(USNewsMag.com) – A Democratic New York representative is calling on fellow lawmakers in the “Ceasefire Now camp” to call on Palestinian supporters to stop ripping down missing persons posters around the city of hostages taken from Israel by Hamas during last month’s attack on the Jewish state.
Rep. Jerry Nadler, who is Jewish, posted on Twitter on Monday and urged members of “Ceasefire Now” to tell those removing posters of kidnapped Israelis to stop. According to Nadler, those ripping the posters down are creating hostilities and altercations “that aren’t good for anyone,” and the “quickest route” to an Israeli ceasefire is for Hamas to release their remaining hostages.
Nadler described his message to the Ceasefire Now group as “an earnest request to well-intended people” and called on members of the group, “particularly those with large followings,” to publicly “urge people” to stop removing the posters.
A national spokesperson for IfNotNow, Eva Borgwardt, said those calling for a cease-fire “don’t support tearing down posters” of Israeli hostages. She reiterated her group’s “call for a ceasefire” and “return” of the hostages, but also called for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel. She then flipped Nadler’s statement, claiming the ceasefire is the “quickest route to hostage release” rather than the other way around.
Videos of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli protesters ripping down hostage posters have been popping up all over social media and going viral over the last month. Some families of the kidnapping victims are speaking out against the incidents and say they “don’t understand” why people are tearing the posters down.
There are currently multiple social media pages dedicated to posting and propagating videos of people removing the posters, and some who have been caught doing so even lost their jobs after being identified and subsequently publicly shamed. Despite the backlash, there are others caught in the act who gloated while being filmed taking down the posters, showing that they are proud of their actions.
Copyright 2023, USNewsMag.com
