‘Israel Is a Racist Endeavour’ Signs Seen on London Bus Stops

[additional-authors]

Aaron Bandler

September 5, 2018

Screenshot from Twitter.

Several signs stating that “Israel is a racist endeavour” were spotted throughout various London bus stops on Wednesday.

Here are some pictures of the signs, which appeared in Bloomsbury, Elephant and Castle, Waterloo Bridge and Westminster:

https://twitter.com/ainemichellel/status/1037358835978194944

https://twitter.com/ainemichellel/status/1037370567119253504

Who's fundingthis ad campaign?? @JCDecaux_UK @antisemitism @BritainIsrael @JewishChron @JewishNewsUK pic.twitter.com/OpmJhCgL7T

— Katie Rose (@TherapEast) September 5, 2018

American Jewish Committee (AJC) Assistant Executive Director Avi Mayer weighed in:

There are now antisemitic posters appearing across London. This is absolutely horrifying. https://t.co/sxzoRAyDMz

— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) September 5, 2018

Criticizing Israeli policies or actions is legitimate. Characterizing the Jewish state—and no other—as a "racist endeavor" is antisemitic. That this is happening in the heart of London is shocking. https://t.co/sxzoRAyDMz

— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) September 5, 2018

According to Jewish News, London Palestine Action took responsibility for the signs.

“Israel, as a Jewish majority state, could not have been established without the ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians,” London Palestine Action wrote on their Facebook page. “Those Palestinians and their descendants, that were forced to leave in 1947/48, have not been allowed to return to their homes and land because they are not Jewish. Over 60 Israeli laws already exist that restrict the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel, and Israel has recently enacted the ‘Nation-State law’ declaring that only Jews have the right to self-determination in the country, and has stripped Arabic as an official language, entrenching the Apartheid that exists on the land.”

“Israel is a racist endeavor.”

https://twitter.com/LondonPalestine/status/1037348127509032965

https://twitter.com/LondonPalestine/status/1037353015408295938

https://twitter.com/LondonPalestine/status/1037365921520787458

https://twitter.com/LondonPalestine/status/1037371392445087745

https://twitter.com/LondonPalestine/status/1037437046711873538

Transport for London (TfL) said in a statement that the signs were not authorized for that advertising space and they were working to take them down.

“These adverts are absolutely not authorized by TfL or our advertising partner JCDecaux,” a TfL spokesperson said. “It is flyposting and therefore an act of vandalism which we take extremely seriously. We have instructed our contractors to remove any of these posters found on our network immediately.”

As the Jewish News noted, the signs came the day after Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn attempted to add a statement to the Labour Party’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism describing “Israel, its policies or the circumstances around its foundation as racist.” Corbyn’s attempt was rejected.

The Jewish Chronicle’s Daniel Sugarman noted that calling Israel “a racist endeavor” references an IHRA example as to criticism of Israel that amounts to anti-Semitism.

“I see it as clear evidence that Labour’s inability/unwillingness to deal with anti-Semitism gives credibility to these views,” Saul Schneider, who saw one of the signs in Bloomsbury, told Sugarman. “So worrying that people just walk by and take it in.”