Posters relating to the Israel-Gaza conflict have been appearing in various academic and student life buildings around campus. The first posters to appear featured Israeli hostages currently held by Hamas within Gaza, modeled after similar posters seen throughout the world. Soon afterward, posters appeared featuring Palestinians killed by Israeli bombardment in Gaza. These were accompanied by other posters citing a Gazan death toll of over 9,000 and calling for a ceasefire.
The name of Jewish Graduate Student Association (JGSA) is included on the hostage posters. Co-president Ben Koby said his club put posters up two separate times. He said students paid for them with their printing quotas, in part because many JGSA members are personally connected to Israelis affected by the conflict, including hostages. In fact, Koby said the second round of hostage posters mostly features 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin because Goldberg-Polin’s grandmother specifically asked a JGSA member to ensure he would not be forgotten. Hamas kidnapped Goldberg-Polin, who is a family friend of a JGSA member, from the Supernova music festival, where he also lost at least part of his arm.
“I see our side trying to be crushed — vandalizing posters, using quite incendiary speech. I wanted to do something and this was the thing,” said one student who requested anonymity and who helped place the hostage posters.
Many of the posters mourning Gazans killed by Israel’s military response were placed by a group of 10 to 15 students who are not associated with an on-campus organization, according to a student who helped organize these posters. This also includes posters listing dehumanizing language said to students active in pro-Palestinian activism while they were in class or holding the Fence.
However, the group responsible for these posters noted they did not have involvement in many of the other posters across campus displaying pro-Palestinian messaging. Students said they decided to place these posters to balance the narrative of the Israel-Gaza conflict and to raise awareness of the harassment many students have experienced on campus. Ilyas Khan, a student participating in such activism but not involved in the posters, said he personally knows many students who were harassed at the Fence. Most of the harassment, another student said, came from individuals who appeared to be alumni, faculty, and graduate students rather than undergraduates. In one instance that a student mentioned to the Tartan, over the course of three hours someone holding the Fence was called a “terrorist” by 12 different people.
Three Jewish students who the Tartan spoke to have criticized the posters condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza, saying the posters should be taken down because they do not list a sponsoring campus-recognized organization, a Student Government policy on many bulletin boards. They additionally criticized posters placed directly on walls, which is also prohibited by Student Government policy. Koby reported meeting with administrators, who said they could not proactively prevent students from breaking poster rules and that Student Government was responsible for enforcing them.
One student who helped with the Palestinian posters said they only placed posters directly on walls where there were already other unrelated posters, and another student said they chose not to associate with any organization to prevent targeted harassment. They said they did not receive prior approval to leave off an organization name from the posters, but noted that the administration has in other situations been sensitive in helping student activists keep themselves anonymous. “To properly function at this university,” the student added, “we need to maintain anonymity.”
Both groups have also alleged many of their posters have been vandalized and taken down. One student who helped place hostage posters said many posters went missing, sometimes within a day of posting. “We can document that lots of these flyers have appeared in the exact locations that ours were,” said Koby, who also mentioned that a post-it note accusing Israel of bombing hospitals appeared on a hostage poster. He additionally said some hostage posters had been covered up by a get out the vote campaign for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, including on one mostly empty bulletin board. “We think it’s absurd that no one is protecting our rights, which is a legal responsibility of the school,” Koby said.
The student who helped organize the posters criticizing Israel and mourning dead Gazans said they were confident no students in charge of those posters had removed or covered up a hostage poster. Two students also said many of their own pro-Palestinian posters had disappeared. Some of the disappeared posters were placed by individuals who were being followed around; these posters were removed before the night ended. Jewish students have acknowledged involvement in reporting certain posters that they felt broke Student Government rules but denied removing any posters.
This is a particularly sensitive issue for many students, given their ties to Israel and Palestine. One of the students who helped place hostage posters is Israeli-American. Another Jewish student said they have family in Israel who have been going to bomb shelters almost daily for over a month. They said they are nervous to discuss anything Israel-related on the phone in public, but they are given hope by the fact that there are some kidnapped posters left on bulletin boards, even though many others have been defaced, ripped, or written over. Meanwhile, one student who helped organize the posters criticizing Israel’s actions in Gaza said that many students they know have family in Gaza, and some have lost upwards of 30 people in their family.
In a statement to the Tartan, a Carnegie Mellon spokesperson said the Student Affairs team was aware of many posters being illicitly removed and had referred the matter to campus police. “As we’ve made clear in our communications to campus, there is no place at Carnegie Mellon for anti-Semitism, xenophobia, Islamophobia or any form of hate or intolerance,” the spokesperson said. “While CMU has not experienced a significant increase in such incidents, we continue to prioritize the safety and security of our campus community, especially at this time. Any reports of intolerance or bias at CMU are taken seriously and investigated.”
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