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09.09.11 - 11:27 AM
The Children Lose, Again
A California museum has cancelled an exhibit of art by Palestinian kids in Gaza, reportedly after pressure from pro-Israel groups in the Bay Area. The Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland had been working for months with the Middle East Children’s Alliance on the project, “A Child’s View of Gaza,” set to open in two weeks. Does it really need to be said: Kids shouldn't have to pay for the appalling cruelty and stupidity of adults. Look at this art.
“The only winners here are those who spend millions of dollars censoring any criticism of Israel and silencing the voices of children who live every day under military siege and occupation.” - Barbara Lubin of MECA.
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165 Comments so far
Show AllThank you for this one, Abby.
GW Bush: "We're winning hearts and minds!" (And losing ours, Mr. President.)
I second that sentiment. Nice grab.
I would be interested to know what you think it is.
My son drew pictures, like those depicted, when he was a child watching the atrocities being perpetrated by the USA on the people of Vietnam. It's too bad that he, as a 6 year old, didn't realize the "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" of it, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered to depict the atrocities with art what he couldn't articulate in words because of his age.
So much for Israel's "democratic" values. And for sure it was money that talked in this case. US Jews are using their money to cover for Israel and block free speech. Nice! The US government may turn a blind eye to every Israeli crime, but the proof eventually seeps into our communities. The Middle East is now exploding, with Turkey and Egypt finally taking the step the US should have taken decades ago and expelling Israel's ambassadors/spies. The charade of the "peace talks" is exposed, and the brutality of the Israeli military occupation is becoming common knowledge. US Jews can spend all the money they want to try and hide Israel's crimes and make it look like a decent, democratic country--but you can't put lipstick on a pig.
If American Jewish people are at all concerned about anti Semitism they should do all they can to stop the Israeli vicious treatment of the Palestinians.
They would first have to recognize that Palestinians exist; then they would have to recognize that they are people with rights. Fat chance of either!
The more pro-Israeli government (anti-Israeli people) groups protest, the more they look like they're trying to hide the truth. So kudos to the museum and MECA. Try to put the show on again and again and keep the pro-israeli groups protesting.
I would also suggest they have the showing online on a website. They'll reach a much larger audience, and if the groups try to bring down the site, they can be brought up on criminal charges.
I think you misread the article. The museum (MOCHA) buckled under to the pressure and cancelled the exhibit.
Check out the Middle Easts Children's Alliance letter in the Common Dreams Progressive Newswire section.
No I get it. I guess my hope is that even in buckling under, someone there recognizes the publicity potential for buckling. AND I hope someone there gets the idea to hold the show online instead, to sidestep opposing forces so to speak.
So Zionistas are even afraid of Gaza children's art.
WOW, what you write is profound, thank you.
Incredibly good post! It is absolutely heart breaking to think that such images are etched in the minds of these children - if it doesn't put a lump in your throat you aren't paying attention.
I hope that this show can be put on all across this nation!
Oh my God. This artwork from these young souls says it ALL. And that's the trouble, isn't it? SHAME on that museum for cancelling this show!!! I'm sick and tired of this country being afraid of Israel! Probably because the US is right next to Israel in it's slaughter of the Palestineans. See that bomb that child drew of the Star of David and the stripes of the US flag? Children KNOW the truth.
Maybe they could move the exhibit to a bay area synagogue...
Isn't this Barbara Lee territory? Tony
These days she seems to be little more than Nancy's sidekick.
What is so chilling is the dismembered body parts and blood spatters. These don't arise form a child's imagination, but reflect thing the child actually saw, and will be affected by, for the rest of their lives.
And it is good that that they make sure they identify the perpetrators of all this dismembering and blood-spattering through their national flags and colors or they would descend into nihilism and insanity. I love the star-spangled missile with Israeli flag stabilizer-fins - the US provides the power and the zionists the guidance - such political sophistication for a child!
Since S&P downgraded us then upgrades Israel, we can stop giving them aid.
Standard & Poor's raises Israel's credit rating, citing budget policy
http://english.themarker.com/standard-poor-s-raises-israel-s-credit-rating-citing-budget-policy-1.383543
Palestineans are semetic. The Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland seems like a good place to picket for being anti-semetic.
