Navigate to News section

Terrible New Pamela Geller Ad Redux

Metro-North riders have probably had their fill at this point

by
Adam Chandler
August 17, 2012
(Jonathan Vigliotti, NBC)
(Jonathan Vigliotti, NBC)

Earlier this week I wrote about the terrible new ads by Pamela Geller’s organization–the American Freedom Defense Initiative–which debuted on San Francisco buses last weekend.

Today, the greater New York area is getting its dose of highly charged agitprop with the debut of AFDI’s new Metro-North ads. This time, the ads maintain the blanket racism of the San Francisco ads, but also now feature a statistic!:

“19,250 Deadly Islamic Attacks Since 9/11/01 and counting.
Not Islamophobia, It’s Islamorealism.”

The ADL has already spoken out against the ad:

“Pro-Israel doesn’t mean anti-Muslim. It is possible to support Israel without engaging in bigoted anti-Muslim and anti-Arab stereotypes.”

Here’s a short history of how Metro-North train stops became the bizarre battleground for a war of ideas about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Last month, Scroll Editor Emeritus Marc Tracy wrote about pro-Palestinian ads, which made their way to Metro-North stations and featured a number of historical distortions. These ads were later countered with pro-Israel messages about Palestinian rejectionism.

With AFDI’s addition, the battle for the hearts and minds of the elusive Westchester County demographic can now rage on.

Adam Chandler was previously a staff writer at Tablet. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, Slate, Esquire, New York, and elsewhere. He tweets @allmychandler.