Israeli Says Artwork Is ‘Call to Kill’
Israel’s envoy to Sweden said Saturday he had no regrets after vandalizing a display at a Stockholm museum depicting a Palestinian suicide bomber, even as the artist insisted his work called for conciliation.
Ambassador Zvi Mazel, who attended Friday’s opening of an art exhibit tied to an anti-genocide conference, said the work was a “call to kill.”
Video footage showed Mazel disconnecting electrical cables to spotlights that surrounded the work -- a boat floating in a basin of red fluid carrying a portrait of Hanadi Jaradat, who killed herself and 19 people in Haifa, Israel, in October. Mazel then shoved a spotlight into the basin.
“This is not a work of art, this was presenting hate against the people of Israel,” Mazel said.
The artist, Dror Feiler, is an expatriate Israeli active in Jews for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, a Stockholm group opposed to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Feiler said the work did not glorify suicide bombers.
“We explain quite clearly that [Jaradat] was killing innocent people,” he said. “I’m absolutely opposed to suicide bombers.”
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
