U.S. District Judge Allows Controversial Ads On New York Buses And Subways

Accustomed as New Yorkers are to seeing aggressive advertising, this goes beyond that. According to The Huffington Post, posters reading, “Killing Jews is Worship that draws us close to Allah” and “That’s His Jihad. What’s yours?” are now set to be posted on NYC public transportation facilities, including buses and subways. According to U.S. District Judge John Koeltl, New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) cannot stop these controversial ads from running even though the MTA argued that the ad could incite violence against Jews. This is an idea that Koeltl rejected.

Koeltl ruled that MTA officials “underestimate the tolerant quality of New Yorkers and overestimate the potential impact of these fleeting advertisements.” He went on to say that “there is no evidence that seeing one of these advertisements on the back of a bus would be sufficient to trigger a violent reaction. Therefore, these ads — offensive as they may be — are still entitled to First Amendment protection.”

As if this ruling wasn’t strange enough, a pro-Israel organization is running these ads. Furthermore, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) considers this a great triumph in the name of free speech. They’re not your traditional free speech organization though. Instead, according to their website, they “act against the treason being committed by national, state, and local government officials, the mainstream media, and others in their capitulation to the global jihad and Islāmic supremacism, the ever-encroaching and unconstitutional power of the federal government, and the rapidly moving attempts to impose socialism and Marxism upon the American people.”

You can expect to see these ads make their debut on New York buses in the coming weeks. Hamas, the group that’s cited on the ads, hasn’t said whether it approves of the message.