A number of elected officials, including New York Mayor Eric AdamsLaw enforcement officials, right-wing media and right-wing extremists have spread a baseless conspiracy theory that Jewish Hungarian billionaire George Soros or a nefarious shadow organization is helping to finance pro-Palestinian student protests at universities across the United States.
They promote the well-known anti-Semitic claim that a mastermind was behind the protests, based on the fact that many students at universities like NYU and Columbia simultaneously erected tents of the same color, make and model on top of their own camps.
However, the real explanation for their prevalence is simple: they are cheap and easy to find. As online publication Hell Gate NYC highlighted, the tents used at NYU campus camping are sold at retailer Five Below for just $15, while the green model seen at the Columbia campus available online at Walmart for as little as $28.
The tents used by students are among the top results in Google searches, and students who searched for “tent” on Amazon were prompted to purchase the green Camel Crown tent for $35, which was listed by the online -Retailer listed as a top selling item. It is also available with one-day shipping. Another popular tent seen at the protests has been discounted in recent days and now costs less than $20.
On Facebook, WIRED discovered dozens of accounts posting an identical message with the same image of the Columbia camp. The posts had all been published since Wednesday morning and new posts with the same message were still being shared on Thursday morning. “Something strange about these camps on campus,” the posts read. “Almost all tents are identical – same design, same size, same out-of-the-box appearance. I know college students aren’t as rich or coordinated.”
The plot represents one of the latest moves in a furious backlash against peaceful protests that began earlier this month. The backlash included calls for violent tactics to break up the protests, which some have mistakenly described as “pogroms.”
In many cases, pro-Israel voices have tried to portray the protests as anything other than students expressing their First Amendment right to free speech and claiming that someone or a group is controlling them. The conspiracy began to take hold on Tuesday when NYPD Assistant Commissioner Kaz Daughtry told Fox 5 NY: “If you look at the tents, where did they get them all? The same place, the same person? Someone is behind this and we will find out who it is.”
The conspiracy gained momentum later that same day when Adams repeated Daughtry’s comment: “Why is everyone’s tent the same? Was there a scrap sale for these tents? There is something being organized, there is a well-concerted organizing effort, and what is the goal of that organization? That’s what we have to ask ourselves.”