Jewish Community Applauds Children’s Art Museum’s Decision on Exhibit

Check out the background information below on the organization behind the "Child's View from Gaza" exhibit--Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA)

For Immediate Release: September 12, 2011

Contact: Rabbi Jim Brandt, (510) 839-2900; Rabbi Doug Kahn (415) 977-7411

Jewish Community Applauds Children’s Art Museum’s Decision on Exhibit

On behalf of the organized East Bay Jewish community, the East Bay Jewish Community Relations Council and Jewish Federation of the East Bay, joined by the Anti Defamation League, applaud the decision of the Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland (MOCHA) to cancel the scheduled “Child’s View from Gaza” exhibit.

The exhibit, sponsored by a well-known political advocacy organization, contains violent images that demonize and dehumanize an entire ethnic and religious population.    A biased, one-sided perspective filled with depictions of violence has no place in a community-based museum dedicated to serving very young children, including three, four and five year olds.    The museum’s leadership recognized the negative effect that this inflammatory exhibit would have on young children, Jewish and non-Jewish alike and that the exhibit would have created a very divisive and potentially unsafe atmosphere for Jewish children.

This exhibit constitutes propaganda intended to indoctrinate young children under the guise of children’s art.  There is no context given to understand the complex issues facing Israel and the Palestinians.   And, there is no recognition that Israeli as well as Palestinian children are the continuing victims of the conflict. 

The museum recognized that the exhibit was incompatible with its core mission of instilling a love of art among Oakland’s diverse children’s population.    The museum is a valued institution in our community, playing a unique role.   The decision of MOCHA’s board should be supported by all who are committed to serving the interests of our community’s youngest members and want to build bridges between people.

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Here is some background information on the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) from NGO Monitor

MIDDLE EAST CHILDREN´S ALLIANCE (MECA)

• Website: www.mecaforpeace.org
• Founded in 1988, based in Berkeley, California
• Goal: “We educate North Americans about children in the region and the brutal impact of US foreign policy on their lives.”
• “MECA relies on the support of individuals dedicated to peace and justice in the Middle East.” Further details were not found.
• According to the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) website, “[t]he Middle East Children’s Alliance is the fiscal sponsor for ISM-USA.” Donations for ISM’s campaign to “interfere with the construction of the annexation barrier” can be made to “MECA (ISM-USA Fund).”
• MECA organizes delegations to “Palestine/Israel” where participants can “witness the impact of the Israeli occupation and…learn about refugees, land confiscation, political prisoners…” Trip highlights include learning “about the origins of the Palestinian refugees and the Right of Return, and how it can be implemented” (emphasis added).
• MECA founder and Executive Director Barbara Lubinwrote “I think that the Jewish State is racist to the core.”  Lupin refers to the 1948 “ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population” and wrote that “[t]he concept of‘Jewish morality’ is truly dead. We can be fascists, terrorists, and Nazis just like everybody else.”
• In an interview, MECA Director of Gaza Projects, Dr. Mona El-Farra, explained that MECA refused USAID funding because it came with the condition that they promise “not [to] give any help or any aid whatsoever for the families of the militiamen, or their relatives, or anyone related to ‘terrorist attacks’” because “we consider it resistance” (emphasis added).
• MECA raised funds for British MP George Galloway’s “Viva Palestine” convoy “following the massacre in Gaza.”
• Partners include pro-Palestinian groups such as Addameer, Badil, the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, Bat Shalom, and Gaza Community Mental Health Programme(GCMHP). Also partners with the Lajee Center, whichrefers to the “Israeli regime of Apartheid, colonization, and belligerent occupation.”

Technorati Tag: Israel and Gaza and Hamas.