Anti-Israel ad can be barred from Seattle buses, appeals court rules

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Anti-Israel ad can be barred from Seattle buses, appeals court rules

BY DAN LEVINE
Wed Mar 18, 2015 12:43pm EDT

(Reuters) - County officials in Seattle can prohibit an advertisement criticizing Israeli policies toward Palestinians from appearing on local buses without violating constitutional protections on free speech, a U.S. appeals court said on Wednesday.

In a 2-1 ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco found that Kings County acted reasonably when it barred the ad, which sparked threats of vandalism and violence that could have endangered passengers.

Neither a Kings County spokesman nor a representative for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington Foundation, which challenged the ban, was immediately available for comment.

In 2010, a non-profit group opposed to U.S. support for Israel proposed a bus ad that read: "ISRAELI WAR CRIMES YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK," along with a website address. The county originally flagged the ad as controversial, but decided it did not violate bus advertising policy and approved it.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/18/us-israel-advertising-ruling-idUSKBN0ME26S20150318

[Romeo.lima333]

1. no free speech for you! also

[guillaumeb]

2. is there an exception in the First Amendment for

any talk that attempts to tell the truth about the genocide that Israel is committing against the Palestinians, and is there another exception that prohibits public speech about Israeli war crimes?

[Fozzledick]

3. There's no exception for lying per se, but there is for incitement to hatred and violence.

This hateful propaganda qualifies as both.

[guillaumeb]

4. Can truth, however inconvenient, also be propaganda?

http://rt.com/news/174948-un-israel-palestine-talks/

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/11/07/385124/icc-too-busy-to-prosecute-israel/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-charged-with-war-crimes-and-genocide-complete-judgment-of-kl-tribunal/5359433

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37129.htm

[android fan]

6. You need to drop the word "genocide" from the vocabulary of yours

If you are talking about the Gaza war from last summer, you need to read up on UNRWA and its Hamas support, and was actually run by Hamas (hence the rockets in their schools, hospitals) in blatant violation of the Geneva accords, and using innocent people as casualities ot the war.

In other words, it was Hamas that sacrificed their own people to instigate Israel. Even the UN will confirm that fact, and also the ICC will also confirm it, that Israel tried to minimize the casualities by giving them ADVANCED WARNINGS such as non-lethal bombs, leaflets, phone calls, etc, so the innocents can get out of it.

Israel followed the laws of war. Hamas did not.

And the propaganda war is being won by Hamas because you believe those lies.

To kick in the fact that Hamas has rejected every Egyptian peace accords that was acceptable to Israel during the war that could have ended sooner.

You want apartheid, look at Hamas.

Israel is just a country, and its right-wing leaders are in the wrong. The elections the other day failed to remove Bibi from the position to do more harm. It's the hope right now that Bibi alienated almost everyone that in order for a coalition to happen, Bibi has to be out of the picture. If it does not happen, then another election will occur, and more seats will change hands...

[guillaumeb]

10. I use the term genocide when it is legally appropriate:

Briefly, many people conflate the terms genocide and extermination. They are not identical. Genocide does not require extermination.

here is a link that you can use to learn the legal definition of genocide:
http://www.preventgenocide.org/genocide/officialtext.htm


As to you last paragraph:
"Israel is just a country, and its right-wing leaders are in the wrong. The elections the other day failed to remove Bibi from the position to do more harm. It's the hope right now that Bibi alienated almost everyone that in order for a coalition to happen, Bibi has to be out of the picture. If it does not happen, then another election will occur, and more seats will change hands... "

We are in agreement. I do not fault Israelis for voting as they did. They have fallen for the same rhetoric of fear that G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney used to scare the US into war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Blame the leaders and the media.

[Mosby]

14. rt, presstv and infoclearinghouse

your not going to find any truth at those shit websites.

[guillaumeb]

15. any interesting way to answer

So any site that presents any idea or information with which you personally disagree can be dismissed out of hand?

[Mosby]

16. RT is a Russian owned propaganda outlet

PressTV is a Iranian owned propaganda outlet.

and informationclearinghouse is a website that regularly publishes works by notorious Antisemites like Israel Shamir, Gilad Aztmon, John Mearsheimer, Patrick Buchanan, Paul Craig Roberts, Ron Paul, James Petras, Philip Weiss, Bashar al-Assad and Medea Benjamin.

[guillaumeb]

17. and this somehow makes the infprmation itself untrue?

If I read something and can verify the information the motives of the source are not my concern.

[Mosby]

18. So if you verified and agreed with something written at Stormfront you would post it here?

Is that right?

[guillaumeb]

19. if Stormfront posted something that turned out to be true

I would not assume that because it WAS on Stormfront it was therefore untrue.

But if you have quarrels with specific info I have posted please post refuting material with links. I do not claim to be omniscient.

Hope this clarifies.

[Mosby]

20. claiming that Israel is committing genocide is your opinion

And you used Antisemitic hate sites to support your OPINION.

My opinion is that Israel is not committing genocide and that claiming they are is a way to demonize and delegitamize Israel.

