“You’re promoting Zionism,” says a young woman carrying a wad of papers while being tailed by someone filming her on a fairly empty promenade.
“I am promoting Zionism. I am a Zionist,” retorts the person filming.
“So you basically think genocide against Palestinians is justified?” the woman replies.
The video is one of more than a dozen similar videos circulating online. Each depicts a person or people removing a poster of Israeli hostages while others confront them.
In one, a woman in a bright pink coat removes a poster from a street light and yells, “You support genocide, you a**hole!” at the person filming. In another, a person removing a poster from an electrical box appears to refer to the person filming them as a “dog.” A man gets a camera shoved in his face in yet another clip that shows a small group accosting him for removing posters. He asks the crowd, “But what about the Palestinians?”
Most people depicted removing the posters have been identified, launching calls for them to lose their jobs, get kicked out of school, and a barrage of internet trolls.
The posters themselves were created and originally distributed innocuously enough. Each includes bold white letters over a thick red band that reads KIDNAPPED over the image, name, and age of some of the more than 200 people believed to be held hostage by Hamas following their Oct. 7 attack on Israel that left the world stunned and over 1,400 people dead. Created days after the attack and originally shared as a Dropbox link, demand to download them made the files practically inaccessible, prompting the creation of a website—kidnappedfromisrael.com—registered Oct. 12.
According to the poster’s creator, who goes by Dede Bandaid, the site gets 30,000 hits a day.
“It’s a humanitarian thing,” Bandaid told Daily Dot about his motivation for creating the “kidnapped” posters. He says their aim is just to advocate for the hostages’ return home, and abstains from any call to action beyond sharing the images.
“We all want peace. We want good neighbors. No one wants bad neighbors,” Bandaid said.
In lieu of peace and neighborliness, Bandaid’s posters have added fuel to the culture war over the war in Israel, thanks in part to a Twitter account called Stop Antisemitism. In the weeks since they were created, the posters have expanded to billboards, LED signs on trucks, and projections on buildings—and have shifted from an advocacy project to a polarizing symbol that has turned neighbors against each other and incited widespread harassment.
Now some are wondering if the posters are being strategically placed to entrap those who tear them down, many of whom support the Palestinian people.
On Oct. 16, a 14-second video of three people quickly ripping off posters taped to the glass walls of NYU Stern School of Business was published to Twitter by Stop Antisemitism. Stop Antisemitism tagged New York University and captioned the post, “HORRIFYING,” adding, “The lack of humanity by your students is not only heartbreaking but extremely concerning.”
The video instantly went viral. The post has garnered over 6.5 million views as of this writing. It was covered by Newsweek and other outlets.
Comments on the post largely centered on calling for the students to be deported (two of the three who have since been identified are reportedly U.S. citizens), with a sprinkling of criticism of Hamas, horror that they removed the posters, and calls to name and shame
Stop Antisemitism soon released the names of two of the individuals allegedly depicted and tagged conservative tabloid New York Post. Additional reporting identifying the students was featured in conservative publications including the New York Post, Daily Mail, National Review, and on Fox News.
According to their website, Stop Antisemitism is “a grassroots watchdog organization dedicated to exposing groups and individuals that espouse incitement towards the Jewish people and State and engage in antisemitic behaviors.” It’s previously been criticized for targeting Jewish people, including by giving them the label of “Antisemite of the Week.” The Jewish people it singles out have often publicly expressed support for human rights for Palestinians.
Stop Antisemitism did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent Monday evening.
In recent weeks, the account has focused on publishing footage of people tearing down “kidnapped” posters and asking people to identify those filmed, as well as posts about people who espouse anti-Zionist rhetoric erroneously conflated with antisemitism. It also cheers on terminations and expulsions of people accused of anti-Zionism. The account occasionally reports on neo-Nazis and white supremacists, but in recent weeks, its activity has centered on poster removals and outing people who denounce Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
“That’s their whole thing. Just an upgrade from Canary Mission which was an upgrade from Israellycool,” said Jewish anti-apartheid activist Rafael Shimunov, referring to two other websites known to Palestinian liberation activists that function as blacklists that includes a smattering of actual antisemites, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists to run cover for anti-Palestinian denigration. “It’s basically a grift to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism,” Shimunov told the Daily Dot.
