painting with a twist bethlehem pa
Haifa, Israel – As he moves amid the masses in Bethlehem Sunday during a much-anticipated bout of Israel and the Palestinian Authority-controlled West Bank, Pope Francis’ eyes may accommodated images of history's best admired Christian-themed masterpieces -- digitally adapted with a bizarre, anti-Semitic twist.
The Palestinian Presidential Committee of Higher Affairs commissioned an amphitheater exhibition of works aggregate Christian art by masters such as Rembrandt, Caravaggio and Raphael,with sometimes graphic, digitized images of incidents allegedly from the long-running Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The PA’s hijacking of abundant paintings includes Raphael’s 1507 masterpiece, "The Deposition," which shows Jesus Christ -- now claimed as a Palestinian by the PA and not from Judea as accurate in the Gospels. In the askance estimation commissioned for the Pope's visit, he is still apparent actuality agitated abroad afterwards the Crucifixion, his high anatomy as corrective added than 500years ago. But Christ's legs accept been digitally adapted and melded to the aboriginal painting to appearance those of an afflicted Palestinian clad in jeans actuality agitated abroad as an Israeli soldier looks on.
“These images were requested accurately for the Pope’s visit,” Itamar Marcus, architect and administrator of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), told FoxNews.com.
“The paintings acutely characterize Jesus aggregate in with Palestinians. This is an advancing and important allotment of Palestinian credo as approved on December 23 aftermost year when, in his anniversary bulletin to Christians, [PA president] Mahmoud Abbas referred to the bearing of Jesus Christ as a Palestinian agent of peace, attempting to accord them [the Palestinians] a history they don’t have. The aforementioned bulletin has been again throughout the Palestinian establishment, including by the Grand Mufti, and others.”
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Ahmed Hussein, as afresh as 2012 preached the annihilation of the Jews and referred to the Jewish bodies as “the birth of apes and pigs.” He is one of abounding religious leaders from the arena due to accommodated with the pope during His Holiness’ celebrated appointment and was appointed to his role in 2006 by Mahmoud Abbas.
Another painting to accept been accustomed a new aberration by the Palestinians is Murillo’s "Christ healing the Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda" (1670), in which the Pool of Bethesda has been redacted and replaced by an angel of the aegis barrier erected by Israel afterwards a access of cross–border Palestinian suicide bomb attacks.
The aboriginal painting is on abiding exhibition at London’s apple acclaimed National Gallery, area its use by the PA as a advertising apparatus came as article of a surprise.
“We never animadversion on annihilation like this,” Tracy Jones, backer for the National Gallery, told FoxNews.com. “What I can say is that cipher approached us for permission to do this.”
Jones accepted that photo images of the painting are not copyrighted and that the use of photo images of added paintings from the National Gallery accumulating for crooked promotional/marketing purposes is not uncommon.
The Palestinians accept additionally hijacked Caravaggio’s "The Incredulity of Saint Thomas" (1602), in which Christ is presented accustomed a Palestinian ID card, Carracci’s "The Dead Christ Mourned" (1606), in which the aboriginal four women in the painting accept been replaced by a crestfallen Palestinian woman amidst by rubble, and Rembrandt’s 1635 work, "The Sacrifice of Isaac," which has a digitally-inserted Israeli soldier acutely baking the adolescent Isaac, in abode of Abraham alms his adolescent to God.
"The Palestinian Museum will acceptable Pope Francis with beheld displays that afford ablaze on the activity of our bodies in the adumbration of the occupation" the Palestinian bi-weekly Al-Hayat Al-Jadida appear on May 20, while the Palestinian Museum proclaimed, “Banners accumulation contempo media photographs of the Palestinian mural and its bodies with Western bizarre paintings of biblical scenes will adorn Manger Square in Bethlehem, highlighting the astriction amid the accepted angel of the Holy Acreage and Palestine's advancing history of adversity beneath activity and oppression.”
Some critics of the PA accept wondered how Muslims would acknowledge to apish images of the Prophet Muhammad actuality acclimated to portray political letters and accept continued warned of the hijacking of Christian adumbration by the Palestinians, a fact, they argue, that should not be absent on the Pope who will accept to footstep a minefield of religious sensitivities during his abrupt appointment to the acreage he himself referred to alone this anniversary as “that acreage that has suffered so much.”
“The PA sometimes gets so complex in its own credo that they balloon the aftereffect it has on added people,” Marcus said. “They anticipate that their affirmation on presenting Jesus as a Palestinian will be accustomed by the Christian community, but they haven’t allegedly advised that this ability be article that some Christians ability acquisition offensive.”
Paul Alster is an Israel-based announcer who can be followed on Twitter @paul_alster and at www.paulalster.com.
