By Michael Cabanatuan, Reporter Oct 18, 2024 (SFChronicle.com)
More than a dozen fake anti-Israel bus stop posters appeared this month masquerading as legitimate Muni advertising for Fleet Week, officials said.Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle
Along with the Blue Angels and a fleet of ships and sailors, San Francisco’s Fleet Week brought more than a dozen fake anti-Israel bus stop posters masquerading as legitimate Muni advertising for the event.
The phony advertisements, inside locked glass enclosures, feature the red, white and blue Fleet Week logo across the top, with headlines, large photos and text beneath. Officials with Clear Channel, which handles advertising on Muni, have removed 16 of the posters since Oct. 12, said Michael Roccaforte, a Muni spokesperson.
One of the mini-billboards featured a photo of Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation. Bushnell, a 25-year-old Air Force member, died after setting himself on fire in February while shouting “Free Palestine” in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington to protest Israel’s war in Gaza. “Honor Aaron Bushnell,” the headline read.
Another poster headlined “Remembering the USS Liberty” displayed a photo of the ship, torpedoed by Israel in an 1967 attack off the Sinai Peninsula that killed 34 of the ship’s crew, according to the U.S. Navy. Beneath a photo of the ship is a photo of a monument to the dead with the words “They served in silence.”
Each of the fake ads, as seen on X, contained text condemning U.S. support of Israel.
Roccaforte said the ads were not authorized by the Municipal Transportation Agency and that the agency considers their installation in the shelters to be vandalism. He would not disclose how they were installed in the locked glass cases “because we do not want to invite copycat behavior.”
Clear Channel representatives did not return calls seeking comment.
Reach Michael Cabanatuan: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com; X: @ctuan
Oct 18, 2024
REPORTER
Michael Cabanatuan is a general assignment and breaking news reporter who’s covered everything from wildfires and sports fans to protests and COVID masking requirements. He’s also written extensively about transportation and covered Contra Costa County for The Chronicle. He’s ridden high-speed trains in Japan, walked in the Transbay Tube, been tear-gassed in Oakland and exposed to nude protesters in the Castro. Cabanatuan worked at the Paradise Post (long before anyone heard of the town), the former West County Times (in Richmond) and the Modesto Bee before joining The Chronicle. He is a two-time graduate of UC Berkeley.
