12 September 2006
Sydney's Jewish community has condemned an artwork featuring Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with a skewer through his head. The chief executive of the New South Wales Jewish Board of deputies, Vic Alhadeff, told the "Sydney Morning Herald" the painting, titled "Ehud Olmert Kebab", was "beyond the realm of acceptable political comment", adding that "Political and artistic expression are an integral part of public debate, but in our society freedom of expression only goes so far. Artists, too, have responsibilities." But Habib Zeitouneh defended his painting, which is portrayed in an Arabic art exhibition organized in response to the conflict in Lebanon last month. "Paintings do not leave families destitute, fathers without wives or children, children without fathers or mothers. I have a right to express my anger over the deaths of over 1,000 Lebanese, as do the Israelis mourning the deaths of their own. I am using satire, not bombs." The exhibition, which opened last Wednesday, also includes a controversial body bags work and a mixed sculpture-painting with dismembered limbs that calls for the boycott of brand names such as Calvin Klein and Estee Lauder because they "supported Israel".
