A spark from the Middle East conflict ignited a bonfire in Stockholm last week. The incident -- and the sharply divided reactions to it -- illustrated once again the intractability of the parties involved in the conflict and the near impossibility of imagining a resolution. In the face of such emotion, categories like "right" and "wrong" just seem to shrivel in the flames.
At the opening of an art exhibit in a Stockholm museum on Jan. 16, the Israeli ambassador to Sweden, Mr. Zvi Mazel, was so offended by a work featuring a female Palestinian suicide bomber that he vandalized it. The ambassador was escorted from the museum and has been summoned by the Swedish Foreign Ministry to "explain his action." In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon defended Mr. Mazel, saying that "entire government" stood behind him.
The work at issue consists of a floodlit pool of water dyed red to look like blood. In it floats a small boat with a sail bearing the smiling image of Jaradat Hanadi, the 29-year-old Palestinian lawyer and Islamic Jihadist who detonated explosives outside a Haifa restaurant last October, killing herself and 21 Israeli men, women and children. It is titled "Snow White and the Madness of Truth"; a text on the wall nearby puts Hanadi's act in the context of her brother's death at the hands of Israeli troops.