Bigoted Artist Angers Christians In Israel – OpEd
A crucified
sculpture of Ronald McDonald, called “McJesus,” is on display in the
Haifa Museum of Art. Christians have protested, and some of them have
turned violent.
While the violence must be condemned, it is encouraging to see Christian
leaders speaking out against this in-your-face exhibit. Leaders of the
Greek Melkite Catholic Archeparchy of Akko have been especially
outspoken in denouncing this insult.
The man responsible for the “McJesus” sculpture, Finnish artist Jani
Leinonen, is no stranger to controversy. In January 2011, he led a group
called the Food Liberation Army to crash a McDonald’s restaurant in
Helsinki: they were protesting the company’s ethics. They walked away
with a life-size statue of Ronald McDonald, threatening to “decapitate”
the figure. He and his thuggish friends were later arrested.
Leinonen is not content to simply offend Christians: he is driven by hatred of Jews.
Leinonen is a rabid supporter of the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment
and Sanctions), an effort to hurt Israel’s economy. It has attracted
many left-wing activists, penetrating higher education and, more
recently, the Democratic Party. Because of his allegiance to the BDS
movement, Leinonen said he objects to his work being displayed in
Israel.
“I joined the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, that
upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same
rights as the rest of humanity,” Leinonen said. If we ignore what the
BDS cause is, there is no trace of hatred there. But he was not
finished. “Israel overtly uses culture as a form of propaganda to
whitewash or justify its regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and
apartheid over the Palestinian people.” There is there, and plenty of
it.
To believe this is to believe that there is an orchestrated attempt on
the part of the Israeli government to manipulate the culture—poisoning
the minds of the people—so that it can justify its oppressive agenda.
This is the voice of hate, one in service to crippling the nation in the
name of liberation.
Israel is not the enemy—those who seek to disable it are.