Well, I don't mean to irritate anybody by getting all Chris Hedges over this.
But this is another example of how theoretically liberal institutions and ostensible bastions of civil rights, i.e. institutions implicitly founded upon and supportive of civil liberties and freedoms-- esthetic freedom, freedom of expression-- have become as, or more, cowed, feckless, and conformist than ever.
Post 9/11 Amerika is the McCarthy era on steroids.
In recent years, diverse cultural institutions including museums, universities, art galleries, and theaters have abjectly surrendered to the slightest pressure from reactionary censors.
And anything remotely pro-Palestinian or anti-Zionist rogue-state Israel is prime material for the censorious chopping block.
It's sad, pathetic, and outrageous.
the only people who could be irritated by this comment are people you should be proud to irritate, OS. It *is* sad, pathetic, and outrageous.
Appalling. It's that inverted totalitarianism thing. Cowardly self-censorship. No need for jackboots.
Truly, the pictures worth thousands of words. No wonder the Empire doesn't want anyone to peek behind this veil. LETS PETITION TO HAVE IT SHOWN ELSEWHERE.
Just got this the other day.
Start a petition here:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=263094&id=30532-6757890-eUw8Vox&t=1
A good friend spent time in Gaza and collected images of artwork from children who witnessed The Gaza Massacre (or "Operation Cast Lead" as the Israelis would say) firsthand, just as with this exhibit. Please share as you see fit as an antidote to gross, malicious Israeli censorship.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paJQyh_QfQs
If there was one action to perfectly represent Israeli actions with respect to Gaza, it would be that of an IDF soldier popping balloons of a Palestinian children at a birthday celebration with the bayonet portion of his rifle. Actions like these are almost comically evil, but so sad as they are so very real.
I am really glad you brought up that incident about "popping children's balloons" in the Gaza strip. It almost sounds like the lyrics of a popular protest song. Maybe someone with musical inclinations should go ahead and write a song about it, or at least a poem. I can already hear the chorus in my head..."popping children's balloons, popping children's balloons, here we go again, popping children's balloons....in Gaza".
This is just one of the many examples of how even the "small stuff" really hurts. Naturally, the "big stuff", such as frying Palestinian children with white phosphorus, blowing them to pieces with cluster bomblets, or shattering them with DIME weapons should get most of our attention but, somehow, the "tiny evils", those gratuitous acts of cruelty against mere children, really stick in my craw.
I remember reading about that incident, I think a bit more than a year ago, and at first I simply could not believe my eyes; I had to reread the passage several times over again before it would sink in. It was like, "Someone actually went around deliberately POPPING children's balloons... what the FYCK!!!, and then I had to go and pinch myself a couple of times just to make sure I wasn't having a bad dream!!!
Naturally, if the Israeli authorities truly thought that the Palestinian celebration constituted an "unlawful assembly", they could have easily dispersed the gathering by any number of means, using loud speakers, mounted cops, tear gas, water cannons, or what have you. But to single out the children, and to actually POP THEIR BALLOONS, well, that really takes the cake, er...um... matzah!!!
Thank you, Peace Czar, for bringing that up again; most people seem to have already forgotten that "little" incident.
I, also, thought of "popping childrens' balloons" as it reminded me of the scene in the classic Hitchcock film Strangers On a Train when the unbalanced murderer, played by Robert Walker, pops the balloon of the child walking in the arcade with his cigarette. Likewise, the Israelis, in their psychopath way, apparently cannot help themselves when they pop the dreams of the Palestinians who hope not only for a better life in Gaza, the West Bank and the Occupied Territories but also cling to the hope that they can also reclaim the land that was stolen from them by the Jews those many years ago.
"This is just one of the many examples of how even the "small stuff" really hurts."
__________________
At the risk of belaboring the point: I consider a general and pervasive propensity of government officials, especially military and law enforcement authorities, to intentionally inflict gratuitous "small", i.e. petty, insults, indignities, injuries, and outrages upon unprivileged, vulnerable person to be a hallmark of a repressive, totalitarian police state.
