Adelson’s anti-BDS group confirms it did not fund controversial poster campaign
Published August 25, 2016
A poster placed on campuses by the David Horowitz Freedom Center beginning in February features an image of ’60s-era radical Angela Davis and messages condemning the boycott movement against Israel. (David Horowitz Freedom Center)
(JTA) — A poster campaign targeting pro-Palestinian student activists as “Jew haters” and terrorists’ allies was not funded by an anti-BDS group founded by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, as reported in a major newspaper.
The Maccabee Task Force said in a statement issued late Wednesday that the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a conservative foundation based in Los Angeles, confirmed that it did not use funds from a task force grant to pay for the controversial campaign.
“Earlier this week a surprising report surfaced in the media that a modest grant approved by the Maccabee Task Force to the David Horowitz Freedom Center had been used to fund a poster campaign that targeted student activists. The Maccabee Task Force never authorized or approved such a poster campaign. And the David Horowitz Freedom Center has since confirmed that it never used our funds for this campaign. In short, the newspaper report was completely false,” the statement said.
The Maccabee Task Force issued a disavowal of the poster campaign Monday after the Los Angeles Times reported that there was a link between it and the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which launched the campaign in February.
The posters were condemned by some Jewish student groups, including J Street U and Jewish Voice for Peace; the latter backs the BDS movement.
One poster, which appeared on the University of California, Santa Barbara campus, included the names of prominent campus BDS activists and said, “The following students and faculty at UC Santa Barbara have allied themselves with Palestinian terrorists to perpetrate BDS and Jew Hatred on this campus.”
The task force in its statement issued Wednesday criticized the poster campaign. “We have not and will not support public attacks on student activists who behave in a civil fashion. We want to focus on and win the battle of ideas. We will continue to stress making the positive case for Israel while also teaching the truth about the BDS movement’s founding, goals and national leadership.”
“Over the past year the Maccabee Task Force has learned that our most effective partners are those with a permanent presence on campus. Student activists and campus-based professionals were at the heart of every successful program we funded last school year. We will continue to emphasize this approach in our future grant making,” the statement said.
Adelson, the casino operator and pro-Israel philanthropist, launched the Maccabee Task Force at a summit in Las Vegas in 2015 that brought together other philanthropists each willing to donate $1 million to the project.
