This is a guest post by Charlotte Wagner in San Francisco
Early on New Year’s Day in Oakland, California (the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area), a public transit police officer shot dead an unarmed African-American man as he lay face down on the ground. The community has been in an uproar, staging protests decrying the alleged police brutality and racism.
What has this got to do with Israel, Zionism, or the current conflict in Gaza?
Everything, according to the individuals holding this deceitful sign (go to slide 22) linking “our taxes” with the events in Oakland and Gaza.
Blinded by their anti-Israel bias, the activists here have smugly appropriated this local tragedy and diluted the publics demand for justice. Does their self-serving rhetoric help the grieving East Bay community in any way? Will it compel the authorities to investigate and prosecute the wrongdoers? Of course not. But that’s not the point. Their plain and deceptive goal is to persuade the public that just as the U.S. government funds the oppression of local disadvantaged communities, so the U.S. government, through the illegitimate Jewish State, oppresses another disadvantaged community - the Palestinians. Therefore, all such communities must unite to oppose these multiple injustices.
It’s simple, right? No, it’s simplistic. Israel and Gaza have nothing to do with the Oakland shooting - that much is simple enough. Yet the drip drip drip of such libels may well seep into the general consciousness in some areas. Actually, the process is already underway. Anti-Israel activists have brandished similar posters and proffered like arguments in the Bay Area before - the sign here is just the latest and starkest.
It would be interesting to know who produced and distributed the placard
Eamonn -
I tried, but I was unable to figure out who printed the poster. It looks professionally done, but there’s no group affiliation on it. I wondered at first if it was connected to ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), as someone’s holding one of their signs in the photo as well. My feeling is that it’s not ANSWER’s as they usually put their group affiliation on their signs.
Wish I had a better answer for you.
Here’s another one:
http://www.rabble.ca/multimedia/oakland-gaza-stop-killing
Charlotte and Eamonn I’m pretty sure Jesus Barraza and Melanie Cervantes of DignidadRebelde.com designed this poster. Basically I googled “Justice for Oscar Grant Justice for Gaza” and found a copy of the poster at I enlarged enlarged the print on the poster. At the very bottom of the poster was the DignidadRebelde.com URL
Let me try that again:
Charlotte and Eamonn I’m pretty sure Jesus Barraza and Melanie Cervantes of DignidadRebelde.com designed this poster. Basically I googled “Justice for Oscar Grant Justice for Gaza” and found a copy of the poster at http://tinyurl.com/7gay42 I enlarged enlarged the print on the poster and at the very bottom of the poster was able to read the DignidadRebelde.com URL
TNC and Lbnaz,
Quite a treasure trove of offensive images - many thanks! I’ll continute digging too. I’d still love know figure out where the photo I blogged about came from.
Charlotte
Hi Charlotte
If you’re talking about who published “the deceitful sign” on slide 22, I’m pretty sure I found it. Both the poster you blogged about and one perhaps even more repugnant were designed by some artist/s calling him/her or themselves ‘Third World’ and The East Side Alliance published these along with several others Go to: http://www.eastsideartsalliance.com/
Llbnaz:
You’re brilliant and wonderful! FYI, I’ve seen the handiwork of some of the other “artists” on the site before too. Many thanks for finding the missing link here. I’ll check this out further.
I don’t normally read the commentary from this site, but s/he does get lots of photos - pretty much all of them are disturbing. This is from Saturday’s anti-Israel march in San Francisco. Towards the bottom are several photos related to the shooting in Oakland and linking it with Gaza - including the ones that have been discussed and linked to in this thread already. http://zombietime.com/gaza_war_protest/
My colleague heard part of Forum this morning, KQED Radio’s morning call-in radio show. KQED is the Bay Area’s very popular public radio station/NPR affiliate. Forum is likewise very popular. The show focused on the BART shooting and the murder charges against the former BART police officer. A caller who sounded African-American (I mention this only due to the relevance of race in this case, and how the outrage of the local African-American community over the shooting seems to be getting manipulated here) asked about the background of the former officer. She said she was unfamiliar with his name (Johannes Mehserle) and asked whether it was Israeli or South African. The host and assembled guests simply replied that they didn’t know anything about his background.
Wonderful.