Brandeis pulls artwork by Palestinian youths

[midnight armadillo]

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2006/05/03/brandeis_pulls_artwork_by_palestinian_youths?mode=PF

Brandeis pulls artwork by Palestinian youths
School says show was one-sided

By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff | May 3, 2006

A bulldozer menaces a girl with ebony pigtails, who lies in a pool of blood. A boy with an amputated leg balances on a crutch, in a tent city with a Palestinian flag. A dove, dripping blood, perches against blue barbed wire.

Palestinian teenagers painted those images at the request of an Israeli Jewish student at Brandeis University, who said she wanted to use the art to bring the Palestinian viewpoint to campus. But university officials removed the paintings four days into a two-week exhibition in the Brandeis library.

...

The controversy occurs at a sensitive time for the campus, which has angered some students and Jewish groups with the appointment of a prominent Palestinian scholar and with a partnership with Al-Quds University, an Arab institution.

''This is outrageous," Halperin said yesterday. ''This an educational institution that is supposed to promote debate and dialogue. Let's talk about what it is: 12-year-olds from a Palestinian refugee camp. Obviously it's not going to be about flowers and balloons."

{more at link}

[xchrom]

1. must not let the palestinian point of view

out into the public.

oh well -- it's just another day in the land of ''free speech''.

[itzamirakul]

2. Apparently only one side in this debate/conflict is allowed to be heard...

and it most definitely is NOT the Palestinian side.

As far as the rightness or wrongness of either side is concerned in the land-owning business is concerned, I am neutral. I would like to have the opportunity to openly discuss the problems with both sides.

But the side that has the U.S. Government on its side, adamently refuses to allow the other side to present its argument ANYWHERE (press, tv, art, stage, etc.) and that to me means that the non-Palestinian side is really the weakest side in its argument of "rightness." IOW, they know they are wrong.

[Poll_Blind]

3. 2 recent examples: Free Speech is alive, if you support the RIGHT side...

Penn State President Blocks Art Censorship
The president of Pennsylvania State University has overturned a decision by its School of Visual Arts to call off a student art exhibit that criticizes Palestinian terrorist groups.

The director of the school, Charles Garoian, called off the show days before it was to have started, saying that it did not promote diversity and that it might violate Penn State’s regulations against harassment and discrimination. After several days of campus debate, during which Hillel reported receiving anti-Semitic phone calls, President Graham Spanier told the Faculty Senate this week that the exhibit would take place.

In an e-mail interview, Spanier said: “Penn State does not and will not censor artwork. I wanted to make this perfectly clear to everyone. Crossing that line would compromise so many of the fundamental values of academe.”

Democratic Underground thread for above article here.

Play About Demonstrator's Death Is Delayed
By JESSE McKINLEY

A potential Off Broadway production of "My Name Is Rachel Corrie," an acclaimed solo show about an American demonstrator killed by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to stop the destruction of a Palestinian home, has been postponed because of concerns about the show's political content.

The production, a hit at the Royal Court Theater in London last year, had been tentatively scheduled to start performances at the New York Theater Workshop in the East Village on March 22. But yesterday, James C. Nicola, the artistic director of the workshop, said he had decided to postpone the show after polling local Jewish religious and community leaders as to their feelings about the work.

"The uniform answer we got was that the fantasy that we could present the work of this writer simply as a work of art without appearing to take a position was just that, a fantasy," he said.

In particular, the recent electoral upset by Hamas, the militant Palestinian group, and the sickness of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, had made "this community very defensive and very edgy," Mr. Nicola said, "and that seemed reasonable to me."

The play, which received strong reviews in London, follows the story of Rachel Corrie, an idealistic American demonstrator and Palestinian-rights activist who was crushed to death in March 2003 in the Gaza Strip.

Democratic Underground thread for above article here.

Lots of Free Speech to go around, folks. Just make sure it's the right kind of Free Speech or you might find the repercussions very expensive.

PB