The hospital that censored Gazan children’s art – it’s worse than we thought!
JVL Introduction
In February the Guardian reported that artwork created by Gazan schoolchildren had been removed from a corridor in London’s Chelsea & Westminster Hospital because it made Jewish patients feel ‘vulnerable, harassed and victimised’.
The 21 ceramic plates depicting Palestinian life, one or two of them including a Palestinian flag, had been on display since 2012, the result of a collaborative art project between schoolchildren in Gaza and members of the Chelsea community hospital school.
Had there been a flood of complaints from Jewish patients distressed at having “to face a wall of anti-Israel propaganda when they go to hospital,” as suggested by Jonathan Turner, the chief executive of UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI)?
No: not a flood, not a trickle, not even a single communication from a patient or their family. It took just one letter from a pro-Israel lobby group for the hospital trust to take down a piece of Palestinian children’s art that had been on display for over a decade.
This is the chilling effect in action – a distressing example of the censorship of Palestinians and those who support them in our cultural life.
NWI
This article was originally published by Skwawkbox on Fri 16 Jun 2023. Read the original here.
FOI reveals hospital that took down Gaza kids’ art had received zero patient complaints
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It’s good to know that no Jewish patient complained about the display and that this was a political act. This is the kind of thing that will increase antisemitism rather than reduce it. Shame on the lawyers’ Lobby group.
How long must we tolerate these encroachments on our freedom by vested interests? What kinds of lunatics pay obeisance to these minority pressure groups?
Whoever agreed to the removal of these gifts shold be dismissed from their post. Is this not just pure evil?
Outrageous. These plates must be restored to where they were on display before.
I hope people are going to bombard the hospital’s management with demands that they rectify their outrageous racism
You can find their board of directors here
https://www.chelwest.nhs.uk/about-us/organisation/board-of-directors
some of their emails are:
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Non-executive directors
• Matthew Swindells
• Steve Gill
• Andy Bush
• Aman Dalvi
• Nilkunj Dodhia
• Peter Goldsbrough
• Catherine Jervis
• Neville Manuel
• Ajay Mehta
• Syed Mohinuddin
Directors in attendance
(non-voting)
• Chris Chaney
• Emer Delaney
• Kevin Jarrold
• Peter Jenkinson
It may well be that the non-executive directors can be contacted by putting a full stop between their first and second names and adding @nhs.net
Those who were responsible for the art in t he first place are at the Chelsea Community Hospital School which partnered with Gaza is
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
it would be good to copy them in
Is it too late to add a name to the list of people complaining about the removal of the art?
Great dogged determination by Liam,thank you all,I signed a petition yesterday for the return of the Plates,let’s hope they return them back to their rightful place.
This is utterly disgraceful. I wrote to the chief executive twice, taking apart the comments made by Lawyers for Israel to intimidate the hospital trust, and have still not received a reply. The Palestinian Ambassador was also copied into the correspondence but no further action has been taken. Lawyers for Israel’s tactics have to be exposed, as they have managed to intimidate numerous bodies and institutions to censor or remove Palestinian content in various situations.
One is temp;ted to repeat the cry of Shakespeare’s Dick the Butcher in Henry VI! but, hey, we have lawyers on our side too!
Absolutely shocking revelation that Chelsea and Westminster hospital made up lies about how ‘offensive’ the depictions of Palestinian lives painted by children on plates were to Jewish patients who felt ‘harassed and oppressed’ by seeing them on display . The truth ? No complaints made at all , except for a verbal one from Lawyers for Israel perpetrating nonsense views in order to assist the notion that Palestine and Palestinians do not exist , and to continue to remove anything that seeks to depict them as human beings . Chelsea and Westminster hospital’s management need to return the display of plates immediately and issue an apology.
Who would have thought that Chelsea and westminister hospital is in bed with the right wing UKLFI. We need to send them letters and get it distributed ASAP.
It’s sick! And sickening!
Thing is, who alerted the UK Lawyers for Israel to the display, and after all these years??? It’s SO incredibly petty it beggars belief, but the Lobby never leave a stone unturned! This must be the most egregious case of deplatforming YET!!
Anyway, Mick mentioned a petition. Has anyone got a link? Cheers
What a shame, where are the plates now?
This is how pathetic the Israeli Lobby is becoming, we must highlight their pathetic behaviour to Da many people as possible. I’ve posted this Tweet, thanks to Tony Greenstein.
https://twitter.com/bernieg95778509/status/1674135227218776090?s=46&t=gzmQtBcr6IYZcKVIr2lp4g