Pro-Palestinian Billboard Posted at Scarsdale Train Station
Commuters at the Scarsdale Metro North train station were shocked to find an anti-Israel billboard along the train tracks today. The billboard features several panels, each documenting a change in the Israel-Palestine borders over time, and says “4.7 Palestinians are classified by the U.N. as refugees.” The four maps show “Palestinian Loss of Land 1946-2010,” and depict the status of the land of Palestine in 1946; the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan; the State of Israel before the 1967 Six Days War; and the State of Israel in 2010, including Palestinian territories “occupied” by Israel.
Similar billboards have been posted at a total of ten Metro North stations.
The billboards were paid for by Henry Clifford, an 83-year-old anti-Israel activist based in Essex, Connecticut. Clifford is the head of a small anti-Israel group named the Committee for Peace in Israel and Palestine (also referred to as COPIP). COPIP is a member of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, which is a bigger anti-Israel coalition operating out of Washington, D.C. Clifford has also expressed his pro-Palestine beliefs in “letters to the editor” to several newspapers and news websites. COPIP also backed a divestment campaign targeting TIAA-CREF for investing in companies that allegedly help Israel maintain the occupation.
Fox News turned up at the Scarsdale station on Thursday morning, and here is a clip of their report :
Community members were quick to react to the placement of the billboards in their midst.
Rabbi Jonathan E. Blake, Senior Rabbi at Westchester Reform Temple said, “The images in these ads grossly distort the facts and utterly disregard the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are apt only to inflame passions and exacerbate tensions rather than work toward a just and mutually negotiated two-state solution. What we need now is less one-sided rhetoric and more real dialogue about the hard compromises and powerful opportunities that could bring peaceful coexistence to Israelis and Palestinians.”
Rabbi Shira Milgrom of Congregation Kol Ami added, "The central issue is not whether we are pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli. Hopefully, we are both. Seeking a just and peaceful solution to the ongoing crisis in the Middle East means being both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, in other words, pro-peace. Pro-Peace means that each people has rights to sovereignty and self-determination. One-sided, misleading and distorted propaganda does not serve the interests of peace."
John Harris, a Scarsdale resident and Chair of the N.Y. Chapter of the AntiDefamation League, called the billboards, “misleading and biased, falsely suggesting that Israel has pursued a campaign to deprive Palestinians of their land and to make them refugees. These ads ignore the reality that the Palestinians did not own the land prior to Israel’s creation in 1948, that Israel has repeatedly tried to exchange land for peace only to be rebuffed by Palestinian leaders, and that a succession of Israeli governments has been committed to achieving a two-state solution with the Palestinians. This campaign is only the latest attempt by the proponents of these ads to delegitimize Israel.”
Rhonda, the commuter who alerted Scarsdale10583 to the new campaign said, “This is a scary, manipulative smear campaign against Israel and a very inaccurate portrayal of Israel. It accuses Israel of taking land from the Palestinians in a series of 4 generic, incorrect maps. This is sponsored by a "Committee for Peace"? There is absolutely nothing peaceful about this billboard. These billboards are in targeted Metro-North stations and are meant to incite and anger. Who is paying for and allowing these billboards? Why is this message on a CBS billboard? This is totally unacceptable.”
In a position paper from the AntiDefamation League, they point out that the situation is complex and cannot be summarized on the maps. According to the ADL, the maps fail to reflect several key facts:
Prior to 1948, much of the land was owned by non-Palestinian absentee landlords who lived in Beirut, Damascus, Cairo and Baghdad.
Israel has made repeated efforts to exchange land for peace, such as the 1979 peace agreement with Egypt, which led Israel to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula; the full disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005, which gave control of the territory to the Palestinian leadership, and other Israeli pull-backs from the West Bank that granted administrative control of a number of cities to the Palestinian Authority.
The commitment of successive Israeli governments to achieving a two-state solution with the Palestinians, and an expressed desire to engage in land swaps of major settlement blocs in the West Bank as part of a final status agreement. This commitment by Israel has been met by repeated failures on the part of the Palestinian leadership to seriously engage with Israel in peace talks.
Israel maintains that since the Palestinian refugees are the result of a war forced upon Israel by invading Arab armies, it is not responsible for the current plight of the refugees. However, Israel has stated that, on humanitarian grounds, it would participate in an international effort to resolve the situation, including helping refugees settle in an established state of Palestine, contributing to an international refugee compensation fund and considering individual cases of family reunification for refugees with Israeli relatives.
