The David Horowitz Freedom Center, a conservative activist group, took responsibility for posting fliers around the SF State campus on Friday that depicted a professor as a terrorist sympathizer, according to a press release issued by the center.  

“Our goal in placing these posters on prominent campuses across America is to expose the true motivations and allegiances of these groups who have chosen to join forces with terrorists, to challenge their lies and to expose the financial and organizational supports which allow them to pursue their genocidal agenda,” David Horowitz said in the press release.

In a statement released on Friday, President Leslie E. Wong condemned the actions of those responsible for the posters, saying that “a line has been crossed.”

SF State has been the latest school in a string of California universities that have been targeted in the “Stop the Jew Hatred on Campus” poster campaign.  Other universities that were targeted were UC Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego State and UC Irvine.  

One of the posters depicts an illustration of Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi, an associate professor in the ethnic studies program, with the statement next to it, “a leader of the Hamas BDS campaign; collaborator with terrorists; San Francisco State professor.” BDS stands for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which calls for an international effort to put economic pressure on Israel for its treatments of Palestinians.   

“Flyers were posted by an outside extremist group in numerous locations, singling out one of our faculty members, our students and vandalizing our campus,”  Wong said.  “We know that this group is not affiliated with San Francisco State University.”

Wong continued, “we disagree on many issues, we must defend each other from personalized attacks that serve no purpose but to incite fear and promote division.”

According to an article released by frontpagemag.com – a website operated by the David Horowitz Freedom Center – “SF State has repeatedly enabled the most extreme actions of its General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS).” The article described recent SF State events involving GUPS, such as an April protest of the Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, which led the University to implement a five-step protocol, after heavy scrutiny according to an article released by the Golden Gate Xpress.  

SF State has been at the center of ongoing controversy involving Jewish and Palestinian relations, when a petition went out in September questioning the University’s partnership with An-Najah National University.

“Let me be clear, this is not an issue of free speech; this is bullying behavior that is unacceptable and will not be tolerated on our campus,”  Wong said.