United Nations Peace Flags exhibit takes down ‘Free Palestine’ quilt
Israeli ambassador charges UN with hypocrisy over "From the river to the sea" panel
Jenni Frazer is a freelance journalist
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations has welcomed the removal of an exhibit at the UN headquarters which showed a panel with the slogan “From the River to the sea, Palestine will be free”. But, charging the UN with “hypocrisy” and “antisemitism”, Danny Danon said the panel should never have been there in the first place.
Vincenzo Pugliese, acting chief of the UN’s visitors’ services, explained that the Peace Flags exhibit “was compiled by a fashion designer, who asked students and other community groups in several countries to draw messages of peace on fabric scraps as a way to repurpose fashion waste for positive impact. The pieces of fabric were woven together into quilts, each with 36-48 square pieces, with these messages (‘peace flags’), meant to represent a variety of views and perspectives that symbolise peace”.
Pugliese told Jewish News that “at the time of installation, staff of the Exhibits Unit said that the quilt with the panel in question could not be on display or that it would need to be fully covered. The organiser proceeded to fully cover it, along with several others, and they were on display as white panels for three weeks”.
But he admitted that “late last week, Exhibits Unit staff noted that someone had removed the tape and uncovered the panels. They proceeded to re-cover them immediately. The panels were uncovered again over the next two days, and the Exhibits staff repeatedly re-covered them”.
He said that an internal investigation as to who was removing the covers was taking place — and that in the meantime, the entire quilt containing the disputed panel had been removed “to avoid a repeat of the unauthorised uncovering of that panel”. Pugliese added that “the quilt with the panel in question has been replaced with alternative quilts that the organiser of the exhibit has provided”.
An angry Ambassador Danon had complained to the UN about the exhibit, calling the display a “disgrace” and “shameful” and demanding that the UN remove it.
In a video post on social media, Danon said: “Look at the drawings of children from all around the world. Nothing about Israel. Nothing about our hostages. Look what they have. They don’t recognise Israel. They promote hate in those drawings. That is shameful. This is part of the hypocrisy of the United Nations. I demand that the UN will remove this exhibit immediately and will stop the hypocrisy against Israel.”
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