Feiler (R) yells at the Israeli diplomat from the museum

STOCKHOLM, January 18 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Israel's Ambassador to Sweden Zvi Mazel was kicked out of a Stockholm museum after he had destroyed an artwork depicting a female Palestinian martyr as Snow White.

The incident, widely reported in the Swedish media, occurred at the opening Friday, January 16, of the "Making Differences" exhibit at the Museum of National Antiquities, part of an upcoming international conference on genocide hosted by the Swedish government, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The masterpiece, located in the museum's courtyard, featured a basin filled with red water, designed to look like blood.

A sailboat with the name Snow White floated on the water, and placed like a sail was a photo of a smiling Hanadi Jaradat, the female lawyer who blew herself up in the Haifa bombing attack in October which killed 21 Israelis.

Mazel was captured on video unplugging electrical wires around the exhibit's basin and pushing a spotlight into the tub, causing a short-circuit and endangering the lives of the audience.

The exhibit is the work of an Israeli expatriate musician and artist, Dror Feiler, who has been active in "Jews for Israeli-Palestinian peace," a Stockholm-based group opposed to Israeli activities in the Palestinian territories under Israeli occupation.

As background music to his exhibit, the Tel Aviv-born Feiler mixed music from Bach's 199 Cantata "My Heart Swims in Blood."

"If our nation cannot realize its dream and the goals of the victims, and live in freedom and dignity, then let the whole world be erased," read a heartrending line of the text that accompanied the artwork. (click to read the poem).

Jaradat was avenging her brother Fady and husband Saleh who were gunned down by Israeli occupation forces in June last year.

'Intolerable'

Israeli-born Feiler and his wife stand in front of their artwork (AFP)

Mazel said he could not help see the picture of Jaradat, claiming that it was an "obscene misrepresentation of reality".

"My wife and I stood there and began to tremble…for me it was intolerable," he said. "As ambassador to Israel, I could not remain indifferent to such an obscene misrepresentation of reality," the Ambassador told Swedish news agency TT.

According to museum director Kristian Berg, the Ambassador went berserk in front of the 400 specially-invited guests when he saw the piece.

"He pulled out the plugs and threw one of the spotlights into the fountain which caused the entire installation to short-circuit and made it totally life-threatening," he told TT.

In recent months, Israel's Foreign Ministry has invested considerable effort to ensure that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is kept off the agenda of the genocide conference, according to Israeli daily Ha’aretz.

Sharon Supports Mazel

Mazel unplugging the wires

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a telephone conversation late Saturday with  Mazel, expressed support for the ambassador's bullying act.

"We are witnessing a rise in anti-Semitism, and will increase our efforts to fight the phenomenon," Sharon said.

The Israeli diplomat has come under fire and is expected to be reprimanded for his tactless behavior by the Swedish Foreign Ministry on Monday, January 19.

Dror Feiler told AFP the Ambassador was "totally unreasonable and undiplomatic" and would not listen to his explanations.

"He said he was ashamed that I was a Jew," Feiler said. "We see this as an offensive assault on our right to express our thoughts and feelings."

The other artist who co-created the artwork, Feiler's Swedish wife Gunilla Skoeld Feiler, said she was moved by the fact that Haradat was a mother of two and defense of her cause.

"I wanted to show how incomprehensible it is that a mother-of-two, who is a lawyer no less, can do such a thing," she said.

"When I saw her picture in the paper, I thought she looked like Snow White, that's why I gave that name to the piece," she added.

Dror Feiler was to perform a piece of music but refused to do so as long as the Ambassador remained at the scene.

"Ultimately we had to escort the ambassador out of the museum," museum director Berg said, adding that he did not consider the artwork to be a provocation.

"It is rather an invitation to think about why such things happen in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he said.

Berg further said Mazel's behavior "is never, ever allowed, and it is never allowed to try to silence the artist," he said.

Israeli Member of Knesset Ahmad Tibi attacked the Israeli Foreign Ministry on Saturday, January 17, for defending Mazel's "reprehensible act of bullying".

"The government that uses bulldozers in the territories, demolishes houses and uproots trees also relies on bullying in its diplomacy," Tibi said.

The museum's artistic director, Thomas Nordanstad, said he had given the artists the go-ahead to create the piece, and had "hoped it would lead to an artistic dialogue".

The artwork was repaired and was on Saturday on view to the public, despite Israel's insistence that it be disassembled.