Conservative blogger Pamela Geller has made a preemptive strike against the MTA.
Geller, an Upper West Side resident, submitted a subway ad last week to the MTA in which she calls people opposed to Israel “savages.”
Her lawyers sent the MTA a warning yesterday: If they don’t approve the ad by Friday, she’ll sue the transit authority for denying her First Amendment rights.
“There’s nothing in the ad that is inaccurate or controversial,” Geller maintains.
Her ads are a response to a current ad campaign in 18 subway stations that calls for the end of U.S. military aid to Israel.
“These aren’t anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian. They’re pro-peace ads,” said Mark Johnson, director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, one of the groups that paid for the current ads.
While he said he welcomed a conversation about U.S. military aid to Israel, he dismissed Geller’s rebuttal as “hate speech.”
On Sept. 26, Johnson’s ads will expire and another organization, Stand With Us, has paid to replace them with pro-Israel ads.
“We are not going to stand back and let people lie about Israel,” said Roz Rothstein, CEO of Stand With Us.
Follow Emily Anne Epstein on Twitter @EmilyatMetro.
