Posters Critical of Israel, Alleging Genocide and Murder, Placed Across Campus
Updated: Oct 14, 2020
Author: Sergei Kelley
At Michigan State University recent signs produced by a student group label Israel of murder, genocide, occupation, and “settler colonialism.”
Students United for Palestinian Rights at MSU, according to social media posts, made the signs at their January 15 meeting through an “#IDIDMYRESEARCH” campaign. “We wanna hear what you discovered about the occupation of Palestine...we will be coloring in these pages with art, facts, poems, etc and they will be hung across campus.”
Over 20 signs were produced which ranged from claiming, “Israel is committing genocide”, “Israel murdered my cousin”, “Israeli occupation is forced military rule,” and “The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] tortures Palestinian prisoners.”
Further, “the use of live ammunition against peaceful civilians is a war crime”, “STOP BOMBING GAZA,” and “Israel kills children.”
Other signs read “Anti-Zionism is NOT Antisemitism,” and targeted the United States stating, “THE US IS COMPLICIT- we have provided Israel with 34.7 BILLION in bilateral assistance and missile funding. #FreePalestine.”
The posters have been placed across campus, The Morning Watch has so far only seen them in dormitories. When reached out to, Students United for Palestinian Rights at MSU declined to comment.
Many of the signs point out, “THERE ARE OVER 7 MILLION PALESTINIAN REFUGEES”, “Israel is holding 5,150 Palestinian Prisoners,” and “The Israeli state steals water from Palestine and sells it back to them at a markup.”
In a February 2019 event hosted with Black Girls Unite at MSU, the situation in Israel was compared to the South African apartheid when non-whites were discriminated against and prohibited from interaction with whites.
Similarly, they said that political imprisonment is “a practice widely applied by Israel.”
[RELATED STORY: MSU Groups Host Event to Discuss America’s and Israel’s Police Forces]
Just recently the student group joined other campus groups to condemn Donald Trump’s Executive Order on Combating Anti-semitism. The statement was released on behalf of ‘A United Body of Students for Justice in Palestine.’
The student groups allege this order could jeopardize and “stifle their organizing on campus.” They state this new governmental framework “incentivizes censorship, and the denial of intellectual freedom of all students,” since it “conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.”
[RELATED STORY: Decision to Deny ‘Israel Week’ Funding Overturned]
This executive order utilizes the definition of anti-Semitism from the Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (HIRA).
“Our commitment to anti-Zionism is a commitment to fighting all forms of marginalization and oppression as they currently exist. We will remain steadfast in our commitment to the liberation and self-determination of Palestinain people,” concludes the statement.
SpartyPAC, a student group that focuses on the US-Israel relationship, declined comment.
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