By Eliot Storch, ICB Contributor
While University of Washington students were enjoying winter break, an anti-Israel group called the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign purchased advertising space on the sides of King County Metro buses. The proposed ads, which were set to run on the two-year anniversary of Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli military incursion to halt Hamas rocket fire from Gaza into the western Negev, decried Israeli “war crimes” and claimed that foreign aid given to Israel by the United States is responsible for the offensive.
The reaction from the Jewish and pro-Israel community in Seattle came quickly. People expressed fears that the ads would spark violence against the Jewish community in the greater Seattle area. Others felt that the ads were simply lies and were inappropriate for a public space.
“I was scared,” University of Washington student Abby Gluck, co-president of Huskies for Israel, said. “I ride the buses a lot.” Nervous letter writers remembered the shootings at the Seattle Jewish Federation in 2006 and believed that it was not out of the question for similar actions to occur.
After fierce opposition, King County Metro decided to pull the planned advertisements, a spokesman telling the Seattle Times that the “harsh debate over the ad raises security concerns.” Additionally, the Metro decided to instigate a review of the ad policy to prevent something like this from happening again.
King Country Metro received over 1200 letters from the public in response to the ad campaign—many against them— but efforts by students of all ages and grade levels were a large part of the successful campaign to remove the ads. Suburban Bellevue resident and high school student Jessica Schwartz started a Facebook group denouncing the ads and providing links to pro-Israel websites countering the claims of Israeli war crimes.
“I had this need to do something to try and stop it, and I knew that the best way to protest something and make your voice heard was through numbers,” Schwartz said in an email.
College groups spread the word, and by January the group had almost 800 members.
Gluck attested to the effectiveness of social networking amongst students. “We are communicating events from moment to moment,” she said. “Modes of communication between students” are much faster than traditional press releases or news reports.
Schwartz agreed. The Facebook group “was a way to show that there are large amounts of people who support the idea, and if any company saw that almost 1,000 people believed that advertisements they wanted to put up were against their own policies, they would rethink things.”
Given the advantages of social networking, college groups can have a greater impact on policy concerning Israel than others populations in the pro-Israel community. Facebook groups, tweets, emails, all have the ability to spread information instantly and can garner an immediate response. A technologically savvy student can know what’s going on and organize a protest within minutes. Future anti-Israel actions are bound to happen, and technology can provide a key advantage. “We’re a very fortunate generation,” Schwartz noted.
“Students are surrounded by the community,” said Rob Jacobs, Regional Director of StandWithUs Northwest. “The way new media works, someone putting together a good Facebook page spreads the word to other students and to parents. Students have far more influence than they think.”
The fight over the ads isn’t finished. According to the Seattle Times, the ACLU of Washington has filed a lawsuit against King County and Metro, claiming that the rejection of the ads was in violation of the First Amendment. Despite the ongoing court battle, knowing that campus groups have a technological advantage will energize Israel advocates to be more active when facing threats to Israel’s legitimacy. The use of technology among students was shown to be very successful, and the initial rejection of the ads has made it easier for pro-Israel students to come back to Seattle after winter break.