The College Fix

Conservative firebrand David Horowitz, a staunch pro-Israel advocate, has taken responsibility for posting provocative posters around UCLA recently that link Muslim student associations and Students for Justice in Palestine with terrorism.

One of the posters depicts a child Palestinian soldier holding an AK-47 as tall as he is with the caption “SJP: Regardless of how they see themselves, this is who they really are.” The second shows an image of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born militant who helped recruit terrorists as the English-speaking voice of al Qaeda. Al-Awlaki was the president of the MSA at Colorado State.

A third poster included an image of a bloody knife stabbing a Star of David, reading: “The Real BDS: Boycott, Divest, Stab.”

The hashtags #SJPJewHaters and #StoptheJihadonCampus are printed on the posters as well.

Identical posters have appeared at American University recently as well.

Horowitz stated that Muslim student associations and Students for Justice in Palestine groups should not be afforded financial and institutional support by universities because they preach “hatred of ethnic groups” and are supported by “barbaric terrorists who slaughter men, women and children as part of a demented mission to cleanse the earth of infidels.”

At UCLA, several of the posters were hung around campus last week. The posters were clustered around the center of campus and some areas in the North Village. Many of the locations, including on the UCLA Bruin Bear, are not places where advertisements or posters are permitted. UCLA had not authorized the display of the controversial images.

This latest round of posters have been taken down, although it’s unclear if students or campus employees undertook the effort.

Horowitz has put up posters around UCLA before.

In February, the Freedom Center and David Horowitz claimed responsibility for posters with the hashtag #Jewhaters, that likened Students for Justice in Palestine to Hamas. The posters featured images of terrorists committing acts of violence. Similar posters appeared at UCLA in April.

Ani Der-Grigorian, SJP outreach director, told the Daily Bruin that SJP is a secular organization whose goal is to promote Palestinian activism, and the Muslim Student Association is a religious group.

“The administration has done the bare minimum,” she added about the posters. “They haven’t sat down with us about how unsafe this makes our members feel.”

Horowitz has responded personally to campus criticism of his actions.

He wrote a letter to the editor in the Nov. 18 edition of the Daily Bruin. In the letter, he stated the Daily Bruin article covering his poster campus was “misleading,” and that the posters “linking the MSA and SJP to terrorist groups are not Islamophobic.”

He went on to state that he linked the groups because they were founded by the “Muslim Brotherhood, the spawner of Al-Qaida and creator of Hamas.” He ends his letter by saying, “Shame on the students who spread the genocidal lies of Hamas on the UCLA campus.”

In response to Horowitz’s letter and posters, some campus leaders have called the posters and his letter “hate speech,” even going as far as asking why the Daily Bruin published his submission.

The Dean of Students at UCLA, Maria Blandizzi, wrote a short letter to the editor in response to Horowitz’s submission, where she states that because Horowitz is an “outsider to campus” he “…can resort to fear-mongering and allusions to ethnic stereotypes without needing to live with the impact of his words.” Dean Blandizzi added she hopes students “recognize the need to engage in compassionate debate and reasoned analysis without name-calling and demagoguery.”

The posters come as UCLA’s Students for Justice in Palestine lobbies the Graduate Student Association to lift funding restrictions on groups involved with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

In October, the association decided to take a neutral stance on the issue, and to refuse to fund any event or group that takes a stance, such as to divest from Israel. SJP at UCLA has since looked into legal action against the Graduate Student Association for putting stipulations on funding requests.

Jewish groups at UCLA have not yet released a statement in response to the posters. However, in the past some Jewish groups have condemned Horowitz’s tactics.

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