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Israeli student brings palestinian art to brandeis { May 3 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/05/03/brandeis_pulls_palestinian_art_from_exhibit/http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/05/03/brandeis_pulls_palestinian_art_from_exhibit/
Brandeis pulls Palestinian art from exhibit
May 3, 2006
WALTHAM, Mass. --Brandeis University officials have removed artwork that depicts Palestinian children bloodied and injured from an exhibit in the school's library.
The images were painted by Palestinian teenagers at the request of an Israeli Jewish student at Brandeis who wanted to bring the Palestinian viewpoint to campus.
But school officials said the paintings were too one-sided. The paintings were removed Saturday, four days into a two-week exhibit, The Boston Globe reported on Wednesday.
Lior Halperin, the student who organized the exhibit, called the school's action "outrageous."
"This (is) an educational institution that is supposed to promote debate and dialogue," Halperin said. "Let's talk about what it is: 12-year-olds from a Palestinian refugee camp. Obviously it's not going to be about flowers and balloons."
The images include a bulldozer threatening a girl, and a boy with an amputated leg on a crutch. Halperin had contacted a friend who works in a Bethlehem refugee camp and asked teenagers to paint images of Palestinian life.
Brandeis was founded in 1948 and is the only nonsectarian Jewish-sponsored college in the United States. Half of its students are Jewish. School officials said between six and a dozen complaints were made.
"It was completely from one side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we can only go based on the complaints we received," Brandeis spokesman Dennis Nealon said.
Nealon said the school would consider displaying the artwork again in the fall, if it is alongside pieces showing the Israeli point of view, The Globe reported.
Halperin, 27, is an Israeli Army veteran. Her "Voices from Palestine" exhibit was a final project for a class called "The Arts of Building Peace."
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