Debate Or (or And) Money

Where would you not expect this ad to appear?

Petition to End House Demolitions Now!

To President Obama, Secretary Clinton, Special Envoy Mitchell:

We urge you to use the power of your offices to end the demolition of Palestinian homes in the Israeli Occupied Territories.

Until recently your administration had expressed strong opposition to Israeli settlement expansion [which includes Jerusalem]...Instead of backing down in the face of Israeli intransigence, we believe you need to do more.

Since 1967, the Israeli government has demolished over 24,000 Palestinian homes -- which families have built on their own land inside the Occupied Territories -- in order to:

* Make room for Israeli settlements, businesses or governmental offices;
* Create Israeli-only “by-pass” roads that allow Israeli settlers to drive to and from their new homes in the Territories while “by-passing” Palestinian towns and villages; and
* Build the Separation Wall deep into the West Bank, effectively annexing large settlement blocs situated on Palestinian land into the State of Israel.

...B'tselem, the Israeli Information Center in the Occupied Territories, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, and other Israeli Human Rights groups note that Palestinians in East Jerusalem face the same reality. The Israeli Ministry of Defense acknowledged in 2005 that these home demolitions serve no security purpose and ended its policy of punitive demolitions at that time.

Israel’s house demolition policy is intimately linked to the expansion of Israeli settlements in Occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank. This policy is illegal under international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Hague Convention of 1907.

And when asked, the site owner replies:

I'll take ads from all sides of a political debate.

And then adds:

I'm not going to take sides when it's just over an ad. My readers can make their own evaluations.

Which is reasonable until you realize that in this matter, there are no two sides because that petition is not a debate but a propaganda screed with untruths weaved in, as well as a vicious message: pry loose Israel control from Jerusalem.

And the site is providing legitimacy to this stuff.

Do you think the site should reconsider?  Isn't the site essentially taking sides?

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Some have intimated that I am not being fair to too many sites so here's a screen grab:

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