Times of Israel Adds Information on Controversial Poster

In response to communication from CAMERA’s Israel office, Times of Israel editors have added additional information to an article about an Israeli police investigation into a controversial poster on grounds of possible incitement (“Art or incitement? Police open investigation into Netanyahu ‘rope’ poster on a controversial artwork“). The article about the artwork, a creation by a student at the prestigious Betzalel art college featuring an image of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alongside a noose and the word “rope,” had stated:

It later emerged that the single Netanyahu image he posted was part of a larger work, featuring multiple images of Netanyahu and the noose surrounding a single image of assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, with “this is called incitement” written on a piece of paper next to the posters.

There are conflicting accounts, however, as to whether the original artwork included the “this is called incitement” note and the Rabin poster. According to Hebrew language news website NRG, these elements were added by a different student in Betzalel.
 
According to NRG, the second student claimed that he “ripped off one of the posters, turned it over and in a black felt tip I wrote ‘this is incitement.’ A friend of mine added in the center a poster of Rabin before he was killed.”
 
If the poster’s artist incorporated the statement about incitement, along with the Rabin poster, into his or her piece, then viewers would reasonably understand the work to be a critique of incitement. Indeed, that’s exactly what one Haaretz commentator did before correcting to reflect the NRG account that a second student added those elements.
 
Following communication from CAMERA, Times of Israel editors commendably added the following:

Some reports said 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.

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