fifty Metro-North stations.

“I think the ad is very offensive, it’s certainly offensive to Jews,” said Dovid Efune, the editor of “The Algemeiner” newspaper. “I feel that it is anti-Semitic. It paints Jews as aggressors, as imperialists, as people that are stealing or taking land from others.” A statement from the Anti-Defamation League labeled the train station ads “deliberately misleading, biased and fundamentally anti-Israel.”

The incendiary advertisements were sponsored by Henry Clifford, the chairman of the “Committee for Peace in Israel and Palestine.” Clifford laid out $25,000 of his own money to post the ads. “The Palestinian people have lost most of their homeland, and the map shows exactly what has happened to them,” Clifford said. “The purpose of this ad campaign is to educate people,” Clifford added. “Simply to open their eyes and let them see what has happened on the map.”

Commuters at the White Plains train station seemed baffled by the politically slanted message staring them in the face. “I thought it was all settled back in the 1970’s with the 6-Day War,” one man commented. “My reaction is, why is there an anti-Israel ad sitting here at the train station?” asked Cliff Argintar, of Hoboken, New Jersey. “That’s quite amazing, if you ask me,” another man said.

While Efune is urging the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to remove the ads, the agency stated that it does not restrict advertisements on public transit based on their viewpoint. The MTA noted that, even though it doesn’t endorse the sentiments expressed in the ad, the posters will remain up.

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