With thanks Ellen for this
I think it’s worth showing again
because this is a piece of artwork that had to be taken down
I’m disgusted with those who complained
‘ Even with Palestinian children’s art, Israel must make itself the victim
Mon 6 Mar 2023
Visitors view artworks made by Palestinian children during an exhibition at Al-Qattan Center for the Child, in Gaza City, Aug. 8, 2021.
About 120 children participated in the exhibition with their artworks.
JVL Introduction
UK psychotherapist Gwyn Daniels a member of the UK Palestine Mental Health Network and a patron of the Palestine Trauma Centre which works in Gaza.
She writes here about the pressure exerted by UK Lawyers for Israel on Chelsea and Westminster Hospital School to remove an exhibition of art produced by Palestinian children in Gaza (also covered in our earlier post A new moral panic about “antisemitism?)
The reason: “some Jewish patients… said that they felt vulnerable and victimised by this display” i.e. British Jews should not be troubled by discomfort when confronted by the consequences of Israel’s actions…
This approach, believes Daniels “exactly mirrors the Israeli view that Palestinian children have to be responded to as if they are not really children at all and thus merit no empathy, and that sympathy should be reserved for those who feel threatened by them.”
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With thanks to Middle East Eye for permission to repost.
This article was originally published by Middle East Eye on Fri 3 Mar 2023. Read the original here.
Even with Palestinian children's art, Israel must make itself the victim
The pressure exerted on a London hospital to remove artwork by Gaza children illustrates the length to which Israel’s friends will go to whitewash its abuses and erase Palestinian voices
by Gwyn Daniel, Middle East Eye
Here are two seemingly incompatible scenarios.
The first is the horrendous and unconstrained violence currently being unleashed on Palestinian citizens, their homes, towns and villages by Israeli settlers whose representatives now occupy key positions in the Israeligovernment.
Israeli commentators have used words such as “pogrom” and “Kristallnacht”to describe the murder and destruction inflicted on unprotected civilians and their property.
The second is an episode far away in a genteel part of London, where a British pro-Israel charity has somehowmanaged to pressure the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital into removing from one of its corridors an exhibition of art by Palestinian children from the Gaza Strip.
The UK Lawyers for Israel group submitted a complaint to the hospital it said “on behalf of some Jewish patients, who said that they felt vulnerable and victimised by this display”. A UKLFI director commented: “We are pleased that the display has been removed and that the hospital has responded positively to its patients’ complaints.”
But what could possibly be a rationale for Palestinian children’s art, with its expressions of hopes and dreams, of community, of love of the land, of fear and suffering, to be perceived as such a threat to the equanimity of a few Jewish supporters of Israel that it had to be removed?
In my view, one connecting thread is a familiar pattern: the more extreme and violent Israel’s behaviour and the more human rights violations it commits, the harder it has to work to portray itself to the outside world as a victim (with “the right to defend itself”) – and the more assiduously do its defenders in the UK and elsewhere attempt to neutralise dissent by evoking victimhood or distress among the wider Jewish population.
If the usual method of accusing individuals or institutions of antisemitism does not quite fit, then the argument is used that British Jews should not be troubled by discomfort when confronted by the consequences of Israel’s actions.
Representations of suffering
It is entirely understandable that many Jews who have strong attachments to Israel experience distress and discomfort when faced with evidence of its crimes. What is unacceptable is that pro-Israel bodies in the UK seize upon these experiences in order to close down representations of suffering or depictions of such crimes.
The complaint about the exhibition of children’s art is a perfect illustration of “unchilding”, containing as it does the insinuation that this art is both a threat in its own right to Jewish citizens’ peace of mind and also serves as the pawn of adults with nefarious intentions’
i haven't posted the full article Ellen tagged but it’s definately worth a read
If we are to allow art and music to thrive unhindered then we should allow it
Whatever it is
It seems art isn’t allowed by some in our own country when it suits them !