The US Supreme Court rejected on Monday an appeal from a pro-Israel group seeking to place ads on the Boston-area mass transit system, AP reports.
The ads are sponsored by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), also known as Stop Islamization of American, and they describe the Israel-Palestinian conflict as a war between the “civilized man and the savage.”
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) initially rejected the AFDI ads, asserting they could be construed as “demeaning or disparaging” to Palestinian Arabs and Muslims.
The Supreme Court declined to take the appeal, letting stand earlier court rulings upholding the MBTA’s refusal to publish the ads.
AFDI argued the rejection violated its right to free speech and showed a double standard, as the transit agency had previously allowed a pro-Palestinian group to run an ad on the Boston T.
The group has seen its fair share of legal battles for its pro-Israel and anti-Islam ads on public transportation in cities across the US.
In October 2014 the AFDI filed a lawsuit against New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) for refusing to run a “Hamas Killing Jews” advertisement on city buses.
An appellate court judge in Philadelphia ruled in March 2015 that the Southern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) had to allow a number of AFDI’s pro-Israel ads to appear on its buses.
Carrying the tagline, “Jew Hatred: It’s in the Quran,” the ads called on the United States government to “stop the hate” and “end all aid to Islamic countries.”
