At the End Turn Right - Dark Education

Translation / Interpretation / Caption Text

Title: Dark Education

Inspiration: In July 2010 the Ministerial Committee on Legislative Issues approved the Nakba Bill, which in its initial stages called for the imprisonment of anyone who commemorates the Israeli Independence day as a day of mourning. In its current form the bill calls for denial of public funding to any organization that publicly commemorates the Palestinian narrative of the events of 1948 (Nakba means catastrophe). Several days later the Ministry of Education decided to eliminate the term “Nakba” from the Arab sector’s school curriculum.

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This [series] is my senior project in visual communication studies in Holon Institute of Technology (HIT) instructed by Judith Asher.

This project criticizes my country's current government's anti-democratic direction in the past two years. It is a series of illustrations that show an apocalyptic future scenario, in order to provoke and raise questions among Israelis about the direction the country is going. The text under each drawing is an example of something that has happened recently, that demonstrates the project's message.

Sivan Hurwitz

Analysis / Interpretation / Press

The classroom looks like a typical elementary school classroom anywhere in Israel, which makes the deviations so striking. The teacher is pointing to a map that shows Greater Israel – the vision advocated by the Revisionist party (precursor to the Likud). The white swathe of territory, which includes the Egyptian Sinai, the West Bank and Gaza, is labeled in large, bold font: JEWS.

On the whiteboard, to the right of the map, is the following information:

STATE OF ISRAEL

Area: 80,000 kilometers

Population: Jews

Language: Hebrew (Arabic is currently Israel’s second official language).

The textbooks on the pupils’ desks are titled “Homeland Studies.”

On the left wall, near the flag, where official portraits of the prime minister and the president might be hung, are three portraits of extreme right-wing politicians: Rehavam Zeevi of the now-defunct Moledet party, which advocated transferring the Palestinians out of the West Bank and Israel; Avigdor Liberman, leader of the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party; and Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the now-banned Kach party, which advocated both transfer of the Palestinians and replacement of civil law with Jewish theological law (Halacha).”

 

Source:

http://lisagoldman.net/2010/09/10/an-israeli-artist-visualizes-her-count...