In Western Washington State upon publication of a one-page ad in both the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Seattle Times.
The ad, entitled:
The Reality of Gaza
released a storm of angry phone calls to both of Washington State's U.S. senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell.
Sorry, I lack the tekkie ability to link the ad.
The ad was paid for by the Arab American Community Coalition (AACC)
http://www.theaacc.org/
I found the demands of the ad to be rather modest -- and I endorse them:
- The United State must support a UN resolution calling for an immediate cease fire and halt to all military activity and operations by Israel and Hamas.
- Israel must lift its blockade to allow humanitarian and medical aid.
- Israel must allow the international press to enter Gaza and report on the conditions there.
- The United State must become a fair mediator to end the occupation of Palestinian land.
The United States must.
Israel must.
Unfair! scream the rabidly anti-Muslim extremists who choose to see the unfortunate placement of the Senators Murray and Cantwell and their telephone numbers, as well as the Obama Change website, as the endorsement by these parties of this ad.
They assuredly did not, their names and telephone numbers were placed within the ad to enable readers to lobby them on behalf of Palestinians. Historically, it is extremely unlikely that Senator Murray would ever endorse the ad after an earlier firestorm she and her staff endured when she made a seemingly innocuous remark in December,2002k about the Middle Eastern reputation of Osama bin Laden:
Sen. Patty Murray intended to be provocative when she told a group of high school students terrorist leader Osama bin Laden is popular in poor countries because he helped pay for schools, roads and even day care centers.
"We haven't done that," Murray said. "How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?"...
By Friday, the Murray story was the lead item on the "Drudge Report" Web site and a main topic for talk show host Sean Hannity and other conservative pundits.
Murray's comments sparked national debate on talk radio and prompted readers to bombard the Web site of The Columbian, the Vancouver newspaper that first printed Murray's remarks....
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/...
Ah yes, the tiresome idiocy of Drudge rearing its ugly head again and again. Very likely this latest event is prominently featured on the site of the loathsomely beastly Mr. Drudge.
And I question the tone of the ocverage of Murray's statement, "Sen. Patty Murray intended to be provocative...," having found Murray's speechifying to be totally solid in content and information, but most assuredly not provocative, dare I say just a tad boring because such content-laden speeches are prone to induce boredom unless one is a particular wonk on the info being dispensed.
Both Murray's and Cantwell's offices were besieged with angry phone calls from careless readers who were primed to become flaming angry at the words "Gaza," most especially if linked with "Israel," not to mention the word "Palestine."
Mars, the gluttonous god of war, feeds on such anger and irrational emotion, not to mention the bloody mangled bodies of small children.