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When you next hear European politicians, and particularly the French, declaring their total and absolute opposition to terrorism, bear in mind this little story emanating from Paris.
An exhibition entitled “Death” (on the web here ) and made up of 68 photographs created by one Ahlam Shibli, opened at the Jeu de Paume Museum of Contemporary Art in Paris on May 28. It will run until September 1. The museum is funded by France’s Ministry of Culture [source ]. Shibli describes herself as “a Palestinian Bedouin photographer based in Haifa “. Translation: she is an Israeli. She was awarded the Nathan Gottesdiener Israeli Art Prize in 2003 [source ].
Its website (here ), according to a JTA report, describes the people in the pictures as “suicide bombers“, a galling name for anyone who understands the religiously-inspired hatred-rich process by which they carry out their acts of murder.
Playing the usual black-is-white games, the catalog notes say the people depicted are “those who lost their lives fighting against the occupation,” and the exhibition as being about “the efforts of Palestinian society to preserve their presence.” As far as we can tell, the idea that the people who carried out armed attacks on generally defenceless Israeli civilians are in fact terrorists who were sent by terrorist organizations and whose terrorism is celebrated by all branches of the two Palestinian Arab statelets is never mentioned.
The exhibition is a joint effort of the Jeu de Paume people as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA), and the Fundação de Serralves, Porto, Portugal.
CRIF, the umbrella body of French Jewish communities, says the the people in the pictures are drawn principally from al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, which is a unit of Fatah, the political faction headed by the non-moderate Mahmoud Abbas otherwise known as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority; from the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which is a unit of Hamas, and from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The European Union calls all three of them terrorist groups. But in France, Spain and Portugal, such designations are not taken seriously.
There is a deadly-serious cognitive war underway in Europe. The people who run and fund some of Europe’s publicly-funded museums are foot-soldiers in that war, though they (some of them at least) probably have no idea that’s what they are doing and would scream in protest when it’s pointed out to them. They make terrorism safe, and for this they deserve our utter scorn.
