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MIT building defaced with anti-Israel graffiti
Pro-Palestine activists took credit for writing messages calling for the "death" of the Israeli army on an MIT building.
A building at MIT was defaced with anti-Israel graffiti on Sunday, with pro-Palestine activists taking credit for the vandalism and calling out a top researcher at the university for her work on technology allegedly being used by the Israeli military.
The Stata Center, which houses MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), was “vandalized with spray-painted messages threatening Israelis who serve or have served in the military,” President Sally Kornbluth confirmed in a message to the MIT community.
Talia Khan, a graduate student at MIT and the founder of the MIT Israel Alliance, posted video online that showed the graffiti. The words “Death to the IOF” can be seen spray-painted on glass doors. Those critical of Israel’s military actions often refer to the country’s army, the Israel Defense Forces, as the “Israel Offense Forces.”
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The video was reposted by Khan but apparently originated with the activists responsible for the vandalism. It cuts between images of the graffiti and criticisms of Daniela Rus, the director of CSAIL, while audio of rap punk duo Bob Vylan chanting “death, death to the IDF” at the Glastonbury Festival plays on loop.
According to Kornbluth, an “external entity” known as Direct Action Movement for Palestinian Liberation (DAMPL) was behind the incident. A social media account tied to the group took credit for the vandalism and was responsible for other similar actions in and around Boston over the weekend, she said.
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An Instagram account for DAMPL appears to have been taken offline as of Wednesday morning.
“The MIT Israel Alliance is disturbed — but not surprised — by the recent vandalism of the Stata Center. The threats targeting Israelis who serve or have served in the military represent an escalation in ongoing efforts to intimidate MIT faculty and community members with ties to Israel,” the MIT Israel Alliance said in a statement.
Kornbluth directed MIT Police Chief John DiFava to increase patrols on campus around the State Center. DiFava is also working with outside law enforcement entities, including the FBI, to investigate the incident. The university will press for criminal charges against those found to be responsible, and disciplinary action will be taken if they are part of the MIT community, Kornbluth added.
A spokesperson for the Cambridge Police Department referred questions to the MIT Police Department. The school’s police department did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Rus has been the focus of activists before. Last December, the MIT Coalition for Palestine accused CSAIL and Rus of “complicity in autonomized genocide” in an article that was first retracted by the MIT student newspaper “The Tech” and then published elsewhere.
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Kornbluth called the accusations against Rus “outrageous and inaccurate.” Around the time last year when the pro-Palestine activists published their article on Rus, graffiti and “wanted” posters aimed at her and other facility members began appearing around MIT’s campus. Kornbluth defended Rus then and did again in her recent message.
“Suggestions that Professor Rus’s research is designed for conflict are untrue,” Kornbluth wrote. “Those protesting her work are calling on MIT to terminate funding for a research project she led with the University of Haifa. For the record, the grant in question had a fixed four-year timeline and ended as planned – and unrelated to any pressure – in November 2024, making these unlawful actions not only reprehensible but pointless as well.”
Khan criticized Kornbluth’s response, calling it “utterly disgraceful” that it took her “60 hours” to respond. She insists that MIT is not doing enough to protect Jewish students.
“This violent threat was enabled by MIT’s support of terrorist-sympathizing rhetoric,” Khan wrote in a post on X.
As U.S. contractors backed by the Israeli government reportedly use live ammunition on starving Palestinians in Gaza, Israel is also working to forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of people living in the enclave. With the Jewish state facing many accusations of having committed war crimes, antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric is on the rise, as evidenced by the chants at Glastonbury.
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The vast majority of Israeli citizens over the age of 18 are required to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Chants of bringing “death to the IDF,” therefore, are equivalent to calling for the death of all Israelis, Khan and others say.
The MIT Israel Alliance said it welcomed Kornbluth’s condemnation of the threats and the enhanced security measures MIT is taking. The group called for the university to demonstrate “zero tolerance” for violence, intimidation, and harassment on campus.
“The spray-painted slogan, ‘Death to the IOF,’ (a slur for the IDF) goes far beyond political speech; it is a direct threat to the majority of Israeli students, postdocs, staff, and faculty at MIT, many of whom are IDF veterans,” The MIT Israel Alliance said in its statement. “The false and inflammatory accusations made against CSAIL Director Daniela Rus are not only outrageous but symptomatic of the broader harassment campaign we have seen repeatedly targeting Israeli-affiliated research at MIT.”
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