Doesn't matter where they are from. Philanthropy is not art. This person does not make a living off of sellin art to help Nepal I would think. Banksy does make money off selling art and this an art installation in the West Bank is nothink like donating to charity. So why not go do an art install in sat somalia? And criticize one side there? Or coastal Kenya?

Let's keep this clean. Not going down rabbit hole. Why this conflict when it's clearly just low hanging fruit and not as dire as the situations of no joke billions of other humans

All for it. But that's not the question in my post so this is trolling. I do t want peoples split opinions on Israel Palestine. I want an assessment as to why this trumps all other causes when it's least clear.

Other than it being super safe for the artists to work there and tons of dough in the pr campaign of it from oil cash

Fantastic. Second time I've been accused of being a troll in the time I've been here. You do realise that bandying that word about so easily rather devalues it?

I guess the fact that no one is willing to answer my initial question speaks volumes. Street artists happy to get paid by oppressive regimes and do murals in Dubai with blood money, where women can't be outside without male escort (yes outside the hard rock hotel that's the deal). Then they fly to Tel Aviv, hang at the beach, chow some hummus, hit the clubs, then do a free Palestine work.

No clue why I would have ever thought to raise such a question. It's absurd to make the correlation. All those murals in Mogadishu look so good, oh there are none because no ones paying.

Well, it's intereting to debate this aspect of art, and I honestly do appreciate everyone's thoughts. I cherish our freedom to have our own thoughts and assumptions.

Many people wonder how many of these other conflicts in the middle east and Africa would have happened if the zionist lobby did not exist or how many of these global events are in some way linked to protecting Israels (zionists) interests.




Operation Cast Lead was sickening to know it was happening and the US and Obama and others did nothing. Using white phosphorous in heavily populated areas and knowing children would be slaughtered. I'm not surprised Palestinians find it hard to want to trust a regime who slaughtered their children. I know others will say it was all hamas fault etc etc but the Palestinians are living in a controlled ghetto and in other conflicts civilians are allowed to leave the area to a place of safety. Where could the Palestinians flee to to avoid the white phosphorous and bombs? The military might of Israel against Hamas foot soldiers and home made rockets in a ghetto called Palestine.

Palestine is a small country and so is Israel and what happens in that part of the world affects neighbouring country's stability one way or another.

Did Blair Bush attack Iraq to punish Saddam for invading Kuwait, even though Madeleine Albright gave Saddam the green light to invade Kuwait, or was Iraq invaded for Israel and other countries interests?

It's a tricky one whether an artist makes art about opression as to being seen a sprmoting themselves through the issue or genuinely doing it to raise awareness and make a protest.

Comparing people killed in Africa through internal conflicts despot dictators as in numbers killed. Africa is far larger in population that Palestine. There are atrocities comitted and saudi bombing Yemen etc.

A lot comes down to the western media as to which conflicts it decides to publicise but for me Palestine and the way the Palestinians are treated has gone on for too long and ignored by too many so called democratic countries.

Perhaps its a subject matter that is personal to the artist. There are plenty of atrocities in the world, but does banksy need to pick the most dire situation to bring attention to?

Exactly the point I was trying to make earlier.
I suspect that the reality is that the OP simply doesn't agree with the Palestinian cause.

Mira Sucharov's reasons for the media's "obsession" with Israel (Why is the Media Obsessed with Israel?, Haaretz 11/19/14) applies to this discussion I think:

"[...] American taxpayers provide a significant annual sum of money to Israel, via the $3 billion in annual U.S. aid granted to Israel. It’s natural that the government and the voters in that country at least would disproportionately concern themselves with the region.

Second, the Israel-Palestine core is the heartland of the three main monotheistic religions. The role of the religious imaginary in Western art, literature, film and culture in general is significant. The region, in short, has long captured the imagination of many.

Third, Israel — unlike Syria — is a democracy. Citizens of democracies tend to hold other democracies to democratic standards. And that means that violence committed in the name of democratic values — for better or worse — sometimes gets more airtime.

Fourth, as others have written before, Israel is seen by many as a colonial transplant. There are very good arguments against a simplistic understanding of Israel as being a colonial project. (There is no core state to which settlers send extracted resources, for example.) But there is no getting around the fact that Israel’s birth was precipitated in part by Europe’s carving up of the region into mandate territories after the First World War. The shred of the colonial shadow succeeds in galvanizing a certain political consciousness that other conflicts, especially civil ones within non-democracies, simply don’t, unfortunately perhaps.

Fifth, once Israel came into existence, it was seen by many as a plucky state surviving against all odds. It’s a narrative that Israel and the engines of Diaspora Jewry have themselves succeeded in promoting. That the world continues its fascination with Arab-Israeli geopolitics, played out now partly through the Palestinians, is therefore not surprising.

Sixth, Jews tend to punch above their collective weight in many aspects of popular culture: entertainment, the arts, literature, and so on. That the Jewish State and its goings-on figure so prominently in the media can be seen as a benign extension of this. Add to this the fact that some of the players in the contemporary Israeli-Palestinian saga also hold American citizenship (three of the victims of the Har Nof synagogue attack held dual Israeli-U.S. citizenship, while the fourth was British-Israeli) and the effect is magnified.

Finally, as for Friedman’s comparison between the disproportionate attention given to death and destruction in Israel compared to, say, in Portland, one could say that political violence naturally garners more international concern — again, sadly for those who are ignored— than death caused by such typical urban ills as poverty, petty crime, drugs, or traffic accidents."

You are on your own. There is no prospect of having a reasonable discussion with you. Go and find someone else to spout your hate to. I have no interest in talking to you anymore. We will never agree.

Fwiw, I also think that the tittle of this thread is disengenous. I don't for one minute think that this was "an honest question". I have no doubt that you gently introduced an issue that you had very strong feeling about, with the intention of rattling a few cages. Poor form.

  
 I can't criticise the artists who went out to paint on walls in Dubai in return for a big fat cheque. It's their choice they were promoting the friendly pro western side of Dubai knowingly or not.

 It's not a place I would even think of setting foot in.

www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11936981/Who-in-their-right-mind-would-want-to-visit-Dubai.html

wrong forum mate. The majority here is leftist tree huggers that would invite terrorists into their homes if it would make them seen as less 'racist/facits/nazis (or whatever bogus words these people use) by their threehugger peers.

So yay palestine! Lets all forget that Israël would happily entertain the idea of two states while palestine sees this as a holy war (as most muslims do) and won't rest until all jews are dead.