Let Us Say Right Here In Front That We Are Not Against The Interpretation Of Art As A means To Provoke Our Senses and Our Minds. Showing that exhibit in “Jaffa, Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Belfast and Amsterdam” as the article says (Jaffo is now just a tiny part of the city of Tel-Aviv - mainly populated by Jews and Christian-Arabs, that is where you go to eat Arab food) So, showing the exhibit in Tel Aviv, in Amman where many Palestinians are by now Jordanians - in effect they are the majority in Jordan, in Belfast and Beirut - cities that understand strife and relocation, Cairo and Amsterdam - cities that have segments of well informed parts of the population that can be expected to make up their mind by themselves (see I included in this Cairo with its “Muslim Brotherhood” that wants to see all those that are not like them leave the Middle East) - but London is different.

London was bought up by Arab-Oil-States’ money - these are the same folks that are actually responsible for the uprooting of part of the original Arab population of what was going to become Israel - and also for the fact that no parallel Palestinian State was allowed to come into existence right then - in 1948. But London is also the capital of the former British Empire that ruled by dividing the locals in that Empire. London today is the home of a lot of infighting going on between groups that are effectively foreign to the body of the British - just think of what the Muslims did to Mr. Salman Rushdie who these days, April 29 - May 4, 2008, is chairing in New York  the Festival of International Literature, organized for the American PEN Center that he chairs.  London is also the home of a lot of ignorant British people that, though good willing, may get incited by reading those captions.

Is above something so farfetched? I mean the collusion between ignorance, money, and pandering to Arab-oil-States?  We will post an analysis of what the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is saying in his run-up to the 60th anniversary  of the establishing of Israel as balanced by the Naqbah - the catastrophe that befell the Arab population of the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine.

Further, any criminologist will tell you - victimization comes usually from what those closest to you do to you. In the Middle East the flight of  Arabs is what Arab did to Arab - and we do not try to absolve the Jews from the known 2-3 places where some Arab villagers (this happened mainly in the case of two villages on the boder line with Lebanon and one village in an area not far from Jerusalem.) On the other hand - equal numbers of Jews where forcefully expelled from Arab States - All of North Africa - and it was only this week that the UN finally recognized that there was also this other refugee problem that was started in 1948. But then nobody talks of the 20 times larger exchange of population that happened the same year with the creation of India and Pakistan. Now also that year the UN gave birth to the UN Declaration of Human rights. You Barbican - How about organizing A Real Tribute to 1948!        Art can also be viewed not just as provocation but also as honesty.

Barbican’s tribute to 1948 accused of demonising Israel.

By Arifa Akbar, Arts Correspondent for The Independent, Wednesday, 30 April 2008.

As far as the organisers of the exhibition are concerned, these photographs of Arab refugees, displaced from their homes in Israel in 1948, are merely an artistic slice of life from a dramatic point in Middle Eastern history.

But the Barbican Arts Centre’s show Homeland Lost, consisting of 16 black and white images taken by the photojournalist Alan Gignoux soon after Israel gained independence, is the unlikely frontier of new hostilities between Britain’s Israeli and Arab communities.

Mr Hoffman insisted he was not speaking on behalf of the federation, on whose board he sits, but added: “The exhibition contains historical distortions which have the effect of demonising Israel.”

Similarly, Lior Ben-Dor, a spokesman for the Israeli embassy, said the language used in the exhibition, which was originally funded by the British Council and staged in Jaffa, Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Belfast and Amsterdam without causing offence, did not reflect reality.

He claimed it ignored the fact that the “refugee problem” was caused by Arabs refusing to accept a United Nations resolution for the establishment of a Jewish state alongside an Arab one. “They refused a UN resolution and started a war. The result of war was the creation of a refugee problem,” Mr Ben-Dor added.

He also criticised the Barbican for not staging an Israeli film festival for 18 years, despite repeated requests, yet regularly hosting a Palestinian festival, the latest of which closes this week. “We would like for them to open their doors to us,” Mr Ben-Dor said. “The embassy would be very happy if the Barbican chose to balance its activities with the Palestinian Film Festival with an Israeli one.”

Last night, the Barbican dismissed the accusations and insisted it would not bow to political pressure. It said it had received only two other complaints and defended the decision to stage the show, as well as the language used in the captions.

It said: “We appreciate that interpretations of historical events can potentially be controversial and may inspire strong reactions, but are clear that decisions on such matters need to sit firmly with our artistic and curatorial team.

London’s Palestinian Film Festival is Europe’s biggest and has been held at the Barbican for four years. The centre is planning a Yiddish film festival next year, and there was an Israeli Cinema Showcase across the capital earlier this month.

For Mr Hoffman, though, a celebration of Yiddish cinema is not enough. “If the Barbican thinks a Yiddish film season in 2009 goes any way towards balancing four successive years of Palestinian film festivals, they are wrong. It is about as much balance as would be putting chicken soup and salt beef on their restaurant menu.”

Mr Hoffman said he objected to the language in a caption describing the forced expulsion of Palestinians. He said: “Many Arab inhabitants left or sold their homes to Israelis.”

The London-based Palestinian Solidarity Campaign insisted that the language used was “appropriate” and hailed the  festival and exhibition as a success. Its spokesman, Martial Kurtz, said: “It is widely accepted that the creation of Israel involved massacres and villages being erased.”