Spoof of ADL ad justifying attack on Gaza goes viral

Ali Abunimah Activism and BDS Beat 9 July 2014

The above spoof of an advertisement by pro-Israel group the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has gone viral after its creator, activist Daniel Sieradski, posted it on Twitter.

Here is the original ad Sieradski mocks, calling the ADL’s campaign to justify the bombing of Gaza “just the latest act in a storied history of shameful behavior”:

The point of the original ADL ad is to encourage the target audience – Americans – to identify with Israel and see Israel’s brutal violence that targets Palestinian family homes and kills children – as natural, reasonable and justified “self-defense.”

Sieradski’s subversion of the ad brings to the fore the reality that Palestinians experience, and which is rarely heard in US mainstream media.

Sieradski explained to me in an email why he created his spoof:

The ADL has been a consistent embarrassment to the Jewish community and its campaign to justify the bombing of Gaza is just the latest act in a storied history of shameful behavior. While Israel does have a legitimate right and responsibility to protect its citizens from attack, and while I strenuously oppose all attacks against civilians, to pretend that this current escalation is merely a defensive measure by Israel and not part of a greater policy to undermine the PA unity deal is to deny the obvious. 

American Jews are not a monolithic entity that uniformly support Israel’s destructive military policies and extrajudicial killings. It unnerves me to see reports from folks like Khaled Abu Toameh (who is no leftist radical) that Hamas has offered Israel a ceasefire multiple times in the past few days, demanding only that Israel stop targeting Hamas members with extrajudicial killings and release the 500 or so individuals arbitrarily arrested during its investigation into the kidnapping of the three murdered Israeli teens. Israel has rejected the offer. That means this is a war of choice, not a war of necessity. That makes the ADL’s propaganda campaign all the more insidious.

My Jewish community opposes occupation and warfare and supports the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace and security. The ADL does not speak for us. I am unafraid to make that explicitly clear.

It’s quite satisfying that the ADL’s original ad got retweeted just 26 times, while Sieradski’s spoof is at close to 800 retweets!

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Comments

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david williams replied on

Have not the lessons of the past not been learned?.over 6million jewish people were exterminated because of race.these lessons should ve passed on to your children. The whole world watches as words like genocide are used again.why?. Perhaps learning to live in harmony with others would show that the millions who died did not go without lessons.when does the circle get broken??. Canada is a country that lives with many ethnics and many beliefs.we too have problems but we do live in a great harmony with other races.please think about this when words of hatred and anger come out.thank you
David williams

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Zach replied on

The interesting thing about the above picture is that if Gaza were actually right next to New York and Hamas had fired 15,000 rockets at New York instead of Israel over the past 14 years, the US would have razed Gaza to the ground a while ago.

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Tess replied on

I'm sure you are quite aware of the fact that the flimsy homemade rockets fired into Israel in a response against their never ending murderous attacks and ongoing repression of the Palestinian people. The damage done by the Israeli state and the number of people they kill is thousands of times more than that of the Palestinian toy rockets.

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gabi replied on

Israelis used to call the Hamas rockets "flying stovepipes" until it became politically advantageous to stop deriding them. And as to the number, remember when Israel last attacked Lebanon? Israel said that was necessary to defend themselves from the "thousands of rockets daily" fired at Israel by Hezbollah, when there was not single rocket, not a single bullet, fired cross the border from Lebanon into Israel in the previous 11 months. Not one. Uri Avnery wrote about this. (Of course, he is a "left wing" Israeli journalist, a "self-hating Jew" a "traitor" to Israel.) But he wrote the truth. In an Israeli newspaper. So who is counting the rockets from Gaza? Same people as those who "recorded" the number of rockets "fired daily" from Lebanon?

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Bilalhijjawi replied on

100 Palestinians died. One Israeli suffered smoke inhalation. The mockery. It's obvious gentile lives are always perceived as lower form by Zionists.

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FreePalestine replied on

What's also interesting, Zach, is that if Gaza was actually right next to New York & New York kept torturing, imprisoning, and killing people just because they're from Gaza and refuse to take the oppression lying down....the US would shut NY down pretty quickly. Oh wait, maybe not...we're pretty slow to act even if the facts are clear as day.

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Metal Goddess replied on

One thing I've found rather interesting is the huge amounts of posts that are very repetitive. Almost like a slew of people coming out trying to pound into people's minds that killing civilians is excusable because Hamas is at fault. And that the Palestinians I guess should allow themselves to slaughtered and cursing Hamas with their last breath. Over and over again. Blame this onslaught of death on Hamas. Blame Hamas. Blame Hamas. Blame Hamas. So many people with the exact same message.

Ali Abunimah

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.