We were remiss in not reporting the celebratory relief across the Bay Area last month when shape-shifting comic book heroine, Pakistani-American teenager Kamala Khan, otherwise known as Ms. Marvel, appeared out of nowhere on San Francisco’s buses to slay the Islamophobic dragon, Pamela Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative ads besmirching our beautiful City by the Bay.
It’s been quite the roller coaster ride playing out on the sides of San Francisco’s buses, but luckily, The Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign (SeaMAC) along with locally based No Tax Dollars To Israel stepped in on the heels of Ms. Marvel’s heroic rescue, bringing their bus campaign with them:
San Francisco is the latest city to feature SeaMAC’s bus ads but it won’t be the last. Reading “ISRAEL’S WAR CRIMES: YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK,” the controversial ads are almost identical to those currently stuck in limbo (moving into their 3rd year) waiting for an opinion to be handed down by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in King County, Washington over a lawsuit filed by SeaMAC against the county for breach of contract over the censoring of their Metro ads.
But SeaMAC, undeterred and relentless in its determination to end U.S. tax support to Israel and expose Americans to Israeli apartheid (ever so creatively), just keeps expanding its reach. San Francisco is now the third city to run the bus ads, following recent runs in Portland and Denver. SeaMAC’s new San Francisco campaign is in partnership with No Tax Dollars To Israel, a local Bay Area organization that has previously partnered with SeaMAC on bus ads in Sacramento as well as last month’s Denver campaign.
SeaMac volunteer board member and Palestine Information Project co-founder Edward Mast said “this message is necessary again” due to Israel’s attack on Gaza last summer. “Now Israel is trying to sabotage the International Criminal Court rather than allow investigations into those crimes, so more and more people are finding this ad urgent and timely.”
SeaMAC has started a crowdfunding campaign to get their ads up in more and more cities. From their Press Release:
After four years of censorship, the original bus ad by Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign (SeaMAC) — the ad that became international news when it was first accepted and then censored by King County Metro — has run on buses in San Francisco, Portland and Denver. Israel’s assault on the captive population of Gaza last summer has given new urgency to our message about U.S. government’s support for Israel’s war crimes.
We still can’t run the ad in Seattle, but now we can run the ad in other cities across the country. Will you help make this possible?
A private donor has stepped forward and offered to match any funds we raise up to $10,000. With these funds, our message will reach millions of people in several U.S. cities
If you want this important message on buses or billboard in your city, get in touch with SeaMAC at Ads@SeaMAC.org.