Posted on 01/18/2004 6:10:14 AM PST by veronica
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the cabinet Sunday that he fully supports Israel's ambassador to Sweden Zvi Mazel, who sparked a diplomatic incident when he wrecked a museum display Friday that he said glorified the suicide bomber who murdered 21 Israelis at the Maxim restaurant in Haifa last year.
Sharon said that he called the ambassador to thank him for taking action at the Stockholm museum.
"I thanked him for standing up against the growing anti-Semitism and I told him that the government stands behind his action," Sharon said. "I think that our ambassador acted as was necessary, the phenomenon was so grave that it was impossible not to react on the spot."
Sweden's ambassador to Israel, Robert Rydberg, said Sunday in a meeting with officials from the Foreign Ministry that he understands the actions of Ambassador Mazel, Radio Israel reported.
The relations between Sweden and Israel are strong enough to get over this crisis, the ambassador added.
A Swedish government spokesman said the Swedish Foreign Ministry will ask Mazel to explain why he vandalized the piece of art at the Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anna Larsson said, "We will ask him to explain, and from our side we will maintain that it is unacceptable to destroy works of art in this way."
The exhibit, entitled "Snow White and the Madness of Truth," featured a small ship carrying a picture of Islamic Jihad bomber Hanadi Jaradat sailing in a rectangular pool filled with blood-colored water. Classical music was played in the background.
Mazel, who unplugged three spotlights illuminating the exhibit and apparently threw one of the spotlights into the pool, said he does not expect Sweden to declare him persona non grata when he is called into the Swedish Foreign Ministry on Monday.
"I felt that I was standing in front of a horror, I felt that I was standing in front of an exhibit that, while it was in an historic and big museum in the heart of Europe, was glorifying genocide. I was standing before an exhibit calling for genocide, praising the genocide of me, you, my brothers and sisters. I pulled the plug on the three spotlights and plunged the exhibit into darkness. I think one of the spotlights fell into water."
Mazel was asked to leave, but refused. The creators of the exhibit are musician Dror Feiler, an Israeli who has lived in Sweden since 1973, and his Swedish wife Gunilla Skold Feiler. Feiler composed the music that accompanied the exhibit, and his wife created the visuals.
Feiler, holding his saxophone, stood in front of the crowd, saying Mazel was trying to censor art, and asked the museum authorities to have him removed.
"I would like him to leave," Mazel said. As he was being escorted out, museum director Kristian Berg said to Mazel, "You are a diplomatic person, you should know how to behave." Mazel replied, "You created a pool of blood of my brothers, and you told me do to nothing...the murderer was Snow White."
Mazel, explaining his action on Swedish Radio, said "This was not a piece of art. This was a monstrosity, an obscene distortion of reality. For me it was intolerable and an insult to the families of the victims. As ambassador [of] Israel I could not remain indifferent to such an obscene misrepresentation of reality."
Foreign Ministry deputy director Ran Kuriel, who heads the ministry's Western Europe department, spoke with Swedish ambassador to Israel Robert Rydberg and protested the exhibit.
Kuriel said that Israel views Sweden as responsible for the display, and that it is not possible to hide behind the claim of artistic freedom when talking about acts that justify attacks on Israeli citizens. He demanded that the Swedish government remove the display.
Ora Regev, whose son Nir was killed in the attack at Maxim restaurant, told The Jerusalem Post she would like to thank Mazel for his actions. "He did exactly what needed to be done," Regev said. "This may not have been diplomatically or politically correct, but the time has come for people to think about us as well, about our feelings."
She said the exhibit, which she only heard about following the incident, is a terrible insult to the families of the victims, and is a "prize for the terrorist." "There is a limit to freedom of expression," she said, adding that Feiler has no right to represent himself as an Israeli.
A Palestinian database on the Internet describes Feiler as an Israeli Jew "who moved to Sweden in 1973 after completing service as a parachutist in the Israeli Defense Force. Feiler was one of the early refuseniks in 1970 when he turned down service in Gaza, then under the command of Ariel Sharon. Currently (2002) he is president of Jews for Israeli Palestinian Peace http://www.jipf.nu/. The group has been organizing Jewish activists in Sweden against the occupation ever since its inception in 1982. JIPF actively works with Palestinian organizations on such projects as joint delegations to officials of the Swedish government."
Feiler told AP the exhibit was designed to draw attention to how weak people left alone can be capable of horrible things. He said Mazel "tried to stop free speech and free artistic expression from being carried out in Sweden."
Feiler issued a statement to the Israeli press afterward saying: "Mazel went crazy like an excited soccer fan. I could not believe my eyes when he started to destroy my exhibit. I think he did a bad service to the State of Israel. People in Sweden who hear about this say to themselves, if this is how an Israeli ambassador who is supposed to be diplomatic and restrained acts, how do the soldiers in the occupied territories behave."
