A New York public facility hosts a fundraiser for an art exhibit that vilifies Israelis and extols suicide bombers.

This Saturday (Nov. 20), a fundraiser will be held at the Westchester County Center in White Plains, New York, raising money to bring a Palestinian art exhibit to the New York metro area. Here's one of the paintings from the proposed exhibit (previously shown in Houston, TX), portraying Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon collecting and boiling a young Palestinian's blood:

The painting rehashes the historic anti-Semitic blood libel, with Sharon as sadistic torturer and the United States his accomplice.

Suicide bombers are also praised in the 'art' exhibit -- the official introduction explains that

[t]o several of the artists, the subject of the martyrs is an all-important topic. A true martyr is anyone who gives his life in service of his people, including...suicide bombers that attack Israeli civilians.

One of the works (pictured at right) 'pay[s] homage to the first 13 martyrs in the current uprising.'

Though two state legislators and local Jewish groups urged Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano to cancel the fundraiser -- which will be held in a public building -- Spano has decided to allow Saturday's event to take place.

In the (NY) Journal-News, the protesting legislators clarify that

this isn't about free speech - it's about whether to allow [the fundraiser] on county property. Spano has banned gun shows from the County Center because he opposes such a use of the space, they argue, and he should exert the same discretion here.

Comments to Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano: click here (Please remember that polite criticism is far more effective.)

...I can think of no greater insult to a nation, race, or creed than to purport to represent the soul of its culture through the words and images of its most sociopathic element. Let's see Palestinian art that tells ugly truths, that challenges comfortable assumptions, by all means. But -- does this really have to be said? -- let's please not make apologies for the murdering fascistic militants who are just as poisonous to the future of a free Palestine as they are to the future of Israel...