The Left’s reaction to Ambassador Mazel’s unplugging of the ode to genocide has been as predictable as it is trite. I’ve been arguing since the incident that the argument about artistic freedom, and the accompanying hysterics about slippery slopes and totalitarianism, assumes that everyone has equal access (and thus freedom) to create such horrific displays. But there is no artwork by Jews glorifying the deaths of Palestinian children in Swedish art galleries (or in Israeli art galleries for that matter – even there the art is anti-Israel), and if someone tried to hang one up they would be driven away with pitchforks. The argument for artistic freedom in this case is nothing more than a fetishistic insistence on process rather than actual implications.
The practical result of this fetish is that it legitimizes an ugly racism, made uglier by the viel of compassion that masks it. Ammon Rubenstien has an article that explores exactly this darker of the Left’s pretenses that everything is equal:
Not only in Israel are Muslims committing suicide to murder civilians. Murder through suicide terrorism is now prevalent in Russia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Indonesia and other countries. But the only installations about this subject, the only demonstrations held in the streets of Europe and protests at Berkeley and on other American college campuses – are directed against Israel.
A Greek gallery in Athens exhibited a work of art in the shape of an explosives belt made of macrame, of a Palestinian female terrorist wishing to kill Israelis. Only against Israel are these sorts of masterpieces exhibited – never against other countries, never out of an understanding for suicide bombers who murder civilians that are not Israelis. There is no macrame for Chechnyans. There is no installation in Sweden that understands the suicide bombers in Riyadh. If this is not racism, it is unclear what is.
UPDATE: Ellen Horowitz aptly captures my sentiment, and, if the polls are to be believed, the sentiments of most Jews:
Pride. Yes, that’s the word I’ve been searching for. It’s been a while since any diplomatic move on the part of Israel has done me proud. What Zvi Mazel, Israel’s ambassador to Sweden, did last Friday is a testimony to the tenacity of the Jewish spirit.
