A college in Lewiston, Maine was defaced on Sunday with anti-Israel graffiti and flyers in what was termed a possible hate crime, reported the Lewiston Sun Journal.
Bates College students were told in a Monday email that the college had been contacted by many people “expressing deep concern about the impact of the language contained in the flyers and graffiti, particularly on Jewish members of our campus community.”
Police were contacted, according to the college. It was working to clean up the graffiti.
According to the Sun Journal, the Lewiston Police Department contacted the state Attorney General’s office about investigating the incident as a hate crime.
On Monday, the Bates Leftist Coalition posted four photographs on Instagram that featured chalk slogans on the side of a college building.
The phrases in the photos were “Free Palestine,” “Stop ethnic cleansing,” "Israel is killing innocent people,” and “**** Zionist Israel.”
While not taking credit for the photos, the Bates Leftist Coalition said that the defacement was “not an act of anti-Semitism but of anti-colonialism.”