It is by now a sad and painful cliché that the Zionist state and government of Israel has internalized and incorporated all of the ugly and despicable routine abuse perpetrated upon its founders and the European refugees who populated the nascent state in the late 1940s.
They became what they beheld, and have pathologically sought to purge their collective memories of victimhood by themselves cruelly oppressing their own victims. It's a gruesome "textbook" demonstration of the cycle of violence.
One would exceed the comments word limit a hundred times over listing examples of nasty incidental brutality inflicted by Israel's military and police-- from the daily hassles and bullying at checkpoints, to the deadly assault of accidently-on-purpose firing tear gas grenades point-blank at the heads of peaceful protestors.
I'll leave it with an example that deserves dishonorable mention: when the "Mavi Marmara" was violently assaulted by IDF stormtrooper buccaneers, in addition to wantonly executing several passengers the buccaneers also looted and flat-out stole the luggage and personal possessions-- electronic equipment, credit cards, etc.-- of the peace activists.
If the summary massacre, the "big stuff", is the equivalent of the Israeli hobnailed boot stomping into the face of its victims, the theft of the passengers' possessions is the equivalent of grinding that boot with lingering sadistic relish.
As you and others have commented, you become what you fear, if you are not intent on living with integrity. The "petty" thievery can be compared to the mountains of hair, eyeglasses, and watches that the camera pans over in the films of the Nazi concentration camp liberations.
FWIW, netminnow, those images came to mind while I was writing the comment.
I wondered if any discerning readers would make the connection. Thanks.
A Yiddish proverb "choose your enemies well for you will become just like them" agrees with you.
The Zionists would scream, howl, and threaten law suits if the atrocities of the concentration camps were banned from being shown on TV.As for the so called "small" indignities that the governments dole out to the USAn's, they are obedience training meant to strip society of dignity by demonstrating that a person cannot defend their self and/or their families from the atrocities and abuses by the "law" enforcement thugs.Doing this in public is meant to demonstrate this.
Funny that Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland website encourages diversity throughout it's pages. Well, maybe the Children's work can highlight or illustrate Helen Thomas' next book, seeing how both have fallen victim to the powers that be.
If this exhibit is allowed, it stands to reason, that many exhibits by children from around the world, who have suffered at the hands of kindly uncle sam and the rest of his western kin, should be shown as well. Hell, they should set up a gallery in Washington, adjoining the holocaust museum, and show artwork by children who have, and or, are being tortured by our Western Freedom Fighters for Democracy.
Censorship of children's art is an abomination.
True enough, schach!
Why should mere children have a right to be heard by America and Israel. They are not chosen. They need to die and shut up. That's apparently what we're suppose to think. There is no excuse and those that make them have officially lost their humanity.
The name of the museum should be changed to the "museum of censored art in Oakland". This would be a good candidate for the BDS movement. All Americans should be reminded, on a daily basis, that building settlements in occupied territories is a gross violation of international law. Please tell your elected representatives to give up the "wink and a nod diplomacy" and start abiding by the international laws.
What else can we expect from the robots who support the oppression of the Palestinian people?
Anf then a little boy yelled out "but the emperor has no clothes on", and the crowd beat up the little boy and threw him into the river.
We had a similar exhibition in the UK of paintings by the children of Gaza of their terrible and frightening experiences during Israel's Cast Lead attack.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdHEmDrkhaM
If I personally can still remember the bombing of London way back in the 1940s, after all these years it is apparent that the scenes that these poor children lived are never going to go away. These horrific memories will be Israel's legacy to a whole generation of youngsters that will forever darken their lives.
That's the saddest part of this story.
Am I the only one who sees that:
1) Israel is attempting the most difficult experiment in integration since S. Africa. 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab. The Knesset has Arab/Muslim members. Israel has successfully run a democratic parliment for over 60 yrs.
2) Yes, there is hatred against Arabs in Israel
3) There is MORE hatred against Israelis in the surround HUGE Arab-Muslim countries.
4) Since 1948 the Arabs have continually attacked and attempted to destroy Israel.
5) Each time Israel gained land in the process of defending itself, it later returned most of that land. Look at the Sinai and Gaza.
