Snow White and the Ambassador - Who Is Afraid of the Arts?

"If that is art, then what I did is diplomacy", said Zvi Mazel, ambassador for Israel in Sweden, on 16 January 2004 in the Historical Museum in Stockholm. He said this after damaging an art installation by Dror Freiler and his wife Gunilla Sköld Freiler at the opening of an exhibition that took place on the occasion of an international conference about the prevention of genocide. The art work: a pond with red-coloured water with a boat and the portrait of Hanadi Jaradat, who had blown herself up in a restaurant in Haifa in October 2003, along with 21 guests. The makers of the work "Snow White and the Madness of Truth" demanded that the ambassador would immediately be removed, which eventually happened, after due confusion and debate. The next day, the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon thanked Mazel for taking a stand against growing anti-Semitism in Europe. Filmmakers Erik Pauser and Thomas Nordanstad interview all people involved and show that Jews all over the world hold very different views on the political situation in Israel. It does not surprise Eyal Sivan, one of the conference guests, that an ambassador behaved like this: "Of course he can destroy an art piece; he can burn a museum if he wants."