Calling the Kettle Black
Bigotry and Racism in San Fransisco

Pro-Israeli group targets the people they subjugate; portraying all Palestinians as a culture as 'terrorists'.

Will this scene ever be possible? As long as Israeli supporters bank on bigotry, it does not. All artwork by the amazing Artist Carlos Latuff, friend of Salem-News.com, in Rio de Janeiro

(SAN FRANCISCO) - A vicious counterattack by the pro-Israeli lobby in the Bay Area of California amounts to fighting fire with fraudulence. The subject at heart is the American taxpayer's funding of Israel's war of terror on the embattled indigenous Palestinian population. It's about the continual building of illegal Jewish settlements on Palestinian land.

People are trying to do something about it, and once again Israel's supporters are relying on outright bigotry and false insinuation to peddle their message. It's terrible and all of us should be ashamed as people, for this type of politics, and for the brutality that the hard earned taxpayers of this strapped nation sponsor.

A group in the Bay Area trying to educate Americans about the violent nature of Israel's occupation of Palestine, took a bold step recently with an ad stating:

The ad features a Palestinian Designer and an Israeli Social Worker in solidarity. It does not insult or put down "Israelis" as a culture or group, it asks Americans to stop funding their highly criticized military. The advertisement's last message is: "End U.S. Military Aid to Israel".

The group, NorCal Friends of Sabeel, issued a statement tonight explaining the events: "Using our own funds, NorCal Friends of Sabeel recently ran the ad shown below in three BART stations. Two groups joined us with their endorsements Jewish Voice for Peace Bay Area and American Muslims for Palestine. The ad was created by a Chicago group, Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine, which generously shared its resources with us."

I believe the wording of this advertisement is as tame as any expression of this nature could be. The accompanying artwork conveys the same feeling; calm, non-demeaning, and non-defacing. In no way does it reflect the real life Palestinians have to endure under Israel's apartheid laws.

Pretty toned down, considering the fact that Israel's military indiscriminately kills civilians, small children, babies; and ruthlessly employs illegal weapons like white phosphorous on a routine basis.

Let's not forget the war crime charges that Israel faced - that the US has repeatedly, cowardly in the opinion of many, vetoed.

The response? A portrayal of an Islamic man as a terrorist and the words:

Artwork by Carlos Latuff, friend of Salem-News.com.

As NorCal Friends of Sabeel explained, "The ad lists a website claiming that Palestinians teach their children to hate, and that this is the real obstacle to peace not the occupation, not the confiscation of land and water, and not the deadly attacks on Gaza and the flotilla."

NorCal Friends of Sabeel responded: "Although this ad, nonviolent and inclusive in spirit, appeared without incident on many stations and trains in the Chicago Transit Authority this past fall, Bay Area members of the Israel Lobby have responded to our appeal for peace and justice with the ad shown below. It went up in six BART stations this week."

The only reason Palestinians ever have been violent is because their nation is occupied and their land is stolen, continually stolen, for the purposes of building Israel's colonizing 'settlements' to this very day.

This group's approach is diplomatic; in truth "Supporting Israel" today means supporting the Murder of over 1400 people in Gaza, including nearly 400 children.

The devastating attacks labeled as war crimes by the United Nations after a fact finding mission conducted by a Zionist Jew, the Honorable Richard Goldstone, concluded that Israel absolutely on multiple levels, violated international law. Yet the US was there to veto the matter. The UN is rigged and useless.

Israel provoked the so-called Hamas rocket attacks that preceded their attack on Gaza two years ago, by failing to honor a treaty that Israel had signed regarding a border entry.

And for the record, the highly touted 'Hamas rocket attacks' killed a total of 28 people from the time they started in 2001. They stopped the rockets years ago and do not have total control of the Gaza population, so some of these glorified fireworks are still occasionally fired at Israel, but they rarely strike anything.

Palestine's Ethnic Cleansing: American terms Imagine a Native American family that lives on land in 2011 that has been in their family since the early 1900's, . White people have encroached all around them but this family is still doing what they have always done; living off the land and sustaining. A white Christian group decides the property the Native Americans live on should be theirs because their Bible says they are special and the natives are savages. One day the Christians arrive with a bulldozer. Even though the Native American family can prove that the property is theirs, they are ordered out, pushed out of their family home physically, with their children screaming, at gunpoint, by soldiers who are forced to serve in the military; immature, and impatient. Then, as if to completely undermine any respect that could be left for this family, as the Caterpillar bulldozer operators prepare to start their engines, local Christian high school kids are allowed to go into the house and take what the want, while the family is kept back at gunpoint, humiliated and beyond frustrated, surrounded by angry soldiers. The bulldozers go to work, and the historical home of a Native American family is smashed, along with their belongings. Can you picture this? Of course not, Americans in particular can't imagine anything like this, but it is what takes place in Israel constantly. Some of you reading this know this is the case; you go about your lives, just remember apathy is no talent and holds no rewards in the end. Some read it and can not believe what I am saying, but it is true and all you have to do is look, watch, listen.

