“One Word” Campaign Billboard mock-up (Photo:Ads Against Apartheid)
Ads Against Apartheid (AAA) is going national with a their “ONE WORD” campaign, and not just in subways. News of their June campaign in Boston swept social media like a tsunami and the organization got flooded with messages from people all over the world lauding the ads with praise. Many inquiring how to get the ads in their town, cities, transit hubs, and even in their classrooms! AAA co-founder Richard Colbath-Hess told Mondoweiss the response has been “overwhelming.”
The ads feature one word per ad – HOMELESS, VIOLENCE, and STOLEN– each representing an aspect of Israel’s unrelenting injustice towards Palestinians. AAA recently announced they were placing billboards in 8-10 major US cities by late 2014 or early 2015, including New York, Washington, DC, and San Francisco.
Sami Awad, Executive Director of Holy Land Trust (HLT), has joined AAA’s impressive advisory board. In conversation with Mondoweiss, Awad called the campaign a “game changer”:
Americans for the most part know very little about what is happening today in the Holy Land. Those who are aware wrongfully assume that this a conflict between two equal powers. The ONE WORD campaign has been a game changer in their ability to convey to Americans the devastating human rights abuses by the Israeli military and government against the Palestinian people. When these ads go national in the United States, Americans will start to understand the depth of the suffering Palestinians have endured under the Israeli military occupation. When Americans see Palestinians as human who suffer, whose children suffer, we know they will no longer be silent.
I can’t wait to drive through San Francisco and see this, albeit they’ll have to update these figures given Israel’s recent rampage and slaughter:
By request from many of their fans, they’ve launched an Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign, National Ad Campaign For Palestinian Human Rights. Let’s get them everywhere, and fast. I can’t think of a time when American communities have been so primed and ready or would be more receptive than today.