Photo from Jewish Voice for Peace South Florida lawsuit against Miami Beach
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Members of Jewish Voice for Peace South Florida say Miami Beach Commissioner David Suarez is escalating his (and the city’s) attack on dissenting voices who’ve protested the city’s financial and political ties with Israel.
The advocacy organization, focused on anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian causes, in September sued city leaders — namely Mayor Steven Meiner and Suarez — claiming they retaliated against the group’s protesters. The group on Wednesday accused Suarez of taking matters a step further by spending $4,000 on mobile billboards to doxx Miami Beach residents who have protested the city’s support of Israel during the conflict in Gaza.
In court paperwork, the group says three trucks circulated near the Miami Beach Convention Center during Art Basel, carrying messages criticizing the group and showing photos of its members with the words “Jew Hater.” The documents filed in court included an invoice to Suarez from Mobile Billboard of Miami, charging $4,000 for a digital billboard.
“Plaintiff has alleged that the Defendants have abridged its First Amendment right to advocate for the rights of Palestinians because Defendants Meiner and Suarez are personally hostile to such advocacy and because they equate criticism of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people with antisemitism,” the group wrote in the documents. “The videos displayed on the billboard truck made that equation explicitly.”
They are asking a judge to require Suarez hand over documents records related to the hiring and deployment of the mobile billboards.
In an Instagram post, Jewish Voice for Peace South Florida wrote of Suarez’s alleged actions: “This is part of the city’s ongoing intimidation and attempt to shut down our support for Palestinian liberation. We will not be silenced, and we will not be silent.
“In response to the city’s repression, we’ve brought a lawsuit against the city, Mayor Meiner, and Commissioner Suarez to challenge the unconstitutional restrictions on the right to protest Israel’s actions. Suarez targeted one of the Jewish lawyers of the lawsuit by plastering his face on a billboard with the caption ‘Jew Hater.'”
In a response to a request for comment from New Times, Suarez wrote, “Obviously, you don’t know what ‘doxxing’ means. Public political activity and my personal free speech is not ‘doxxing.’ Throwing around inflammatory buzzwords to smear people you disagree with politically doesn’t magically make the accusation true.
“As a Jew myself, I also find the outrage from Jewish Voice for Peace incredibly hypocritical. The only thing more politically incoherent than JVP may be Queers for Palestine, the clueless activists enthusiastically cheering for ideologies and regimes that would persecute them the second they lost the protection of Western democracy.
“This looks a lot more like an attempt to intimidate political opponents and generate headlines than any serious or factual accusation.”
Suarez didn’t deny paying for the billboards, and didn’t respond to follow-up questions.
The organization in its lawsuit argues the intimidation began in 2023, when Miami Beach officials, “used their power to suppress speech on one of the most important moral issues of our time, namely, Israel’s assault on the Palestinian population and infrastructure of Gaza that began in October 2023.
“The death and destruction wrought by Israel’s actions have prompted protests across the country and around the world. Members of the plaintiff organization, Jewish Voice for Peace South Florida, have joined those protests in South Florida, including in the City of Miami Beach,” according to the lawsuit.
Group protesters have pushed back against the city’s funneling of millions of dollars into Israel bonds, gifted an ambulance to Israel, and sent a group of Miami Beach firefighters to Israel, according to the organization. According to reporting by Florida Politics, Miami Beach in 2023 doubled its financial commitment to Israel to $20 million days after Hamas killed about 1,200 Oct. 7, 2023.
The organization didn’t respond to a request for comment.