Of course the 28 Israeli lives are not to be discounted; but to answer by killing over 1400 people, almost all civilians and police officers, in return, is not even slightly justifiable.

It is only justifiable to those who think that Arab people are somehow worth less. How this bigotry was allowed to become part of Israel's standard conditioning, I can not explain.

I do know that a few decades ago, when all of Palestine was not divided and surrounded by walls with Israeli soldiers in guard towers, there was a more liberal attitude among Israeli citizens. With the right wing in control of the Knesset and settlement building on the rise, the future looks very difficult.

The only consolation may be that it will be equally difficult for all. Another is that Israeli youth are not the same people that came before them, and in many cases they are strongly opposed to the occupation and impressed military service.

Israel has separate laws for Jews and non Jews. There are exclusively Jewish communities and Jewish only roads. The approval of this is the endorsement of behavior very similar to the Nazi's.

I wouldn't care if the Muslims were doing it, or the Christians, or the Buddhists, it happens to be Jewish people under the banner of Israel, and they have gotten away with so much for so long, that aspects of humanity that used to be employed, are long gone.

Palestinian people have to wait hours at checkpoints, they are routinely abused by Israeli soldiers and police.

Even people like our writer Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, a former Duke and Yale Professor who teaches today in Bethlehem has been arrested repeatedly, always denied water, always disrespected.

Displacement of a Palestinian family - Israel is a 'democratic' state.

We have published hundreds of stories about this type of abuse that have never appeared on any US TV stations or in newspapers despite the fact that the stories are backed up by witness statements, photos and video.

American tax dollars are fueling an oppression the likes of which you can not imagine. For the sake of humanity and everything that is right in the world, Israel's military has to be stopped, regulated; back to the drawing board.

For many years Palestinian people for the most part have laid down their arms are resort to protesting non-violently, and they are shot at and maimed and killed and yet they keep going back and challenging the bullets with their bodies.

It happens every Friday in Bil'in and the crowds of protesters include people from an endless list of nations. Groups like the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) are selfless volunteers who endure a great amount of danger to help the Palestinians.

The Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) are stationed in Palestine and their duties include walking Palestinian children to school in order to protect them from settler attacks.

Don't be fooled by the generally incorrect use of the word 'terrorist' for one man's terrorist is another man's Freedom Fighter and Israel is proving time and time again that the only language they speak involves bullets and weapons.

NorCal Friends of Sabeel asks, "Please help us to counter this effort to demonize Palestinians by supporting our message of peace and justice. We need to spread the word that both Israelis and Palestinians suffer from our policy of unconditional military aid to Israel. We also need to show the face of Israelis who seek justice for Palestinians. Help us to buy more of our ads to display in the Bay Area.

We cannot do this without financial help, and we ask you to donate whatever you can by writing a check to FOSNA (a 501c3 organization) with Bay Area ad campaign written on the memo line. Mail this check to John Erickson /NorCal Friends of Sabeel /1700 Shattuck Ave. #314/ Berkeley, CA 94709.

If you prefer to donate online, you can visit the website www.TwoPeoplesOneFuture.org and click on the button saying New Campaign San Francisco Bay Area. There you will find our own web page with a Donate button. Please be sure to designate your funds for the Bay Area Ad Campaign.

I've included several videos that each in their own ways tells a part of the story of oppression that is taking place right under our noses. Americans would not put up with this type of treatment for one second, and neither should the Palestinians.

Today I think of San Francisco and I see bigotry toward Arab people that is unacceptable. I see pro-Palestinian people who are working with Jewish people for peace, facing a strong, hateful opposition.

Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines.

Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several others including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Tim has several years of experience in network affiliate news TV stations, having worked as a reporter and photographer at NBC, ABC and FOX stations in Arizona, Nevada and Oregon. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website. As News Editor, Tim among other things, is responsible for publishing the original content of 65 Salem-News.com writers. He reminds viewers that emails are easily missed and urges those trying to reach him, to please send a second email if the first goes unanswered. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com

MAN'S VOICE 1: "Shut up, go back to Auschwitz."

WOMAN'S VOICE: "We have permission from the Gaza Port Authority to enter."

MAN'S VOICE 2: "We're helping Arabs go against the US, don't forget 9/11 guys."