ADL ‘extremely disturbed’ by art student’s Netanyahu poster

The Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday joined a chorus of condemnation aimed at a student work hung briefly at Jerusalem’s prestigious Bezalel Academy of Art that showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next to a hangman’s rope.

The work — stuck onto a stairwell wall with tape, publicized in a Facebook post on Monday, and removed after a few hours following public uproar — comprised multiple images of Netanyahu and a noose with the slogan “ROPE,” surrounding a single poster of assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. Some reports said the Rabin poster and a piece of paper at the side bearing the text “This is called incitement” were not in the original display, and were added later by other students.

World ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt and Carol Nuriel, head of the organization in Israel, said in a statement that the group was “extremely disturbed” by the poster, which they alleged crossed an important boundary of a civil public discourse.

“Israeli society is strong precisely due to its robust tradition of democracy, which must continue to steadfastly protect freedom of expression and the freedom of art,” the statement also said, without making reference to the fact that the 18-year-old first-year student who put up the piece was questioned under caution by police on Tuesday.

The work has been slammed by lawmakers from across the political spectrum, with President Reuven Rivlin calling it “a clear crossing of lines” and “incitement against the prime minister,” and Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev urging the defunding of Bezalel.

The poster of Netanyahu was a play on a 2008 presidential campaign poster of Barack Obama, which carried the slogan “HOPE” at the bottom.

Next to it was a piece of paper bearing the legend, “This is called incitement.”

The image of Rabin was a photo of a poster wielded during a rowdy right-wing demonstration that took place in Jerusalem in 1995, days before he was assassinated by a far-right extremist.

Netanyahu famously addressed that demonstration from a balcony and accusations and counter-accusations over his alleged failure to call inciters to order have continued to circulate ever since.

Rami Othman, an attorney who represents the student, stated that “the entire ordeal had been taken out of context.

“This is an 18-year-old student who completed a first-year project about how to use Photoshop,” Othman told Hebrew media. “There is nothing in this assignment that includes incitement. The media is blowing this out of proportion.

“The rope is not hanging around the neck of the prime minister; it’s simply a statement that there is no hope coming from this government and that the nation wants hope.”

The student, an Israeli Arab, received support from surprising quarters on Tuesday evening, as the far-right Jewish Home MK Bezalel Smotrich criticized the police probe, saying that the investigation was pointless and undemocratic.

“Tell me, is this for real? They arrested the Bezalel student who has bad taste? On what grounds, exactly? An investigation is one thing (although useless too), but detention? Democracy!? @IL_police, you’ve lost it!” he tweeted, tagging the Israel Police’s Twitter handle.