SEATTLE (AP) — King County Executive Dow Constantine has called for a review of Metro Transit bus advertising after the agency received hundreds of complaints over an ad protesting Israeli actions in Gaza.
The ad shows children and a demolished building with the caption: “Israeli War Crimes — Your tax dollars at work.” KING-TV says a group called the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign paid the county nearly $1,800 to have the ad on 12 buses, starting Monday — the two-year anniversary of Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Metro Transit spokeswoman Linda Thielke (TELL-key) says the agency has received more than 1,200 e-mails about the ad, with most against it.
Constantine says free speech rights limit government ability to regulate ad content. But he says such ads take up hundreds of hours of staff time, costing far more than the ad revenue.
