Wednesday, May 3, 2006
Apparently, Brandeis allowed an exhibit of art produced by children in Palestinian Arab refugee camps to be shown in their library. However, following loud protests from "zionist parents," the "art" show was brought to an early conclusion.
This has the local Muslim activist community abuzz, and calls have gone out, including through the Islamic Society of Boston, to protest Brandeis' decision tomorrow.
See here for an explanation, as well as pictures of the art and bios of the young artists.
It seems that the original mistake was in allowing a clearly propagandistic art show put on by "anti-Zionists" to appear in the first place. Someone made a mistake there. But once it was in place, it may have been better to leave it, let people see how these kids are used, how they're kept in camps by their Arab "brothers" and taught to have as their lives' aspirations the "liberation of Palestine" (what Palestine? Liberate from what? From whom?), and dream of returning to villages that in most cases don't exist, and that they never lived in, and in most cases their parents never lived in, and that they never will live in. These are not the responses (read the profiles), and this is not the art of children set out with pen and paper to create and express for themselves.