No, It's Not Anti-Semitic

Snow White and the Madness of Truth is on exhibit at the Stockholm Museum of Antiquities. The installation consists of a miniature boat floating in blood-red water. On the boat is a picture of Palestinian suicide bomber Hanadi Jaradat, a 29-year-old trainee lawyer, who last October detonated a bomb in a Haifa restaurant, killing herself and twenty one others.

The work was created by Israel-born Dror Feiler and his wife Gunilla Skold Feiler. He asserts that the purpose of the piece is "[to] call attention to how weak people left alone can be capable of horrible things."

On Friday, Israeli Ambassador Zvi Mazel disconnected the cables of a mounted spotlight at Stockholm's Museum of National Antiquities on Friday causing it to crash into the work, the artist Dror Feiler told CNN Sunday.

Mazel told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that he did not cut or rip the electrical wires but unplugged electrical projectors that provided lighting to the display. He told Haaretz it was an act of protest.

The New York Times, under the heading Israel Diplomat Defends Attack on Bomber Art in Stockholm notes Mazel as defending his actions based on the photograph of the woman, specifically her rather normal looking, indeed, western-like appearance, which he claims belies her terrorist nature.

The Guardian UK claims that the electrical cables short circuited, creating a potentially deadly situation.

In the press the range of debate runs the gamut from Ariel Sharon, who defended the Ambassador's action, to Ehud Barak, who said, "There are definitely instances where nondiplomatic behavior can send a message in a more correct manner."

The Times article has a small photograph, while the CNN story carries a picture that gives a sense of scale.

Snow White and the Madness of Truth. A photograph on a miniature boat showing a normal-looking young woman in a blood-red sea. A normal looking young woman who committed a horrific act. Doesn't the metaphor "at sea," or "out to sea," or "adrift" mean anything to these so-called critics?

The right has for years simultaneously railed against "political correctness" but at the same time engages in a good bit of it themselves. The narrow-minded individuals who can't see past their noses are at work here. The piece does not glorify suicide bombers any more than saying the young woman was adrift or out-to-sea when she did this is a compliment. It's not.

The piece is a statement on the continued bloodshed in the region, which has lost all sense of meaning, hence the TITLE. The truth is that seemingly normal individuals like Hanadi Jaradat are engaging in acts of madness--the result of being completely adrift in the insanity that is the conflict between Israel and Palestine. What part of that DON'T they get?

Sure, the installation doesn't depict Ms. Jaradat as fanatic and wild-eyed. That's the problem. It is no longer the zanies and the yahoos (yes, yahoos exist in the Middle East--hell, they exist everywhere) who engage in acts of terrorism, although those who are criticizing the piece are definitely displaying a bit of their own inner yahoos. I'll bet one reason why the bomber was able to get as far as she did was BECAUSE she seemed otherwise normal. A "suspicious" looking person would be detained, whatever "suspicious" is supposed to mean. Which is why the so-called critics again just don't get it. They instead become victims of their own blindness to the situation, which is that SOMETHING needs to be done for the sake of EVERYONE in Israel/Palestine, and needs to be done soon. Denying the existence of recent history is the equivalent of hiding your head in the sand.

By the way, you can get an Israeli take on this story here in Haaretz.

Regarding Israel and Palestine in General

The wall/fence is not going to cut it in the long term. The equivalent of bantustans, which, in the end, were what the Barak/Clinton peace plan were all about, are insufficient. The only solution that seems viable at present is a complete withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank and Gaza, which will become the state of Palestine--like it or not. The alternative is continued violence which is disasterous for everyone living in the region.

And, in the end, that's what will most likely happen. For one, Jewish Israelis are in danger of becoming a minority in their own country. That alone will cause problems with the idea of a single unified nation. If Jewish people--whether in Israel or not--want to maintain the existing nature of Israel as the JEWISH NATION, then they will have to accomodate a separate nation for Palestinians. Or they will have to exile or kill the Palestinians. Period.

I would like to think that most reasonable people--and, especially, reasonable Jewish people--recognize that option two and three (exile and genocide) are unacceptable. In fact, attempts to exile will certainly result in either large-scale massacre or genocide as well.

Palestinians, for their part, will have to accept a Jewish nation that encompasses most of historical Palestine. Period. Jerusalem, which was divided along the Green Line prior to 1967, will become divided again. They can't have it all. Period. Once the twenty-two percent of historical Palestine is organized into the modern nation, Palestinians will have to aggressively pursue and arrest anyone who attempts to engage in acts of terrorism against the state of Israel--if this requires cooperation with Israeli authorities, then they must do so. Finally, the right of return for Palestinians will have to be renogiated into a means of providing compensation for those individuals and families whose property was confiscated during the 1948 war. In other words, no right to return. Likewise, Israeli citizens living in the ILLEGAL settlements in the Occupied Territories will have to accept compensation and resettlement in Israel proper. End of story.

No one would be real happy with this, but that's why it's called COMPROMISE. The military solution hasn't worked, isn't working, and won't work in the future. At this point, the ONLY possible chance at anything resembling stability in Israel/Palestine will have to be worked out politically.

What's sad is that UN Resolution 242, which essentially sets the groundwork for just this solution, has been on the books since 1967. Thirty-six years have passed since this was unanimously adopted by the UNSC. It's time we began to look into means to carry the resolution out.