A poster advertising an event featuring conservative speaker Ian Haworth on October 7 was vandalized less than two and a half hours after it was put up Monday morning, the University of Iowa’s Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter said.
The banner was graffitied with antisemitic phrases “free Palestine” and “from the river to the sea,” as well as a drawing of the Palestinian flag. The word “ignorant” was written across Haworth’s forehead on the poster. Haworth, who has been outspoken about the atrocities of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel in the past year, is Jewish.
The event, titled “October 7: One Year Later — Hamas’s War on Jewish, Christian, American, and Western Values,” will come on the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attack this coming Monday.
The University of Iowa’s YAF organization cast the vandalistic act as a “call for violence against Jewish students.”
“It is appalling that at a Big Ten University, where tours are happening regularly and the administration promotes ‘inclusion,’ ‘safe spaces,’ and ‘welcoming,’ members of the Hawkeye community still openly call for violence against Jewish students,” the conservative student group said on Tuesday. “Terrorist sympathizers should not be celebrated—they should be held accountable for the hateful, criminal rhetoric they spread.”
“The radical Left doesn’t want University of Iowa students to hear Ian Haworth share the truth about Israel,” Iowa YAF posted to X on Monday.
In response to National Review’s request for comment, the University of Iowa said it “is fully committed to the First Amendment and to creating a campus environment where different viewpoints are welcome.” It added that any student found in violation of the code of conduct will face potential disciplinary action depending on the investigation’s findings.
Jasmyn Jordan, YAF national chairwoman and Iowa YAF chairwoman, said she filed a police report and plans to meet with the public university’s president to discuss the incident, according to the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Jordan is a senior at the University of Iowa.
“I find it increasingly frustrating that the university has not responded with urgency or taken decisive action regarding this incident, among many other free speech violations we have endured on campus,” she told National Review.
Jordan testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Free Speech and Antisemitism last November when college campuses across the U.S. were dealing with an outburst of antisemitism in the wake of October 7.
Haworth himself responded to the vandalism on social media, questioning why the vandals wrote “free Palestine” over “Hamas.”
During a recent YAF speech at the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home in Illinois, Haworth explained the meaning of genocide — a term that has been used to criticize Israel for its ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza, where Palestinians have been killed or displaced by Israeli airstrikes.
“Genocide means trying to wipe out an entire group of people,” the conservative commentator and writer said. “It doesn’t mean some people on my side got hurt, and Jews defending themselves from an actual genocide really isn’t genocide. But if Israel is committing genocide, it turns out they’re really, really bad at it.
“How do you explain why the population in Palestinian areas has quadrupled since 1967? How is the Palestinian population growing in Gaza, growing in the West Bank, growing in Lebanon? How is it growing in Israel?” he asked. “Either Israel really sucks at genocide, or it’s not true. There’s just one side trying to commit a genocide, and it’s not Israel.”