Sunday, January 27, 2008

Another Holocaust Remembrance Day



Is this an anti-Semitic image or artistic irony? Well, timing is everything. As people around the world marked the 63rd anniversary of the liberation of the Death Camps, some Dutch sticker-sellers manipulated the iconic image of teenage Anne Frank and slipped a red-checked Palestinian keffiyeh around her neck.
The image has a certain repugnant resonance and compels passers-by to do a double-take. The same one has been spotted stenciled on New York City walls for the past couple of years. Seeing Anne Frank portrayed as a "keffiyeh kinderlach" or a lefty college student, using Arafat's ironic headcloth for street cred, emphasises her adolescence.

Even at the Jerusalem mall, the Zara store was stocking kaffiyehs last summer. A Zionist "Shemagh scarf" has evolved (see left) and is even popular amongst settler women. Israelity bites.

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