Clifton, NJ – For three months, the banner hung outside a Paterson tobacco shop in 799 Main St. with a message designed to provoke.
“Stop the New Nazis,” it proclaimed, with a blue swastika emblazoned over an Israeli flag and a picture of longtime Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defaced with a Hitler-like mustache.
The sign finally detonated over the weekend after pictures were posted online, stirring anger among local residents who condemned it as antisemitic and insensitive.
By Monday, the owners of Clifton Hookah had taken the banner down. It was meant as a critique of Israeli government policy toward Palestinians, but the argument was getting lost amid the controversy, said Layla Samara, an employee whose family owns the store.
“When we put it up, we knew it would spark controversy,” she said in an interview. “It was supposed to make people uncomfortable. Talks like this need to be happening.”
Samara said she was trying to draw a comparison with Israel’s harsh treatment of Palestinians, including expelling families from their longtime homes and killing and injuring protesters and civilians in the West Bank and Gaza.
An employee of the hookah store defending their choice to refer to Jews and the Jewish nation as Nazis. pic.twitter.com/MxrW8jH0QN
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) June 13, 2021
Source: North Jersey
