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Posted on 01/18/2004 9:35:30 AM PST by Alouette
JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) praised Israel's ambassador to Sweden on Sunday for vandalizing a Stockholm art display about a Palestinian suicide bomber, saying the "entire government stands behind him."
The Israeli ambassador, Zvi Mazel, threw a mounted spotlight at the outdoor exhibit in Stockholm's Museum of National Antiquities on Friday. He said the display legitimized genocide, and Israel has demanded that it be removed.
The artwork depicts a small ship in a rectangular pool filled with red-colored water. The ship carries a picture of Islamic Jihad bomber Hanadi Jaradat, who killed herself and 21 bystanders in an Oct. 4 suicide bombing in Haifa, Israel.
Sharon told a cabinet meeting Sunday he had called Mazel and thanked him "for his strength in dealing with increasing anti-Semitism, and told him that the entire government stands behind him."
"I think Ambassador Mazel behaved in an appropriate way," Sharon said. "I think the phenomenon is so serious that it would have been forbidden not to have acted on the spot."
Dror Feiler, the Israeli-born artist who created the piece, said it was supposed to call attention to how weak, lonely people can be capable of horrible things.
The museum says it has no intention of removing the piece, and officials will invite Mazel there next week for a discussion about different interpretations of art.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said Sunday it would summon the Swedish ambassador in Israel to protest Feiler's piece. Mazel was also being summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Stockholm to explain his action.
WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
Ditto
From the nation on the mad cow continent which feels a spike in a cows brain is far better than a slit throat.
sharon is only standing behind him with words, the words of a politician.
Only when sharon ACTS with ACTions, will things begin to change. In the meantime, there will be more 'art.'
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Sharon praises 'art vandal' envoy
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Ambassador Zvi Mazel was ejected from a Stockholm museum after the incident. Mr Mazel said the work, created by an Israeli-born artist, was "a call for genocide". Israel has called on the Swedish Government to dismantle the exhibit, which has a boat floating in a pool of red liquid. "I think the phenomenon [of anti-Semitism] is so serious that it would have been forbidden not to have acted on the spot," Mr Sharon said. But the expatriate Israeli artist, Dror Feiler, rejected the criticism of his work, saying it had a message of openness and conciliation. "I'm absolutely opposed to suicide bombers," he added. Mr Feiler called the envoy "an intellectual dwarf" who had tried to "stop free speech and free artistic expression". Sweden's foreign ministry has summoned Mr Mazel to give an explanation for his actions on Monday. Support Ambassador Mazel was expelled from Stockholm's Museum of Antiquities on Friday after he threw a spotlight at the exhibit. Called Snow White And The Madness Of Truth, the installation features a photo of Hanadi Jaradat, a 29-year-old trainee lawyer who blew up herself and 19 Israelis in a Haifa restaurant in October. The work is accompanied by a piece of Bach music entitled My Heart Is Swimming In Blood. The installation was commissioned ahead of a conference on genocide to be held later in January.
"I called our ambassador in Sweden Zvi Mazel last night and thanked him for his strength in dealing with increasing anti-Semitism, and told him that the entire government stands behind him," Mr Sharon told a cabinet meeting Sunday. "I think Ambassador Mazel behaved in an appropriate way." Israeli foreign ministry spokesman David Saranger had urged the Swedish Government to "take steps to remove it". The director of the museum, Kristian Berg, said the installation would remain in place. "You can have your own view of what this piece of art is all about, but it is never, never allowed to use violence and it is never allowed to try to silence the artist," he said. |
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