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Pro-Boycott Group Defaces London Bus Stops with Anti-Israel Posters

In the wake of the Labour Party’s reluctant acceptance of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, a group advocating boycotts of Israel defaced six London bus stops with signs calling Israel a “racist endeavor,” — violating one of the provisions of the IHRA definition — The Times of Israel reported Thursday.

The signs were put up by a group called London Palestine Action, which promotes the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, at bus stops located in Westminster, near Parliament, at Elephant and Castle, Bloomsbury, and Waterloo Bridge.

Officials with both London’s transportation system and the ad agency that sells the space said that the posters were unauthorized and constituted “vandalism.” London’s metropolitan police force said that it would remove the offensive material, and that it was investigating the incident. London Mayor Sadiq Khan condemned the vandalism and demanded that the posters be taken down.

The phrase on the poster violates one of the provisions of the IHRA formulation, which states that “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination,” constitutes anti-Semitism. The example for this provision is “by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”

While the Labour Party accepted the IHRA definition earlier this week, it also adopted a parallel statement that its acceptance of the standard does not “in any way undermine freedom of expression on Israel or the rights of the Palestinians.”

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn wrote that despite accepting the IHRA definition it should not “be regarded as antisemitic to describe Israel, its policies or the circumstances around its foundation as racist because of their discriminatory impact.” The Times of Israel observed, “Corbyn himself would appear to have breached clauses of the IHRA definition.”

The Times also reported that Corbyn has a long history of equating Israel with racism, noting that in the 1980s he reportedly belonged to Labour Movement Campaign for Palestine, which had a platform that declared its “opposition to the Zionist state as racist, exclusivist, expansionist and a direct agency of imperialism.”

A spokesperson for London’s transportation agency, Transport for London, said, “These adverts are absolutely not authorized by TfL or our advertising partner JCDecaux. It is fly posting 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.”

London Palestine Action calls itself “a network of people in London taking creative action against Israeli apartheid through BDS and other effective, participatory Palestine solidarity work.” It used its social media platforms to promote its campaign featuring pictures of its posters.

[Photo: Aine Lagan / Twitter ]