France’s Arab World Institute takes down photo of a Netanyahu protesters with bloody hands

Following protests, a French government institute devoted to promoting Arab culture has removed from its website a picture of protesters dressed as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holding up bloody hands.

The picture, showing protesters wearing Netanyahu masks at a rally while holding up their red painted palms, was featured this month on the Arab World Institute’s website. It advertised a January 3 debate in Paris titled: “Stranglehold on Israel. Netanyahu or the end of the Zionist dream.”

Alize Bin Noun, Israel’s ambassador to France, had condemned the image and the text.

“Scandalous and intolerable how a public institute disseminates such defamatory visuals, assisting the vilification of Israel to advertise a so-called ‘debate,’ which is biased to begin with,” she wrote on Twitter. The institute, she added, “has crossed the border of objective criticism and is making itself guilty of incitement.”

— JTA

Intolérable et scandaleux qu’un institut public diffuse de tels visuels diffamatoires et attisant la détestation d’#Israël pour présenter un soi-disant “débat” déjà à charge. L’@imarabe a franchi la limite de la critique objective et se rend coupable d’incitation à la haine pic.twitter.com/QyRodUFxyf

— Aliza Bin Noun (@AlizaBinNoun) December 28, 2018