In one recent post, Stop Antisemitism calls for the expulsion of a high school student identified at a protest carrying a sign depicting the Israeli flag in a trash can with the words “keep the world clean” over it, an image that has sprung up at recent protests. According to one person the Daily Dot spoke with who created a sign with the same message, the image is intended as a criticism of the Israeli government (hence the flag). “It’s not about Jews or Judaism,” he added. “Just the government.”
Stop Antisemitism has claimed these signs are “Nazi era antisemitic signs wanting to rid the world of the Jews” (Israel did not exist during the Nazi era).
The account’s posts have racked up millions of views and has spawned a network of copycat accounts itching to cash in on the outrage. Far-right figures like Andy Ngo have picked up the trend, often injecting reactionary framing that intensifies the backlash.
“F*ck Andy Ngô,” exclaimed Sarah during an interview with the Daily Dot. Sarah was filmed removing “kidnapped” posters. Sarah, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that to her knowledge the video of her was first published by Stop Antisemitism. It was elevated by Ngô with more alarmist language once she was identified.
As Israeli bombardment increases, so too have ceasefire and “free Palestine” protests in New York City, nearly all of which have been met with pro-Israel counter-protests. Many counter-protesters have carried “kidnapped” posters or signs from the conservative crafted “End Jew Hatred” campaign. Some counter-protesters have espoused genocidal rhetoric, such as “kill all Palestinians” or “flatten Gaza.”
Public calls to preemptively put up “kidnapped” posters in areas where Palestinian protests will occur have begun to appear online. At the Cooper Union, a college in lower Manhattan, a rally advocating for a ceasefire was countered by blown-up versions of the “kidnapped” posters, which were also taped to the ground facing the ceasefire demonstrators. Another rally for Palestine was countered by a rally called “Stand with Israel and Against Terrorism,” where demonstrators held up “kidnapped” posters while calling pro-Palestine demonstrators terrorists. At that rally, a table was set up behind the Zionist side with a thick stack of posters available for people to take home.
The Daily Dot first encountered the posters on Oct. 11 scattered on the ground at Washington Square Park in the middle of an Israel-focused vigil that was organized in opposition to a blended public kaddish, or prayer, for both Israelis and Palestinians.
After seeing a video of a man taking down posters in Manhattan, Dan, a Jewish New Yorker who lives near the area, responded with anger. “Every poster they rip down, I’m putting another one back up,” Dan threatened. “And good luck to them if I catch them in the act. Yes, that is a threat online. Come at me.”
Dan, who request anonymity to protect his identity, later retracted his threat and apologized. “I let my masculinity get away from me,” he told the Daily Dot, noting that he felt he’d been “manipulated” by the content he was seeing. “I was raised with the belief that a human hitting another human is the most disgusting thing on earth,” he said. “That I should never allow myself to get to that point.”
The website the posters originate from includes instructions for hanging them. The instructions state, “Be safe—don’t provoke or instigate any conflicts with people or officials.”
However, people who’ve been identified and online observers alike have begun speculating that the posters have become a form of bait. They believe that people put up the posters with the intention of catching others taking them down and filming them, in some cases passing the footage off to Stop Antisemitism, which for some depicted has unleashed a firestorm of harassment.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, David, who was identified by Stop Antisemitism after video surfaced of him removing “kidnapped” posters, told the Daily Dot that the circumstances were “like a trap.” In a video of a woman in pink yelling to a passing camera, “You support genocide, a**hole!” the filmer says something about “your employer” before the video ends. In another that shows a couple being screamed at by a woman who says she paid money to put the posters up, one of the people being filmed turns to someone off camera and says, “Thanks for stalling us for her.”