Feiler said the exhibit was an "artistic creation and not a political manifesto, and it could be interpreted in different ways. Any reasonable person could understand that we were trying to express pain at the continued spilling of blood."
Mazel was invited to the museum to attend the opening of an artistic exhibition in connection with an international conference on preventing genocide set for later this month in Stockholm.
Foreign Ministry spokesman David Saranga said the exhibit violated an understanding Israel had with Sweden that the scope of the genocide conference would not include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Saranga said Israel will "reconsider" its participation in the conference if the exhibit is not removed.
Mazel is a veteran diplomat who took up the posting in Sweden in 2002. He previously served as ambassador to Romania and Egypt.
In an interview with Army Radio on Saturday, Mazel said he felt "mortally wounded" when he saw the figure of the suicide bomber who killed 21 Israelis at the Maxim restaurant "floating as in serene peace" in a pool of red water. Mazel described the work as a "call to kill," glorifying Palestinian suicide bombers' murder of Israelis. "It provoked the Israeli ambassador very, very much. He went furious," said Kristian Berg, director of the Historical Museum where the work, entitled "Snow White and the Madness of Truth," is on display.
"I had all the right in the world to act as I did," Mazel told Reuters in an interview.
Orly Almog, who lost five family members in the suicide bombing, said Mazel's act was "100 percent justified."
"I think it is a shame for the State of Israel that an Israeli presents this horrible act as art, and I think that what the ambassador did is a thing deserving of praise," Almog said.
Minister for Diaspora Affairs Nathan Sharansky said the installation, which displays suicide bombers, "plays into the hands of those that wish to destroy the Jewish people."
"The Swedish government's attempt to hide behind freedom of expression is directly related to the anti-Semitic incidents Sweden has been infected with this last couple of years," Sharansky said.
Museum director Kristian Berg suggested that Mazel endangered those in the museum. "He pulled out the plugs and threw one of the spotlights into the fountain, which caused the entire installation to short-circuit and made it totally life-threatening," Berg told Swedish news agency TT, AFP reported.
The museum director said he did not consider the artwork to be a provocation. "It is rather an invitation to think about why such things happen in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he said.
I doubt if it'll change their minds, however.
As far as I'm concerned, the artist can continue producing his work, as irrelevant as it may be. However, Zvi Mazel once again demonstrated how very alive the Jewish people are. He showed the world that they will not go quietly into non-existence.
Bravo Zvi Mazel! If only Americans would take a lesson here. The world respects strength and determination, not endless equivocation and reflection.
Normally NOT pulling out the plugs first would cause a short circuit. For an UNPLUGGED appliance to do so is a freaking miracle.
Decadence of the secular Jew (of Feiler).
The museum director said he did not consider the artwork to be a provocation. "It is rather an invitation to think about why such things happen in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he said.
Decadence of the Swede
The European socialist hates the Jew because the Jews gave the Book to the World with which the Christians built upon. The Book lays down a social legal basis that is at odds with the decadent, non-religious order of Plato as espoused in his “Republic.” Plato is the prophet the socialist adores. Universal sex, boarding schools, and guardian administrators are all they want. They have hated the Jews ever since Christ gave Judaism universal appeal and set final justice above the reach of the brutish despots. I kid you not. I read a medieval letter penned in the 500’s that said just as much. Thus, anti-Semitism is eternal, at least in the fundamentalist secular folds of Europe.
Decadence of the secular Jew (of Feiler).
The museum director said he did not consider the artwork to be a provocation. "It is rather an invitation to think about why such things happen in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he said.
Decadence of the Swede
The European socialist hates the Jew because the Jews gave the Book to the World with which the Christians built upon. The Book lays down a social legal basis that is at odds with the decadent, non-religious order of Plato as espoused in his “Republic.” Plato is the prophet the socialist adores. Universal sex, boarding schools, and guardian administrators are all they want. They have hated the Jews ever since Christ gave Judaism universal appeal and set final justice above the reach of the brutish despots. I kid you not. I read a medieval letter penned in the 500’s that said just as much. Thus, anti-Semitism is eternal, at least in the fundamentalist secular folds of Europe.
Just what would this director think was provocation? Good Grief..
You ask: Just what would this director think was provocation?
Based on his forefathers decisions, something beyond mass genocide might be considered provocation.
If we could only get someone like that in OUR State Department....
It is good to go back and take a look at Plato as an adult. His notion of "Philosopher Kings" is really just elitist nonsense. (I prefer "Programmer Kings" myself.) For those who are intersted I would recommend reading Peikoff's Ominous Parallels.
ML/NJ
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