[guillaumeb]

21. genocide is defined as:

This is the accepted legal definition. We are all entitled to an opinion, but an opinion unsupported by any legal fact on a legal matter is not much of an argument.

http://www.preventgenocide.org/genocide/officialtext.htm

[Mosby]

22. no it isn't

There is no clear international definition of genocide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#Criticisms_of_the_CPPCG_and_other_definitions_of_genocide

More to the point, the situation the Palestinians find themselves in is largely the fault of their leaders unwillingness or inability to negotiate a permanent settlement per UN security council resolution 242, 338 and 1515.

[guillaumeb]

24. similar to a tennis match

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_definitions

I could include more, but there is no point when it seems that you cannot admit to any Israeli culpability in any conduct from 1946 to the present. If all Israeli war crimes are excused as, in your words:

" the situation the Palestinians find themselves in is largely the fault of their leaders unwillingness or inability to negotiate a permanent settlement per UN security council resolution 242, 338 and 1515 "

then Israel can literally do anything to the Palestinians, including complete extermination.

Would you concede the same point if the situation were reversed and Palestinians were exterminating Israelis?

I think not.

[Mosby]

28. israel is not engaged in any type of genocide

Against the Palestinians.

None, zero, the Palestinian population has grown from 750K in 1948 to 5.5 million today.

Your assertion is nonsense and unfairly demonizes Israelis to an absurd degree.

[guillaumeb]

31. my assertion is only nonsense

if you refuse to accept the legal definition of genocide, which does not imply or require extermination.

You can insist on your own personal meaning for the word genocide if you wish but your argument has no legal standing.

[android fan]

23. Except Israel isn't currently committing genocide..

You still have it backwards..

It's Hamas that's actually committing genocide, as well as other Palestinian terrorist groups.

But lately, have you heard a peep about anyone killing anyone in Israel, no?

[guillaumeb]

25. currently defined as in the last few weeks?

Interesting argument that allows one to dismiss all the history of Israeli war crimes from 1946 through the present, as in 2014.

Is this the "magic slate" argument wherein one shakes the slate and everything written on it disappears?

A very interesting historical argument. Would you apply it to Germany and forget the genocide committed by the Nazis because it is not current?

[android fan]

27. Apples and oranges...

10 million died at the hands of Hitler (6 million Jews and 4 million non-Jews). That is genocide.

Israel trying to defend their right to existence? That's not genocide.

So you're happy with Hamas firing rockets towards Israel without provocation - and Israel doesn't have the right to defend itself. Is that what you are saying?

[guillaumeb]

30. the legal definition of genocide does not include extermination

unless and until you can admit that targeting an ethnic group, with accompanying violence, as defined by International Law means genocide there can be no discussion.

Similar to the US trying to argue that genocide was NOT practiced against the First Peoples because ALL of them were not killed.

Nice try but your explanation has no legal validity.

[Ken Burch]

12. So nothing the Israeli military does can ever be considered a war crime?

I don't believe that about my own country's army...why should I believe it about anyone else's?

War is war is war...in the end, all armies everywhere lower themselves to the same bloody standards.

No country can claim purity on that.

Bombing schools(and giving people less than a minute's notice of the bombings, without even telling the people which way to run to get out of the way)is a war crime, no matter who does it-including the U.S., when it bombed Bach Mai children's hospital in Vietnam on December 18, 1972(my twelfth birthday).

[android fan]

26. So you're telling me that Israel does not have the right to defend itself, and Hamas/Gaza has the

right to fly rockets into Israel without provocation?

Got it.

That's what I'm reading off you....

Hamas launched rockets from hospitals, schools, homes, hotels, etc...

What Israel was trying to do is take out those places that they were launching from so there are no more rockets.

But first, IDF, following procedure, dropped leaflets to the Palestinians from above, called the Palestinians, texted the Palestinians, even gave them a 15-minute "knock" (non-lethal explosion) to GET out of the harm's way... That included every men, women, and children that were innocent from the war.

Hamas would NOT let them.... martyred them for their holy cause of trying to destroy Israel.

Look, I agree that Bibi's methods are unsavory and unsound - would have preferred Herzog over Bibi to give Israel something fresh instead of the same old shit.

Herzog's got the numbers for the coalition, he's just biding the time as Bibi only has 39 days to get Kulanu on their side (which will not happen)

[Scootaloo]

5. First off, it's King County, not "Kings County"

Second, here's a photo of a King county metro bus wearing someone else's ad:

[android fan]

7. Would you believe that I protested the asshole when I was in college?

If it is the same right-wing batshit insane motherfucker from the 90s...

[Scootaloo]

8. No, I really wouldn't believe that.

[guillaumeb]

11. So by changing the wording

from Israeli to Palestinian the speech becomes acceptable?

Thanks for the photo. Nice work

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

13. Oh, but this is alright since you know...

Palestinians are the bad guys...

[Jefferson23]

9. Disproportinate criticism of Israeli policy or disproportinate cover for Israeli policy?

hmmmm..that is a hard one, for some to figure out.

[freeplessinseattle]

29. Well this is the city that banned bus ads for eating fresh fruits and veggies, bc "controversy"

Seriously.

Or maybe it was school busses.

I spent a moment trying to find it, I think it was 2005, but have a flu thing right now, missed so much DU! Anyone else want to find that odd policy, or anyone local remember?