(JTA) – An anti-BDS group founded by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson did not fund a poster campaign targeting pro-Palestinian student activists as “Jew haters” and terror-ists’ allies, contrary to a report in a major newspaper, the group said. The Maccabee Task Force in a statement issued August 24 called the report in the Los Angeles Times “completely false,” saying the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a conservative foundation based in Los Angeles, confirmed that it did not use funds from a task force grant to pay for the controversial campaign.

“Earlier this week a surprising report surfaced in the media that a modest grant ap-proved by the Maccabee Task Force to the David Horowitz Freedom Center had been used to fund a poster campaign that targeted student activists,” the statement said. “The Maccabee Task Force never authorized or approved such a poster campaign. And the David Horowitz Freedom Center has since confirmed that it never used our funds for this campaign. In short, the newspaper report was completely false.”

One poster, which appeared on the University of California, Santa Barbara campus, included the names of prominent campus BDS activists and said, “The following students and faculty at UC Santa Barbara have allied themselves with Palestinian terrorists to perpetrate BDS and Jew hatred on this campus.”

The task force in its statement criticized the poster campaign. “We have not and will not support public attacks on student activists who behave in a civil fashion,” it said. “We want to focus on and win the battle of ideas. We will continue to stress making the posi-tive case for Israel while also teaching the truth about the BDS movement’s founding, goals and national leadership.”