Starting in December, you won’t see any more controversial political ads on the T. The MBTA’s control board Monday voted to ban political advertisements and other discordant paid messaging from its stations and vehicles. The decision came after T officials got an earful from advocates and opponents on an ad that some say is antisemitic.
According to the T, the advertising policy change has been in the works for weeks, but it gained urgency after a pro-Palestinian group recently placed an ad claiming that the Israeli military kills Palestinian children using U.S. tax dollars.
The ad features a young girl and claims that the Israeli military has killed one Palestinian child every three days using U.S. tax dollars.
Some members of the local Jewish community say the ad defamed all Jews and want it to come down.
“It’s a piece of incitement, and we don’t need Jews being stabbed here in Boston,” Charles Jacobs from the pro-Israel organization Americans for Peace and Tolerance told reporters after the public comment period of the T’s Fiscal and Management Control Board meeting.
The old policy put the T in the difficult position of deciding which ads are part of a public debate and which ads could be perceived as hate speech.
“The T is a public place. It should have public debate. This is good for the American public,” said Richard Colbath-Hess, a board member for the Palestine Advocacy Project, the group that sponsored the ad. Colbath-Hess said that pro-Israeli groups should get their own ad so both sides can be in the public view.
Watch Video Of A Post-Meeting Disagreement Between Pro-Palestinian And Pro-Israeli Advocates
