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The first to identify terror by arson
Education Minister Naftali Bennett uses thefts and arson to promote a racist ideology with national and territorial implications, by raising the question of whom this country belongs to.

Ravit Hecht Nov 25, 2016 1:31 AM
read more: ►http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.755191
►http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.755191

“Only someone who doesn’t own this land could set it on fire,” tweeted Education Minister Naftali Bennett the other day, as the wave of fires took on the proportions of a national disaster, long before the source of the fires was clear. The post has received 616 “likes” and 80 “shares” so far, a number likely to increase. This is six-fold higher than the responses to his usual tweets.
Some people compared this to Benjamin Netanyahu’s tweet following the arrest of two Palestinians on suspicion of raping a mentally defective girl. (“This is a heinous crime that demands wall-to-wall condemnation, but for some reason this has not been heard, not in the media and not across the political spectrum. One could only imagine what would have happened if it were the other way around.”) When the suspects were released Netanyahu offered a partial apology.
Despite the similarities between these statements – referring to a crime while blatantly hinting at the nationality of the perpetrators who are still only suspects – this latest tweet is actually more like an earlier statement that Bennett made during the last elections campaign, in front of high school graduates about to vote for the first time.
Bennett said that “anyone who has tried to tour the Negev in recent years knows that one can’t leave a car anywhere since it’s bound to be broken into and stolen. Tractors are stolen in Petah Tikva and the Galilee and one can’t go to the Mount of Olives or Mount Scopus anymore. One can’t enter Arab towns or villages, and this hurts the Arabs most of all, since Israel has decided that the rule of law may apply to Tel Aviv, Haifa and Ra’anana, but not to these places.”
One should note Bennett’s semantics – he never uses the word “Arab” in proximity to the word “steal” or “thief” (the chairman of Habayit Hayehudi actually filed a libel suit against journalist David Feuer who tweeted that Bennett called all Arabs car thieves. He later retracted the suit.) The word “Arab” doesn’t appear in the new tweet at all. Nevertheless, everyone understands what his tweet means.

American Girls and Their Adorable Mini-Me Dolls - My Modern Metropolis
►http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/ilona-szwarc-american-girls

New York-based photographer Ilona Szwarc takes an interesting look into the relationships between young girls and their American Girl dolls. In her series, aptly titled American Girls, the photographer unveils portraits of “girls with their sculptural representations” which is meant to give us a visual sense of each of their personalities. The series, which is not at all affiliated with or sponsored by Mattel (the toy makers), is both revealing of each child’s characteristics and ironically layered, asking the viewer to look deeper into the meaning behind this mimicking trend.

The American Girl line was initially introduced as an alternative to the sexualized figure represented in dolls, the “anti-Barbie” if you will. The idea behind each doll is that she is a reflection of a girl in America, whether she be a simple schoolgirl in a uniform or a limber gymnast in training. However, it is perhaps the girls that are echoing their dolls who appear to offer the “illusion of choice and individuality” through fashion and accessories.

Szwarc says, “The American Girl product defines and categorizes American girls- future American women- and that fact raises important questions about who gets represented and how. The branding behind the doll perpetuates domesticity and traditional gender roles. I examine how culture and society conditions gender and how it invents childhood. Gender becomes a performance that is mirrored in the performance of my subjects for the camera.”

#femmes #féminité #art