That's the title of a new Pajamas Media piece by my friend Bookworm about a cancelled art exhibition in the Bay Area.
Here's a slice:
I challenge you to find a news report with more layers, all of them misleading, than an ostensibly unbiased San Francisco Chronicle “news” article about a canceled art exhibition at the Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland, California. The story’s core is uncomplicated: The museum agreed with an organization called the Middle East Children’s Alliance to showcase art that Palestinian children created. In response to protests, the museum halted the exhibit.Except, as one commenter notes in an associated article, a lot of the pictures were almost certainly not drawn by children at all, but by adults
Through a magical combination of ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision, though, Chronicle readers are left believing that children in Gaza, after suffering horrible abuse at Israeli hands, are now victims of American Jewish censorship. (Of course, Chronicle readers, already primed with a steady diet of this kind of reporting, probably started out believing this statement to be true, so this most recent story is just fuel to an already raging fire.)
Chronicle staff writer Jill Tucker begins her report by saying that the museum, “citing pressure from the community,” canceled the exhibit, which was to have consisted of drawings that Gazan children created in the wake of the 2008 war. The pictures’ subject matter included “bombs dropping, tanks and people getting shot.”
Barbara Lubin, spokesperson for the Middle East Children’s Alliance, the organization sponsoring the exhibit, validated the drawings on the ground that they represent the children’s “experience.”
And as Bookworm reveals ( and the Chron article doesn't) , Lubin's background reveals that she's a particularly virulent species of self-hating Jew, a Hezbollah groupie who is also affiliated with International Answer, the terrorist supporting International Solidarity Movement and a number of other radical anti-Israel groups.
Read the whole thing here.
2 comments:
If we are going to show the "art" of Palestinian children who are suffering at the hands of Israel, we must also show the "art" of Israeli children too who are suffering at the hands of the Palestinians. This would give viewers of the art exibits a more complete picture of what is actually happening. Of course the people pushing the exibit seem to be only interesting in propaganda rather than trying to comvey a true representation of the situation.
If all sides were fairly presented the exibit might have some value. As it is, presenting only one side serves no useful purpose other than to try and demonize someone. The fact is, as someone once wisely stated, "war is h*ll." If people had a full appreciation of this, we might be less likely to engage in it. With these kinds of exibits it only encourages war against one side.
We claim we want peace. Things such as this proposed exibit are counter producive to trying to achieve that worthy goal.
I think I've stated it before but here's how to solve the Israeli/Arab problem in accordance with what our stated goals of a two state solution with a Democratic Jewish Israel and Democratic Palestine living side by side in peace. Cut off all aid to the Palestinians or at least make it highly conditional much like the aid Israel receives. As long as the Palestinians are receiving such vast quantities of unconditional aid, they possess lopsided advantages over Israel in alomst every meaningful area. As long as they possess overwhelming advantages against Israel in almost every area, they don't experience much of a need to negotiate in good faith. Wothout this vast uncondtional aid the Palestinians would not possess such overwhelming advantages over Israel. In such a case, there is a high degree of probability that they might be much more willing to negotiate in good faith and we'd have a much better chance of achieving our stated goals.
Of course there is a real possibility that our stated goals are not our actual goals. In which case, policies that appear to be stupid may, in fact, be diabolically brilliant!!
I know former President Bush referred to Israel as a "Jewish state." Has President Obama? In any event, Israel can't agree to a "right of return" and still maintain its basic nature. Again, without the vast unconditional aid the Palestinians are getting a negotiated settlement that is fair to all parties involved becomes much more likely.
For what its worth, America can no longer afford foreign aid any way and whatever military weapons it can build or otherwise acquire will be needed for its own defense in the ocming years.
A 'democratic Palestine living side by side in peace with Israel' is a fantasy.
In the end, it's about Islam.
Post a Comment