Watch CBS News

'Boycott Israel' Billboard Sparks Controversy

(CBS) – A billboard along the Tri-State Tollway has stirred controversy.

The message, on the side of I-294 near O'Hare Airport, reads "Boycott Israel until Palestinians have equal rights."

Maya Roseman is one of hundreds who took to social media to ask Lamar Advertising to bring the billboard down.

"It's a mask. It's really saying, 'Boycott Jews,'" Roseman says of the sign.

It's funded by the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign, part of a movement calling for boycott divestment and sanctions against Israel.

But not everyone thinks the billboard should be taken down.

"ADL believes in the right to free speech, and so while we think the content is extremely problematic, we also aren't calling for it to be taken down," Allison Rosenfeld of the Anti-Defamation League tells CBS 2's Sandra Torres.

The group Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Illinois Chicago supports the display.

"This is our U.S. Constitutional right to have free speech, and it's kind of alarming that there's these intense organized efforts to shut down the free speech," Oday Rafati says.

Lamar Advertising posted a message on social media that it would remove the copy "as soon as possible."

Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign, known as SeaMAC, issued a statement saying its billboard was being "threatened with censorship" and said the ad company was buckling under pressure.

 

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.