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UN removes anti-Israel ‘peace quilt’ from exhibit

Ambassador Danny Danon had complained about a panel that showed Israel as Palestine with the words “From the River to the Sea.”

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The United Nations has removed a “peace quilt” Monday from an exhibit in its halls that contained a panel with a picture of Israel as Palestine with a message calling for the Jewish state’s destruction.

The painting on the cloth depicted the country, including Judea and Samaria and Gaza, as if it were a piece of watermelon, a fruit that the Palestinians and their supporters have coopted over the course of the ongoing Hamas-Israel war as a symbol of their fight.

The words “From the River to the Sea” were written on the left side and the right side contained the phrase “Will be Free,” with a small Palestinian flag in the top right corner.

Most Jews consider the slogan “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free,” which has been chanted countless times at anti-Israel protests, as one calling for the genocidal elimination of the country.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, both complained to the body and expressed his disgust in a video post to social media Tuesday.

“Yesterday I exposed the UN’s hypocrisy through an exhibit of children’s drawings where the State of Israel does not exist and they hung hateful imagery,” he said on X.

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“After I firmly addressed the UN leadership, the exhibit was fixed and these antisemitic drawings were removed,” he continued, saying that “whenever we see signs of antisemitism or hypocrisy, we will confront them head-on.”

The Jewish News site also quoted Danon as saying, “Look at the drawings of children from all around the world,” he said. “Nothing about Israel. Nothing about our hostages. Look what they have. They don’t recognize Israel. They promote hate in those drawings. That is shameful.”

The quilt was one of several hanging in a “Peace Flags” exhibit in a hallway of the body’s New York headquarters.

The panels were supposed to contain messages (“flags”) of peace painted by children and community groups around the world on leftover pieces of fabric “as a way to repurpose fashion waste for positive impact.”

Vincenzo Pugliese, acting chief of the UN’s visitors’ services, told Jewish News that the panel in question, as well as several others that were unacceptable, had been immediately noticed by the staff installing the exhibit. They told the organizer that the panels had to be covered over, which they were, for three weeks.

“Late last week, Exhibits Unit staff noted that someone had removed the tape and uncovered the panels,” he explained. “They proceeded to re-cover them immediately. The panels were uncovered again over the next two days, and the Exhibits staff repeatedly re-covered them.”

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A UN spokesperson told Fox News Digital that they were looking for the culprit.

“We have alerted UN Security to the continued unauthorized interference in the exhibit and to review security footage to find out who is responsible,” the spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, the whole quilt was taken down “to avoid a repeat of the unauthorized uncovering of that panel” and “replaced with alternative quilts that the organizer of the exhibit has provided,” Pugliese said.