A skeletal Jerusalem bus with flames and black smoke billowing out of its shattered windows is not a positive image.
So ruled BlueStar PR, the S.F.-based nonprofit advocacy group that opted to not use the winning entry in its design-your-own pro-Israel billboard competition, as promised.
Instead, the billboard on Howard and Fremont streets will be graced by an in-house-created BlueStar ad. Jonathan Carey, BlueStar’s founder, said he understands people may be upset that he and his board chose to disregard the poster selected by online voters at www.bluestarpr.com — as well as the second- and third-place finishers too, for that matter.
But he believes the image — a juxtaposition of a cable car and the bombed-out bus with the text “You ride in this: Imagine riding in this. If you lived in Israel you’d worry about security too” — would not have struck a sympathetic chord among middle-of-the-road San Franciscans.
“We’re trying to engage the middle, not enflame the middle. This is a very effective [poster] for people who already support Israel, but for the average person in San Francisco, I don’t think it will change their opinion at all,” he said.
“I think this would work fine in other cities, but not San Francisco. More hard-line cities, I guess you could say. Cities with a more conservative voter base. Here, people are so liberal, I think you need images that call to liberals. For San Francisco, you need a more-human touch.”
The poster’s creator, 21-year-old Iranian-born Los Angelino Eman Esmailzadeh, was surprised to hear his design wouldn’t be gracing a billboard, just two days after he was told it would.
He conceded that maybe BlueStar’s PR professionals know something he doesn’t, however.
“They know better than I do. I’m not the marketing guy. That’s their job to do the marketing,” said the mechanical engineering senior at U.C. Irvine. “San Francisco is a more peace-loving place. It might not work as well. Whatever is best for Israel.”
The poster BlueStar will use on the billboard features two young Israeli female soldiers, one Mediterranean-looking, the other Ethiopian, and the text “Proud, Innovative, Diverse, Caring, Determined, Hard-working, Progressive: Israelis are just like you.”
This text was substituted, last-minute, for: “Pilots? Lovers? In-Laws? Classmates? Best friends? Israelis are just like you.”
Carey opted to switch the text after friends and associates told him “It didn’t seem complete enough. Why would they be lovers? It didn’t seem to fit.”
Carey admitted that no one on BlueStar’s board was comfortable with the bus bomb entry, as it did not present a positive message. He would have set up a new contest rather than unilaterally choose a winner, but the billboard was due on Friday, April 2, and he had to scramble.
Esmailzadeh’s poster won by earning the most votes on BlueStar’s Web site and at the opening of the Jewish Community Center San Francisco on Sunday, March 28. About 1,000 people voted on the more than 80 entries.
When asked why he would allow a poster he was so uncomfortable with to be an entrant in the contest at all, Carey answered, “I wanted to see [how it would do]. I wanted to keep the process open. I truly wanted it to be democratic. I’m afraid what happened is the hardcore Israel supporters voted for it, which is fine. This one speaks for them. I think it is a powerful piece, but I just don’t think it’s going to speak to the middle.”
As for Esmailzadeh, he actually liked several of his other entries, which he described as “attack ads,” more than his bus poster. One displayed a gay pride rainbow emblem over a Palestinian flag and noted that Palestinian homosexuals sneak into Israel to frequent Israeli nightclubs, which is “better than being stoned to death in Gaza.”
“Israel is looking like an oppressive and aggressive state because of these kinds of ads put out by the other side. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but you can’t just advocate for Israel with [a slogan like] ‘Israel and America, partners for peace,'” he said.
“You have to get their attention, or else they don’t care.”
Esmailzadeh will still receive the $1,000 prize for garnering the most votes, and his design will be housed on BlueStar’s Web site, where anyone who wishes to can download it or even put it up on a billboard if they so choose.
“If you told me I wasn’t getting that money, I’d have been pissed,” Esmailzadeh said. But “the fact I got voted in is good.”
j. staff writer Alexandra J. Wall contributed to this report.