A New Jersey hookah shop removed an openly antisemitic banner on Monday from the outside of its storefront following complaints and protests over the weekend.
The banner, which had hung outside of the Clifton Hookah store in Paterson, New Jersey for three months, depicted former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as having a Hitler-like mustache in addition to an image of a swastika with the words, “Stop The New Nazis,” The Algemeiner reported.
Andre Sayegh, the mayor of Paterson, NJ, explained that the banner had been removed from the store’s entrance, “because we didn’t want to cause pain to a community that we love. The bigger issue is to free Palestine. We can’t free Palestine by arguing.” https://t.co/TcT8NalREu
— Algemeiner (@Algemeiner) June 15, 2021
The existence of the banner was publicly shared in a tweet on Saturday by the non-profit foundation, Stop Antisemitism.
???? Clifton, NJ – a hookah shop refers to the Jewish nation and her Prime Minister (former) as Nazis.
This vile comparison is deemed antisemitic by #IHRA and once again shows us the importance of having such a definition. pic.twitter.com/bQiixYOyXX
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) June 12, 2021
“This vile comparison is deemed antisemitic,” the organization wrote, continuing on to express the importance of having a working definition of antisemitism created by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). (RELATED: Rutgers University-New Brunswick Chancellor, Provost Apologize After Condemning Uptick In Anti-Semitic Attacks)
“When we put it up, we knew it would spark controversy,” Layla Samara, whose family owns the hookah store, told North Jersey news that the purpose was “to make people uncomfortable.”
Samara explained to North Jersey the banner had been meant to draw comparisons between how the Israeli government had treated the Palestinian people, after Israel had launched retaliatory airstrikes at the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, leaving innocent people dead and injured in the Gaza Strip.
The Daily Caller reached out to Clifton Hookah for comment and did not receive a response back.
In an effort to fight against a growing wave of antisemitic attacks online, 120 international nonprofit organizations sent an open letter to Facebook’s board of directors in August 2020, requesting that they take a stricter approach towards anti-semitism.