The Electronic Intifada calls on its readers to protest an advertisement for the San Francisco Examiner and Washington Examiner newspapers demonizing Palestinian children. The advertisement appeared in the 24 January 2005 of Media Week, a trade publication.

The advertisement aims to attract advertisers to the Examiner newspapers. It includes a picture of a girl playing a violin on the left-hand side of the page, and another picture of a girl carrying an assault rifle on the right-hand side of the page. Superimposed over the two pictures is the legend “PTA to PLO,” with PTA over the girl with the violin and PLO over the girl with the rifle.

Such anti-Palestinian stereotypes obscure the reality that over the past four years Palestinian children have been the principal victims of violence and other human rights abuses in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The vast majority of killings are never investigated and rarely are the killers punished by Israeli authorities.
While these human rights abuses continue unabated, some pro-Israel groups have aggressively used unrepresentative images similar to the one in The Examiner advertisement in campaigns designed to demonize Palestinian children and portray them as violent and Israel-hating and thereby justify or explain away violence against them.
At the same time, equally disturbing images of Israeli children are readily available but have not been used by advocates for Palestinian rights to try to depict Israeli children in a similar manner.
While many news organizations have taken seriously debunked claims that Palestinian children are routinely taught anti-Israel “hatred” and “incitement” in their schools, they have largely ignored evidence that Israeli children, particularly in West Bank settlements are indoctrinated with anti-Arab hatred.

PALESTINIAN CHILDREN ARE VICTIMS AND NOT DEMONS!

News organizations have a responsibility to investigate the reality behind hate-motivated campaigns against Palestinian children and should certainly not draw on the same stereotypes to sell advertising.

Please contact Mark Wurzer, Vice-President of Advertising, and Jim Pimentel, Managing Editor at The Examiner, to politely request that The Examiner:
· immediately withdraw the adverstisement;
· apologize for stereotyping and demonizing Palestinian children

Mark Wurzer
VP of Advertising
E-mail: mwurzer[at]examiner.com
Phone: +1 (303) 299-1488

Jim Pimentel
Managing Editor
E-mail: jpimentel[at]examiner.com
Phone: +1 (415) 826-1100

Source: EI

If Americans Knew