HYDE PARK — A debate about Israel and Palestine boiled over at the University of Chicago this week with the appearance of posters seemingly accusing a pro-Palestinian group of “Stabbing Jews for Peace.”
The posters were found by students posted in three university buildings on Monday, but appear to have since been taken down.
“That’s really disturbing,” said a recent grad of the university working on campus that declined to be named. “If that’s a poster on this campus, that’s terrifying.”
The campus group Students for Justice in Palestine said Monday it believes the poster was aimed at it.
Zach Taylor, student leader for the group, said the group believes it was a response to a poster campaign that his group started last week that was critical of the treatment of Palestinians by Israeli security forces. One flier accused security forces of murdering a 13-year-old.
In the following days, anonymous posters challenging the facts on Taylor's group's posters appeared.
"Why is SJP lying?" the posters asked. Then on Monday, a poster appeared with the words “Stabbing Jews for Peace" which satirized the SJP's logo and acronym. It is in apparent reference to stabbings of Israelis in recent weeks.
Peter Moller, a fourth year at the university, said he had seen the posters in Cobb Hall and understood it was “a dialog through posters.”
“One poster would attack the other posters,” Moller said.
Nearly all of the posters for Students for Justice in Palestine and its anonymous critics have been now been taken down. Neither side is self-identifying as anti-Semitic and no one has claimed credit for the anonymous posters.
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