In a recent conversation with Daily Dot, Dan expressed confusion over people seeking to remove the posters, noting their lack of action. “They know there’s a Nepali student who’s abducted, and that’s it,” he said. “Why are you tearing the face of this Nepali student? I have no idea why you would tear his face. What? I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.”
“It’s like they’re trying to force you to focus on only these people and not on the thousands being slaughtered in Gaza,” said Mark, a videographer who has been documenting Palestinian protests in New York City. Mark, who requested anonymity, said “kidnapped” posters seem to spring up in the vicinity of where a protest is scheduled to occur.
Others believe that the posters are being used for purposes other than simply drawing awareness to the plight of the hostages or even identifying people who tear them down.
“I knew from my friends that these posters are being put up to stoke Islamophobia and to manufacture consent for the bombing of Gaza the same way the victims of 9/11 were used to manufacture consent for bombing Iraqis,” said Sarah. “You could actually be trying to find them like you say you are and instead you’re trying to manufacture consent to bomb the location that they’re at.”
Hundreds of family members of hostages have called for a ceasefire and expressed outrage at a possible ground invasion. Israel has described calls for a ceasefire “despicable.” The United Nations, meanwhile, overwhelmingly voted for a truce between Israel and Hamas.
“I think people are looking at the fact that they are so one-sided about these missing people,” says Rafael Shimunov, who has seen the posters around the city and in his own neighborhood, where he said they were taped up exclusively in front of a Palestinian restaurant. Shimunov shared photos with the Daily Dot showing posters in front of the restaurant, noting that none appear anywhere else in a six-block radius around the restaurant.
“This is a beloved Palestinian restaurant which itself has had a lot of Islamophobic attacks after 9/11 and was part of this coalition with Jews after 9/11 to stop hate. Now these posters are weaponized in front of their restaurant,” Shimunov said.
“There’s no call to action,” he reflected. “You look and your fear is heightened because you think someone is missing from your neighborhood. And then you see these beautiful pictures of beautiful people, and they are in harm and danger, but they’re in another country. There’s nothing you can do to help them, so the only thing you leave with is this one-sided anger. And maybe now you’re more primed to oppose a ceasefire. Maybe you’re now primed to support more vilification of Palestinians.”
“The person who created these posters has now the responsibility to understand: Do I continue this, knowing what’s happening? The harm that I said I didn’t want to be created from this? Or do I use that new platform I have, where 30,000 people are visiting my site to download these things? And do I put a message on that site and say, these are not the ways to use it?”
Shimunov said that ignoring the way the posters are being used is effectively a form of “endorsing” or at least accepting the repercussions, irrespective of anyone’s original intentions.
Bandaid, the artist who created the posters, said that the best response to people removing the posters is to just put more up.
“It’s outside. It’s outdoors. Everyone’s got their own opinion and you can take them down. It happens. It’s not a museum,” he said.
Asked his thoughts on the conflict surrounding the posters, Bandaid asked for the name of the account sharing the videos and said it “sounds interesting.” Asked whether he would support posters calling for a ceasefire, Bandaid was reluctant to make a statement calling for action.
Dan, who previously threatened people who took down the posters, said he would “absolutely” support a ceasefire.
Sarah, who was filmed removing the “kidnapped” posters, said, “If these posters had said something about a ceasefire, or about discouraging Israeli aggression to safely get the hostages back, I would not have taken them down. I would have been a champion of them.”
Over the weekend, the Daily Dot was provided with images of posters mimicking the ‘kidnapped’ format. These feature images of Palestinians, include their names and ages, and are titled “murdered by Israel.”
“This poster was created by Jews who support a free Palestine,” the images add. “The Israeli government does not speak for us—or for you. Do not let them tell you rejecting genocide is antisemitism.”