6) Hamas' stated goal, in their charter is "total annihilation of Israel".
7) Israel's neighbors (Gaza, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, S.A.) still practice some of the most despicable forms of oppression against women, Christians and even children.
8) Israel walked out of Gaza in 2005, dismantled homes of 8000 Israeli citizens, and left Gaza for the Gazans. And has industry, farming and tourism flourished there? No, Hamas has been Obsessed with Fighting. Some of the most important factories started in Gaza and Judea since then have been largely funded by Jewish money.
9) The Arab neighbors want Gaza to suffer, because it fuels the war against Israel. The rich Arab neighbors are NOT helping their brothers in Gaza and W. Bank.
10) Even now, after a rain of rockets and mortars from Gaza into Israel, Israel bites lip and honors contracts to supply fuel and electricity and supplies to Gaza.
11) Gaza has 2 borders. Hello! 1 with Israel (whom they are rocketing) and 1 with Egypt. Egypt has also washed their hands of the troublesome belligerant Hamas (their brothers) and you nobody is criticizing Egypt for not helping those in Gaza.
12) I could go on, but you (hopefully) get the idea.
3) Israel is at
Am I the only one who sees that:
1) Israel attempting to control half the middle east with their political bs, they're the one's with the nukes.
2)That's obvious.
3)That's because they don't play fair,
4)As they try to take more land that isn't theirs.
5)How do you gain land in the process of defense, that statement is offensive.
6)I believe that one got changed a few years back, and I believe it was the government that was referred to.
7)Got nothing to do with Gaza.
8)And then bombed the crap out of them.
9)Sorry, they can't help, they can't send any supplies in.
10)A rain? Gimme a pucking break, you mean, not very many and no power comparatively. They're firecrackers compared to 500 lb bombs!
11)Gaza has 3 borders, hello!!? What about the Mediterranean? They can't leave by that route either, It's a prison for men , women and children. My now , guilty children without being convicted.
12)I could go on also about AIPAC, they seem to control half the US congress, and are able to funnel massive amounts of our tax money that could be used for our own infrastructure instead of buying bombs for the fascist Israeli forces. I'm sorry but the Israeli govt. seems entirely 'nose in the air' pissy, all the time. NeytenYayhoo trying to boss O'bummer around. He doesn't know what the letters F O mean, obviously.
Lots of points. Let's take them one at at time. Point counterpoint. Gaza for starters. Gaza was ruled by Egypt from 1949 to 1967, same everything almost: language, culture, religion, even cross border relatives. Egypt is huge, twice as big as California in area and population. Israel is tiny, Gaza is even tinier. In 2005 Israel abandons Gaza and immediately a rain of rockets. Thousands over 6 years. Yes, their small, but so what, many people have been killed. In April an Israeli school bus was rocketed and boy killed. Did it may NY Times or NPR? No. Why? No Palestinian was killed. Read jpost or Haaretz. Israel is turmoil about this. Those within missle range are pissed. They can't sell their homes. Imagine if 1 missle hit San Diego from Mex. Imagine 5. The US GOVT would take immediate action. In S. Israel it's been thousands. And Sredot and surrounding areas are held ransom. They can never leave because they've invested a lot in their homes and now the real estate value there is zero. How can you so lightly brush off such a continued insidious horrible aggression. Israel bit by bit (like with a child) first scolded, then warned, then sanctioned then appealed to the world. From 2005 to 2008. The world didn't care. Then in 2008 they said "stop or we attack rocket launchers" (in schools and residential areas) . . .
You've bought the fairy tale version.
I guess that's why Rachel Corrie was run over and Dogan Furkan and others were executed on an unarmed aid boat. Was it because they hurled rocks or rockets, maybe perhaps because they had the chutzpah to "scold" Israel.
Israel could say that Dogan Furkan was the one driving the Cat that ran over Rachel Corrie and the people over here would nod and amen in agreement.
While the Israeli propaganda machine is very suspect, the truth of the rockets is undeniable. My wife's uncle lives there, just between Sderot and Erez and he says its worse than reported. They built steel structures over public ways and schools and nobody can sell and leave. price53 is right, property value is zero, they are hostages and what can they do?