The placement of the billboards is very timely as on Monday July 9, 2012, a commission of jurists appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel's presence in the West Bank was not occupation under international conventions and recommended state approval of some of the unauthorized Jewish settlement outposts. The commission's report added new fuel to the ongoing major controversy that has been going on for decades about the legality of Jewish settlements and complicated the already faltering efforts to forge an overall Israeli-Palestinian agreement.
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written by Righteousness Johnson, July 21, 2012
Both sides commit war crimes and that's a fact
I don't see why people can't just share the land...
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written by Edgemonter Too, July 13, 2012
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written by Deborah Davidson, July 13, 2012
https://www.cbsoutdoor.com/contact.aspx
Here is what I wrote:
By allowing an individual to purchase your billboard space to promote anti-Israel sentiments, you are on a slippery slope at best, and in violation of FCC regs in all likelihood. Mr. Henry Clifford purchased billboard space on the Metro North route to display maps of what he claims to be Israel's displacement of Palestinians and the usurping of land by Israel which, he alleges, was owned by Palestinians. Factually, he is wrong, but that is not the sum and substance of my position against the use of the billboards for this purpose.
What will you do when another individual wants to buy ad space to promote their racist, sexist or otherwise biased agenda? How will you prove this is not your policy when you have empirically demonstrated that indeed it is?
Take these signs down immediately.
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written by Deborah Davidson, July 13, 2012
From his private school alumni bulletin:
Henry Clifford reports: “In September, Niki and I will move to Essex Meadows, a retirement
community in Essex, CT, but will remain in Wainscott until then. If classmates know someone
there, please let me know: e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it '> This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
“My short book, or booklet, The Roots of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,
is at the printers, a do-it-myself project (publishers did not call) on
a subject in which I have had a long interest, including multiple trips to
the region. Lacking the credentials of a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern studies,
I have relied heavily on the writings of historians, scholars, and journalists
whose words carry heavy weight. I wonder if this could get me a post
doc.”
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written by Ahmed, July 13, 2012
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written by Linda Ettinger Liebernan, July 13, 2012
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written by Elder of Ziyon, July 13, 2012
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written by pa, July 12, 2012
What bothers me is that this article is 100% against the ads. Two rabbis were interviewed, and a member of the AntiDefamation League. Rabbi Blake says it, but I don't see anyone actually doing it.
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written by David M Elcott, July 12, 2012
That said, a sign is Scarsdale means nothing, will have no impact and will change no minds. My guess is that it will be defaced pretty quickly. While I wish that which we do or say would have impact, the rule of negotiations is that unless you have overwhelming power to force agreement, the mediators can never want a solution more than the interested parties.
$25,000 -- someone has money to burn. he would have been better served giving it to help Palestinians who are desperately in need.
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written by Dr. Nir Barzilai, July 12, 2012
However I think the most compelling response in this case is that: "The peace process between Israel and Palestinian is on hold in major part because none of the Palestinian organizations have recognized Israel's right to exist. The Maps are misleading; therefore, because no Palestinian map has the name Israel printed on it, except in propaganda like this…"
(I would just say that I am disturbed by settlements and am not supportive of the Israeli Government handling of this situation and the peace process...)
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written by Mike the Jew, July 12, 2012
Israel is an economic powerhouse and they are so technologically advanced. Going for laser treatments? The laser probably came from Israel. Amazing really.
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written by Joe, July 12, 2012
This Palestinian plan fits exactly with the prophetic passages found in the Bible that reveals what will happen in the last days between Israel and the Palestinians. Malachi wrote that the Edomites, the Palestinian people of today, would return to Israel and set up borders - borders which the Lord said will be borders of wickedness (Malachi 1). Ezekiel foretold of a time when the Palestinians would kill the Jewish people and then take their land (Ezekiel 35). The little prophetic book of Obadiah says that the Palestinians will become intoxicated with power as they take the steps to rid the land now known as Israel of the Jewish people, but these Palestinians themselves will be destroyed (Obadiah 15-1
. Calls for the Palestinians to unite in order to be able to destroy Israel will only set the stage for the opposite to happen. Bible prophecy will be fulfilled.
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is the only thing uniting us.
If the stupid Americans lost their land, they'd still be united (somehow) because their
ideology unites them.
Maybe it's time to stop depending on our environment to define our identity.