Pro-Palestinian Bronx Expressway banner - a Jewish initiative

If drivers on New York City’s Brooklyn-Queens Expressway were wondering who was responsible for hanging banners over the highway calling to "Free Palestine" - they might be surprised to discover it was an initiative by Jewish activists.

Another banner was spotted over New York’s entrance to the Cross Bronx Expressway, at 179th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan on Wednesday morning.

The group is calling itself JATO (Jews against the occupation); some of its members also participated in demonstrations against last month’s Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, claiming that "The occupation is being paid for with U.S. taxpayers’ money," and "Even if foreclosures and unemployment weren’t decimating our neighborhoods, surely there are better uses for $3 billion a year than helping the Israeli government commit war crimes."

"Today’s action is one small contribution to the growing movement in solidarity with the 1.5 million Palestinians whose lives are being destroyed by the occupation," said Ethan Heitner, one of the activists.

"We know from our own history what being sealed behind barbed wire and checkpoints is like, and we know that ’Never Again’ means not anyone, not anywhere - or it means nothing at all," he said.