Poster of naked Netanyahu prompts call to shutter art school

Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Art and Design came under renewed fire Wednesday after a poster appeared in the venerated art school’s halls showing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a rope around his genitals.

The unsigned work appeared to be a response to the controversy over an earlier piece displayed Monday on a school stairway wall showing Netanyahu with a hangman’s noose, which Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit ordered police to investigate over incitement suspicions.

The youth section of Netanyahu’s Likud Party called on Wednesday for the school to be closed down until incitement against the prime minister could be properly investigated, Channel 2 news reported.

The new poster depicted a naked Netanyahu with a golden crown on his head and a rope around his genitals, with the handwritten message “Is this good, Attorney General?”

It was taken down soon after being put up.

That work followed an exhibit featuring Netanyahu and a noose on an academy stairwell wall earlier this week by a female student.

איור מחאתי שנתלה באופן פיראטי על ידי סטודנטים מבצלאל על קירות שונים במכללה בו זמנית והוסר כעבור כמה דקות על ידי הנהלת המוסד @omrimaniv pic.twitter.com/YjNSn4Lw2j

— חדשות 13 (@newsisrael13) December 14, 2016

In her work, several copies of images of Netanyahu were positioned around a single image of a notorious poster depicting Rabin with the slogan “Traitor.”

The images mimicked a famous poster of US President Barack Obama, but replaced the word “Hope” with “Rope.”

According to some accounts, 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.

David Shayan, chairman of the Likud Youth Movement, accused the art school of harboring “vile” elements.

“An academic institution that gives backing to low and aberrant incitement like this has no right to exist,” he said, according to the Channel 2 report.

The student behind the first poster, a 20-year-old first year art student of reported Israeli-Arab origin whose name has not been published, was questioned by police Tuesday and again Wednesday after Mandelblit ordered an investigation into possible incitement.

Charges are not expected to be leveled against the student.

Bezalel said the new display was in direct response to the investigation into the student, Channel 2 reported.

“The caricature in question is, as far as we know, the work of a student, which was produced as a protest against the police inquiry of the Bezalel student yesterday,” the school said. “The caricature, which was removed from the academy’s walls at our request, reflects the fury of students over the threat to freedom of speech and creation in general, and within the space of the arts academy in particular,” the statement added.

Dozens of students at the school also protested by standing with tape over their mouths.

On Thursday, students and staff are set to hold a two-hour strike in protest at “harm to freedom of expression,” and will spend the two hours dicussing issues relating to art and freedom of speech, the Walla website reported.

In an English-language statement, Bezalel noted: “Students at Bezalel, (like) artists around the world, feel very passionately about their work. The events at our academy over the past few days have touched on the passion of many of our students. The peaceful bipartisan demonstration that our students held today was against the potential threat to their freedom of speech. As an institute of higher education, we have a responsibility to not only teach our students to maintain their right to self-expression, but to also balance that with responsibility towards the power of their work. Striking that balance is always tricky, but something that students, their teachers, and our institution must continue to strive for.”

In July, the head of the Multidisciplinary Art School at the Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art resigned his post over the censoring of a nude picture that appeared to depict Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked.

The Bezalel incidents come amid a roiling debate in Israeli society over the limits of free speech, which officials vowing to crack down on incitement to violence online or elsewhere.

Rabin’s 1995 assassination has been partly blamed on incitement against him in the atmosphere at the time, including posters of the then-prime minister in a Nazi uniform.

Netanyahu was accused at the time of tacitly supporting the inciting speech.

Earlier this month, there was uproar after an artist placed a golden image of Netanyahu on a pedestal in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square without permission.

He said his act was “to test the boundaries of free speech.”