One of the pictures on show (Image: -)
A Labour-run council is selling a “grotesque” artwork show which critics say makes use of antisemitic photos within the guise of supporting the Palestinians. Campaigners insisted Thanet District Council should apologise after selling the exhibition by artist Matthew Collings, which options photos of Israelis as demons with blood spewing out of their mouths, and exhibits a pro-Israel “lobby” hypnotising the world The exhibition is labelled “Drawings Against Genocide” and Thanet District Council is selling the present, at Joseph Wales Studio in Margate, on the Visit Thanet web site, which is run by the authority’s tourism and tradition crew.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism mentioned: “These images are grotesque. This isn’t art but incitement, drawing on classic tropes. “Modern art is often as much, if not more, about the inner feelings of the artist than about the subject, and here the artist’s inner feelings about Jews and the Jewish state are all too clear.”
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“It’s a disgrace that the local authority is promoting this exhibition of hate – it should apologise and cease doing so. This event, one would hope, does not reflect local values in Thanet at all.”
A Reform UK spokesperson mentioned: “Reform UK is appalled that a Labour-run council is using taxpayer-funded platforms to promote what appears to be deeply offensive and antisemitic material.
“Thanet District Council must immediately remove this listing, apologise, and explain how this was allowed to happen in the first place. British taxpayers should not be funding the promotion of hate.”
Home Office Minister Mike Tapp said: “Not only is this antisemitic and completely unacceptable. The ‘art’ is utter garbage.”
Images of the exhibition posted on social media show Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a naked demon with blood pouring from his mouth. The image has the words “hypnotism” and “Invade Iran … Invade Iran”.
Another shows three people with concentric circles on their chests, another apparent reference to hypnotism, and the words “The Lobby”.
Other drawings include one of a blue demon with blood pouring from his mouth. Beneath are the words: “Stop this hideous distortion of humanity.”
Journalist Zoe Strimpel, who visited the exhibition, said in a post on X/Twitter that she was “shocked by the use of Nazi imagery – the room is full of the Star of David pasted around figures meant to be Israelis and the Jewish ‘lobby’ spewing blood.”
An image of ‘the lobby’ – the caption reads ‘They are nuts and utterly in control’ (Image: -)
In response, historian Simon Schama described the exhibition as “absolutely horrifying”, and Eastenders actress Tracy-Ann Oberman called it “awful”.
The Visit Thanet web site quotes artist Matthew Collings saying: “What are people supposed to do when on our screens every day we see a genocide unfolding, one of the worst crimes a human society can commit?
“Yet no Government will do anything to stop it. However surreal my drawings get, the reality is more extreme.”
Writing on his Facebook web page, Mr Collings mentioned: “I would say my feeling personally is that this Zionist nonsense of making all these false allegations so antisemitism can be conflated with anti-Zionism, has run out of effectiveness.
“The global feeling is that Israel is the terrifying thing, and wherever a Palestinian or Iranian or Syrian or Lebanese person is, is the unsafe place.”
Thane District Council and Joseph Wales Studio had been contacted for remark.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2185196/fury-labour-council-promotes-grotesque