Ofir Akunis, Israel’s minister of science, technology and space, has banned a show by students at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design during an international science conference in Jerusalem.
Source: Twitter
After some students showed their solidarity with Palestinian protesters on the Gaza border, the minister banned their artwork from being displayed at the exhibition, Haaretz reports.
More than 60 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces after tens of thousands of protesters gathered near the border. Students of the Jerusalem academy placed posters with the names of the killed protesters near a map of the Gaza Strip with the caption “I’m not your toy”, a reference to the song by this year’s Eurovision winner, Israeli Netta Barzilai.
“I am always in favor of freedom of speech, but I won’t enable freedom of humiliation,” Artforum quotes Akunis as saying. “Even Hamas has announced that those killed on the Gaza border are its members, meaning terrorists.” Jerusalem’s mayor Nir Barkat also expressed his discontent over the exhibition. He wrote on Twitter that he was “shocked to see the names of terrorists who assaulted the Gaza–Israel border with the goal of killing Jews displayed on the walls of the Bezalel Academy”.
In response, the Bezalel Academy released a statement, saying that the school is “a protected space for freedom of expression in Israel that permits students free, critical and creative discourse on the range of subjects occupying them”. Several hours after exhibition opened, other students organised an alternative show, featuring the names of Jews killed in terrorist attacks.
The three-day science conference starts in a week and a half. Science ministers from difference countries are expected to attend the event. The conference will feature an exhibition of artworks by design students from universities across Israel, but the Bezalel Academy won’t be represented at the event.
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