Londoners woke up on Thursday morning to messages on at least six bus stops with “Israel is a racist endeavor” posters, just two days after the U.K. Labour Party adopted a definition of anti-Semitism that characterizes the rejection of Israel’s right to exist as anti-Semitic.
An organization called London Palestine Action claimed responsibility for the images, posting image of them on their Twitter and Facebook accounts along with an explanation of why the existence of a Jewish state is racist.
London transportation officials and the advertising agency that typically sells the spaces where the posters went up said that the posters in Westminster, Elephant and Castle, Bloomsbury and Waterloo Bridge constitute “vandalism” and vowed to have them removed immediately.
The phrase on the posters is taken directly from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism, which says calling Israel a “racist endeavor” is inherently anti-Semitic.
The Labour Party adopted the definition in the wake of public outcry against party leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose statements about Jews and Israel have raised cries of anti-Semitism within the party.