Israeli Says Artwork Is ‘Call to Kill’

STOCKHOLM — Israel’s envoy to Sweden said Saturday he had no regrets after vandalizing a display at a Stockholm museum depicting a Palestinian suicide bomber, even as the artist insisted his work called for conciliation.

Ambassador Zvi Mazel, who attended Friday’s opening of an art exhibit tied to an anti-genocide conference, said the work was a “call to kill.”

Video footage showed Mazel disconnecting electrical cables to spotlights that surrounded the work -- a boat floating in a basin of red fluid carrying a portrait of Hanadi Jaradat, who killed herself and 19 people in Haifa, Israel, in October. Mazel then shoved a spotlight into the basin.

“This is not a work of art, this was presenting hate against the people of Israel,” Mazel said.

The artist, Dror Feiler, is an expatriate Israeli active in Jews for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, a Stockholm group opposed to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Feiler said the work did not glorify suicide bombers.

“We explain quite clearly that [Jaradat] was killing innocent people,” he said. “I’m absolutely opposed to suicide bombers.”