Update: The inflammatory posters calling Palestine solidarity activists anti-Semites and likening them to terrorists have appeared at multiple other college campuses.
One person texted me an image of a poster calling activists “#Jewhaters” that was found at DePaul University in Chicago.
Another activist, Maggie Sager, wrote on Twitter that the posters have been found at five campuses in total: Drake University, DePaul, UMass Amherst, University of California, Irvine and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Original post: Posters calling Palestine solidarity activists anti-Semitic were posted on the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus yesterday at multiple locations.
The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter publicized the posters late yesterday. Members of the chapter say the posters were put up in multiple locations, including inside apartment complexes.
The image on the posters is striking. It is a copy of a widely circulated image of Hamas members holding a person they suspected of collaborating with the Israeli army during the last assault on the Gaza Strip. The words “Students for Justice in Palestine” are at the top of the image, while the word “#Jewhaters” is at the bottom of the posters.
“These posters are a clear example of hate speech directed against Students for Justice in Palestine, as well as supporters of Palestinian freedom and equality,” the UCLA SJP chapter said in a statement. “They rely on Islamophobic and anti-Arab tropes to paint Palestinians as terrorists and to misrepresent Students for Justice in Palestine as anti-Semitic.”
The statement says the UCLA administration is aware of the issue and plans to respond. And Omar Zahzah, a member of the SJP chapter, said in an e-mail that “within hours after the images were spotted, the pro-Israel group on our campus, Bruins for Israel, emailed us to let us know that they also found the flyers hateful and that they were taking them down and calling on all of their allies to do the same.”
Sam Hoff, a writer for UCLA’s student newspaper, reported that “UCLA Facilities Management was notified of the signs and cleaned them up.”
In November, the UCLA student government passed an SJP-backed bill calling on the UC Regents to divest from corporations that do business with Israel’s army. Many other UC campuses have done the same, making California an epicenter of the nationwide battle over Israel on college campuses.
Earlier this month, the University of California Student Association also passed a resolution recommending divestment.
The SJP statement on the posters connected the images to the anti-Muslim sentiment voiced at the UCSA hearing:
We must point out that these posters are only the most recent manifestation of a larger, egregious pattern of anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim bigotry that has gone unchecked throughout the UC system. Earlier this month, a Muslim student wearing a hijab was singled out during the public comment portion of a University of California Student Association meeting for wearing religious clothing, following a pattern where the freedom of expression for Muslim women become routine targets on campus. UCSA members were deliberating divestment when the incident occurred. Outside the meeting, multiple witnesses observed protesters yelling slurs such as, “This campus is a breeding ground for terrorists” and “Terrorists don’t belong on UCLA’s campus.” Students in support of Palestinian rights, particularly Muslim women, were harassed, filmed against their will, and repeatedly called “terrorist”, all to administrative inaction.
If the intention of those who put up these posters is to convince Americans that Palestinians are terrorists , then Americans must be asking why these so called Terrorists are wasting time and money putting up signs condemning Israel,s policies rather than do what terrorists do. I e , plant bombs on campus.
The zionists know the jig is up and are getting ever more desperate and ugly. As they say, you can,t make a silk purse from a pig,s ear.
Considering that the people who put up posters like this also routinely support the shooting of unarmed protesters I have serious doubts they really care about the people Hamas executed last summer.
Here’s a question I have no answer for: Gaza was having the s**t bombed out of it by land, sea and air, how were they supposed to deal with people caught aiding the enemy? Hold them in detention? Send them to the UN people? Expel them to Israel?
Anyone got an answer?
” the pro-Israel group on our campus, Bruins for Israel, emailed us to let us know that they also found the flyers hateful and that they were taking them down and calling on all of their allies to do the same.”
I imagine the Bruins for israel know who put the posters up…or at least have a good idea who among their ranks would do it.
I was going to link to this yesterday, but I didn’t want to link to the sites where I found it. Today, Huffington Post has it up:
“The dominoes are falling one by one. The student governments of major and highly prestigious universities, comprised of giant Jewish student populations, are voting to divest from major companies doing business with Israel.
The latest to succumb is Stanford University, who this past Tuesday voted in favor of BDS. Stanford, with its large Jewish student body, is a particular blow seeing as it is such a very important university in the world in relation to hi-tech and the Internet as well as the large and influential Jewish presence in Silicon Valley and the Bay area.
How can this be happening, especially when the SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) groups who loudly influence the passing of these resolutions usually number fewer than a hundred members at their Universities?
Take UCLA, which voted in favor of BDS a few months back. There are over 3000 Jewish students there. Could they really have allowed their elected student government to vote so unjustly?
There’s an old joke about the professor who was asked, “What is worse? Ignorance or apathy?” To which he replied, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”
Ignorance and apathy are infecting the Jewish student body politic and allowing Israel to be defamed on campus.”
The entire rebuke to Jewish students, and disparagement of ‘others’ a la Boteach is here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-shmuley-boteach/as-stanford-falls-to-bds-_b_6729286.html
It ends this way:
“The Jewish community must launch large-scale and well-coordinated programs that can turn the tide on campus and reclaim the narrative, Campus Maccabees, if you will, PR blackbelts trained in improving the public perception of Israel. It must begin with “An Israel Defense Bible,” a short manual that gives students concise, clear, and comprehensive information to fight back.
We at This World: The Values Network are committed to creating this handbook. Already, This World has carved a unique niche for itself in global pro-Israel advocacy by hosting world-class events, large-scale media campaigns, live debates, lectures, and conferences, garnering international attention and recognition.
The time has come for each one of us to stand up and defend Israel, the Jewish people, and the universal Jewish values that underpin the western world. Campus is ground zero.”
Did Boteach inspire this poster of lies, deception and hate? Should we ask the ADL? Yesterday, I thought of his screed as inspired by fear. Today, I have a different perspective.
Thanks, Alex.
This will all be over very soon, thank G-d. I received word through the fillings in my teeth that Israel plans to make a public, international proclamation declaring that only Israeli Jews are responsible for the actions of Israel, and the Jews in the rest of the world are not involved and should not be held responsible.
That should really ratchet down the tension. Should happen any day now.