Palestine Advocacy Project has taken a different approach with a new series of ads: letting Israeli leaders do all the talking for us. Palestinians “are beasts, they are not human,” according to Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben Dahan. And Israel must “beat them up, not once, but repeatedly. Beat them up so it hurts so badly, until it’s unbearable,” in the words of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
These ads, which are launching in nine different university newspapers and other media across the country, portray mind-blowing, direct quotations from prominent Israeli officials like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Justice Minister Ayalet Shaked. The ads direct to a page, www.palestineadvocacyproject.org/quotes with additional quotations from Israeli politicians.
We created these ads in order to spark conversation across the United States. The ads present a side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is seldom featured in the American mainstream media. The direct words of prominent Israeli officials are provocative, and in many cases, overtly racist and violent. This latest campaign, which focuses on the bigoted, hateful rhetoric of the upper echelons of Israeli political leadership, will give the American public new information on why the oppression of Palestinians continues.
“The sooner people realize that this isn’t just about conflict over land and that there are people literally calling for the erasure of Palestinians,” as Farida El Hefni, as University of Rochester student familiar with the campaign put it, “the sooner we can get somewhere.”