Responses so far
Comment 1	HELLO! MY NAME IS NOAZ AND I AM AN ISRAELI. UNFORTUNATLY AT TIMES ISRAELS GOVERMENT USES ANTI-SEMATISM TO HUSH DOWN CRITISIZEM AGAINS HER POLICIES, I THINK THAT IT IS WRONG, PEOPLE CAN EXPRESS THEIR OPINIONS ON THINGS EVEN IF IT'S AGAINST THOSE POLICES, BUT AT LEAST THE JOKE IS ON THEM BY THAT ACT THEY ONLY MAYDE THE PUBLIC INTERESTED IN THAT INSTALATION AND AROSED PUBLIC DEBATE.
Comment 2	This from http://edition.cnn.com/2004/- WORLD/europe/01/27/sweden.israel.ap/ Art protesters e-mail Swedish PM Tuesday, January 27, 2004 Posted: 1257 GMT ( 8:57 PM HKT) STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson's office has been bombarded with thousands of e-mails at the request of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a government official has said. The protest follows a row between Sweden and Israel over a controversial art exhibit that shows a picture of an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber. "This morning we had received 13,603 online protest letters," government registrar Ulla Hildert said in an telephone interview on Tuesday. The flap threatened to overshadow the three-day international conference on preventing genocide in Stockholm, which ends Wednesday. Israel downgraded its representation at the conference after a museum refused to remove the display from an exhibit linked to the conference. Israeli Ambassador Zvi Mazel tried on January 16 to vandalize the installation, saying it glorified suicide bombers. Sweden said his actions were unacceptable. The artwork's Israeli-born artist strongly denied that it glorified suicide bombers or was anti-Semitic. In its appeal, the Simon Wiesenthal Center -- a Los Angeles-based, Jewish human rights group -- said that the exhibition at the Stockholm Museum of Antiquities is a glorification of a "Palestinian homicide bomber" and that Sweden should take a lead to declare suicide bombings a "crime against humanity." The artwork depicts a small ship carrying a picture of Islamic Jihad bomber Hanadi Jaradat sailing in a rectangular pool filled with red-colored water. Jaradat killed herself and 21 bystanders in an October 4 suicide bombing in Haifa, Israel. Titled "Snow White and the Madness of Truth," the piece was meant to call attention to how weak, lonely people can be capable of horrible things, said Israeli-born artist Dror Feiler, its creator. In the letter on its Web site, posted last week, the center said Sweden had championed the exhibit under the rubric of artistic freedom even though, the center claims, it glorifies suicide bombings. "But what is Sweden prepared to do for the real victims of terror? No nation has yet had the courage to officially come forward to declare suicide bombing 'a crime against humanity,"' the center's site said. At the end of the letter, readers are asked to "Click here to send your protest directly to Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson." Israel demanded that the work be withdrawn, but Sweden's Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds said the government did not have the right to censure art in Sweden. "The government can't influence the museum in its actions, but it's the museum itself that decides what will be shown or not," she said. "We have freedom of expression, and our departments and museums are independent." Persson was to attend a Holocaust memorial service at the Stockholm synagogue Tuesday evening.
Comment 3	Fair Enough, The Government should stop being pigs and grow a p*n*s.
Comment 4	Hello everybody! My name's Kevin and I'm from Ireland. As an Irish person I completly agree with the display of this portrait since it signifies the truth about how desperate Palestinians are to rid themselves of that brutal Israeli military occupation in which the Israeli army kills children and terrorises the entire Palestinian population by its collective punishment curfews, assassinations, checkpoints. Just take a look at Israel's apartheid wall which is swallowing 56 percent of the west bank to the Israelis. Who wouldn't want to kill themselves when faced with this threat? Anyway the woman being displayed in the photo happened to be the victim of Israeli 'state organised terrorism' where 3 members of her family were shot dead by the Israeli army in the illegaly occupied west bank, which explains her motive for the attack. The entire palestinian population are under seige by the Israeli army and since the year 2000, when Palestinians were forced into second intifada 4180 Palestinians have been killed in contrast to just 1000 Israeli's. America has boasted that 'the only way Israel will ever get peace with its Palestinian neighbour is if it completly withdraws from occupied Palestinian land to the pre-1967 border'. The fact that this article was on display, it should NOT be fobbed off as 'anti semitism' as it sends a clear signal to Israel from Europe on 'Israel's immoral murderous policy towards Palestinians and that we, Europe are against the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Comment 5	We put up Comment 4 with some trepidation. We have no way of checking the claims and do not want to provide any apologia for suicide bombing. It would probably be better if responses centred around the artwork and the right to attack it physically, though it is understandable that such debate can easily broaden out to the motivation behind the artwork (and the responses to it). Peter

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