Sunday, March 19, 2017

Antisemitic posters at the University of Illinois at Chicago

In the last week, five different types of antisemitic posters have been put up around the University of Illinois at Chicago. Antisemitic, white supremacist, and racist posters have appeared at many colleges and universities around the country since September 2016, as documented by the Anti-Defamation League. They have counted 104 incidents since September, with 63 occurring since January 2017.

Images of the posters from the Facebook page of Eva Zeltser; updated article from the Jerusalem Post: Posters comparing Gaza to Auschwitz spread on Illinois campus.

So who created and put up the posters at UIC this week?

Number 1 -


This one was posted last week, and is obsessed with so-called "Jewish privilege."

Number 2 -


This continues the theme of "Jewish privilege" and applies it to admissions at elite universities. The fact that the percentage of Jews at many elite universities is higher than the Jewish percentage of the general population (about 2%) really bothers right-wing Neo-Nazis or racist types like David Duke and Ron Unz. This article from two years ago by David Duke, White Privilege or Jewish Privilege: The Ultimate Racism in America gives an exhaustive argument about how this proves that there's some kind of Jewish conspiracy to admit a ton of unqualified Jewish applicants to Harvard (here's the same article on Duke's website). (Ignoring the indisputable fact that there was an actual Jewish quota at Harvard to limit the number of Jews beginning in the 1920s and lasting several decades - at least Unz recognizes that fact). 

Number 3 -


This poster argues that Steve Salaita was "unhired" from UIC because a rich Jewish donor pressured the school to get rid of him. This accusation was certainly thrown around by left-wing supporters at the time that Salaita was offered, and then unoffered the job.

Number 4 -


This is straight up Holocaust denial, making the annoying and untrue argument that people are forbidden to question whether the Holocaust occurred. This enables Holocaust deniers to put themselves forward as martyrs for free speech. This argument is very characteristic of the Neo-Nazi right.

Number 5 -


And here we have an antisemitic and anti-Zionist poster all rolled up in one. It makes use of usually far left-wing claims that Gaza is a concentration camp and that the Zionists are just as bad as the Nazis. For an article claiming that Gaza is a huge concentration camp, see this one from Mondoweiss in 2014. This particular article clearly states, however, that the author is not comparing Gaza to a death camp. This article from 2007, by Khalid Ameyreh, does however compare Gaza to Auschwitz.

Notice that there is an ideological contradiction between posters #4 and #5. Number #4 complains that Holocaust deniers aren't allowed to "ask their questions" about the Holocaust (implying that it didn't occur), while Number #5 admits that the Holocaust (or at least the killings at Auschwitz) happened. 

So who created these posters? People from the far left (#3 and #5) or from the far right (#1, #2, and #4)? My guess is the posters were created by a person or people on the far right who used left-wing themes in two of the posters in an attempt to co-opt left-wing pro-Palestinian supporters whom they think would also be open to antisemitic ideas.

P.S. I wonder if it's possible that these posters were created by people at the Daily Stormer? See this article by "Weev" Auernheimer, boasting about how he managed to send an antisemitic poster to thousands of printers across the country. I wrote about this last year - http://mystical-politics.blogspot.com/2016/03/when-jews-arent-white.html. You can see the poster both at the Weev article and my post.

P.P.S. I just discovered a reference to this article (without a link) on the student newspaper at BYU-Idaho: http://byuiscroll.org/jewish-hate-crimes-abound-on-campuses/

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