The MTA says that if it runs our ad, Muslims may take it to heart and start killing Jews. Doesn’t that make the MTA “Islamophobic”? Zead Ramadan, call your office!
“Pamela Geller Asks Federal Court to Require MTA to Run Ad,” AFLC, December 2, 2014:
Late last Friday, the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) filed a motion for preliminary junction asking United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to require New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to run a “Hamas Killing Jews” advertisement on MTA buses. The motion followed on the heels of the filing of Ms. Geller’s federal civil rights lawsuit against the MTA after it refused to run the following ad:
As noted in the motion, the MTA’s rejection was based upon a “security assessment” by the MTA, claiming that it feared that some New Yorkers (presumably Muslims) would likely take the Hamas quote to kill Jews as a religious instruction and engage in imminent violence and attack Jews.
Ms. Geller’s message is timely in light of the fact that Hamas continues to call for Israel’s destruction. Moreover, the Israel / Palestinian conflict has drawn intense international media attention as Hamas uses human shields (mostly women and children) to protect its rockets and jihadis as they set about to murder innocent Jewish men, women, and children.
David Yerushalmi, AFLC Co-Founder and Senior Counsel, commented,
“The MTA may not impose content-based restrictions based upon imaginary threats, as in this case. To do so is to grant the jihadists a victory they could not achieve with airplanes, shoe bombs, and the like.”
Robert Muise, AFLC Co-Founder and Senior Counsel, added,
“The MTA’s prior restraint on our client’s speech is not only wrongheaded, it is clearly unconstitutional. Under the First Amendment, the government is not permitted to impose special prohibitions on speech out of fear that some members of the public might react violently to its content. Quite simply, the First Amendment knows no heckler’s veto.”
Muise continued,
“If the MTA can get away with this obvious ploy to manufacture a threat when this ad has already run without incident in Chicago and San Francisco for months, it will use this pretext to shut down all unwanted speech. This would not only make a mockery of the First Amendment, it would actually encourage the thuggery and violence the MTA now claims it fears.”

Jacksonl03 says
Interesting: The MTA wants to shut down direct quotes of something Hamas has already said many times and acted on many times for fear someone might take the words to heart and . . . act on them. The circular thinking here is astounding.
Huck Folder says
Their words, in full, CAPS added:
http://www.mta.info/press-release/mta-headquarters/mta-rejects-advertisement-proposed-city-buses
“MTA Press Releases September 19, 2014 MTA Headquarters IMMEDIATE
MTA Rejects Advertisement Proposed For City Buses
AFDI “Killing Jews” Advertisement Violates MTA Standards
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has rejected a request by AmericanFreedom Defense Initiative to run advertisements that include the phrase “Killing Jews” on the back of MTA New York City Transit buses.
The MTA concluded it was [would be?] reasonably foreseeable that displaying the advertisement would IMMINENTLY [if not sooner!] INCITE OR PROVOKE VIOLENCE or other immediate breach of the peace, and so harm, disrupt, or interfere with safe, efficient, and orderly transportation operations. Under the MTA’s VIEWPOINT-NEUTRAL ADVERTISING STANDARDS,* the agency can prohibit advertisements that violate that standard.
The advertisement features the quotation “Killing Jews is Worship that draws us close to Allah,” ATTRIBUTED TO # [Broadcast by] “Hamas MTV.” It depicts a masked figure and includes the phrase, “That’s His Jihad. What’s yours?” The advertisement was an apparent parody of “MyJihad” ads sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which the group said were intended to show that jihad is a concept of individual and personal struggle, RATHER THAN violent conflict or terrorism. Those ads ran on buses in other cities, but not in New York. [Without ‘imminent violence’]
The American Freedom Defense Initiative has run many other advertisements promoting its views on jihad, Hamas, Islam and Israel throughout the MTA network. In 2011, the MTA rejected a proposed advertisement from the group on the grounds that it demeaned groups of people on account of their religion, national origin or ancestry. The group sued the MTA, and the next year a federal judge ruled the MTA’s “no demeaning” standard violated the First Amendment. The MTA responded by updating its advertising standards to the current standard.
The MTA does not decide whether to allow or not allow a proposed advertisement based on the viewpoint that it expresses or because that viewpoint might be controversial. MTA Director of Safety and Security Raymond Diaz, a former chief of the New York City Police Department Transit Bureau, CONCLUDED [On his own?] the proposed advertisement would lead REASONABLE OBSERVERS [Who might those hypothetical people be?] to interpret it as URGING direct, violent attacks on Jews, given turmoil in Gaza, Syria and Iraq [ONLY worshippers of mo conflate Syria and Iraq with Israel] and New York City’s heightened security concerns.”
So, are any of the 21 Board Members worshippers of mo? http://web.mta.info/mta/leadership/board.htm
Apparently not, there is a token Black, maybe up to seven Jews (JINOs or SHJs?)
* That phrase “VIEWPOINT-NEUTRAL ADVERTISING STANDARDS” only shows up once in a search on their web-page – for this news release. So it’s an invention to try to weasel their way out of their own mess. I couldn’t find any ‘document’ called ‘advertising standards’, is it secret?
# I wonder if they would issue a revised Press Release – instead of “ATTRIBUTED TO “Hamas MTV” – substitute “Broadcasted by Hamas TV”, they could even include the date and URL. Did Pamela or David email or otherwise show them the video? If the video can be confirmed, what right do they have to use the weasel words ‘attributed to’?
Here is the video for SINISLAM trolls (Hoff, Christy…) visiting here. It’s at (0:35) in a (1:06) clip:
http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=987&fld_id=987&doc_id=8086
Diane Harvey says
Is the MTA asserting with its argument that Muslims are incapable of self-restraint?
Rather revealing of liberal-think, n’est pas?
john spielman says
COWARDS! MTA should be happy to warn us of the dangers of islam and accurately quote HAMASS ( note the extra “S”)
cs says
The quotation is accurate, it must go through.
pdxnag says
That’s an argument to ban the Koran itself, even if Muslim Jihadists seek to place their own ads on buses. Would they deny an ad from Muslim Jihadists citing any number of provisions of Islam/Sharia calling for rape and slaughter of non-Muslims?
Uncle Vladdi says
Silly lefty racists, inferring that muslims can’t read their own Qur’ans without white help!
Oh, and “prior retraint” is nothing more than ‘legalized’ SLANDER:
“SINCE you COULD commit a crime, so you WILL commit one, SO we have to pre-emptively, defensively stop you by attacking you first – for your own good, of course!”
😉