Death threats to student for artwork featuring Netanyahu in a noose

Death threats have been made against an art student who caused an uproar after she displayed a controversial montage featuring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu image with a hangman’s noose, television news reported.

The student, who has not been named in the media, and her attorney, Rami Othman, received a threat against their lives written in letters cut from newspaper pages, Channel 10 said Tuesday. It is not known who wrote the letter and the report did not specify what threats were made.

Police have opened an investigation into the matter.

The original artwork was the work of a first-year art student at Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, which she reportedly put up for a few hours in a school stairwell on her own initiative in December 2016. It featured multiple images of Netanyahu and the noose surrounding a single image of assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, with the words “This is called incitement” written on a piece of paper next to the posters.

The Netanyahu image echoed a 2008 presidential campaign poster of Barack Obama, except that the Obama poster was emblazoned with the word “Hope” while the Netanyahu image has the word “Rope” beneath it.

Police questioned the student under caution at the time although the file was eventually closed.

On Sunday Channel 10 reported that the head of the department in which the student is studying, who was furious about the police investigation, has put the poster on display at an exhibit in northern Ireland that also includes pro-Palestinian works.

The controversy over the artwork started after Likud official Eli Hazan, who is director of communications and international relations for Netanyahu’s Likud party, posted a photo showing part of the montage on his Facebook page.

After Hazan posted the image, numerous politicians echoed his claim of incitement, with Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev calling on Education Minister Naftali Bennett distinguish between art and “incitement” and to cut Bezalel’s funding.

President Reuven Rivlin wrote on Facebook at the time that the poster “was a clear crossing of lines” and “incitement against the prime minister,” adding that “we learned the hard way that there is no place for language like this” and that artists must exercise responsibility with their works.