Ceasefire pin used at Oscars compared to Ramallah lynching photo – The Forward

If you watched Sunday’s Academy Awards, or followed the discourse around them online, you probably saw the red Artists4Ceasefire pin worn by Billie Eilish, Mark Ruffalo and others at the Academy Awards. The round pin, produced by an entertainment industry group whose call for a ceasefire has been signed by the likes of Jennifer Lopez and Richard Gere, it contains an image of a hand with a black heart in the center.

What could be wrong with that?

For the people who wear it (and according to Artists4Ceasefire, the group that distributes it) the pin symbolizes support for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza. But for some Jewish observers, the red hand recalled one of the darkest moments of the Second Intifada: the lynching of two Israeli Defense Forces soldiers by Palestinians in Ramallah in 2000. And in certain Jewish online spaces, the pins caused a stir.

Israel’s Twitter account highlighted the similarity between the red hand on the pin and the photo that came to symbolize that event.It’s not a coincidence.”Israeli activist Noa Tishby called the pins are a “subtle and overt display of hatred of Jews.” The pro-Israel media A broader framework saying “The red, bloody hands on your pins have historically symbolized the murder of Jews.”

The pins are the latest gesture by the ceasefire movement to provoke the ire of Israel’s supporters, who have often reclaimed that such calls, by not focusing on the release of hostages or the atrocities of October 7, are anti-Semitic in nature. But skepticsthe indignation was emblematic of attempts to delegitimize the ceasefire protests by redefining their intent.

“What is one way we could protest the horrible oppression of Palestinians that you would agree with?” wrote one commenter on A broader framework‘s mail.

bloody hands

On October 12, 2000, Vadim Nurzhitz, 33, and Yossi Avrahami, 38, took a wrong turn on their way to an IDF base in the Israeli settlement of Beit El. The road led to Ramallah, where thousands of Palestinians attended the funeral of a teenager who had died in clashes with the IDF two weeks earlier.

Upon arriving at a PA roadblock, the two soldiers were arrested by PA police and taken to the local police station. Word quickly spread in Ramallah that a pair of Israeli spies had been detained and the mourners became a bloodthirsty mob. They broke into the police station, overwhelmed the police and beat the soldiers to death.

see more

I don’t know if this is what Hollywood stars wanted to echo with their bloody pins, but this is the association it has with Israelis, and if you’re not familiar with perhaps the most iconic image of the Second Intifada, such time Don’t convey your ignorance.

-Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) March 11, 2024

In images that circulated around the world, one of the bodies was thrown from a second-story window into the street, where the mob continued to attack the corpse, setting it on fire and beating the soldier’s head to a pulp. In one less famous imageOne Palestinian appeared to be clutching a heart torn from one of the soldiers’ corpses.

The defining photograph of that day – that of a lyncher at the window of a police station gleefully displaying his blood-stained hands to the crowd – remains one of the most visceral images of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

There are other reasons why the Ramallah lynching might be at the forefront of some people’s memories since October 7. Like Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who planned the October 7 attack, the lyncher captured in that infamous photo, Aziz Salha, was freed. as part of the 2011 prisoner exchange for Gilad Shalit.

Furthermore, some see the brutality of lynching as a narrative precursor to October 7, when Hamas terrorists murdered nearly 1,200 people in a massacre in the villages of southern Israel.

‘Support for an immediate and permanent ceasefire’

Artists4Ceasefire, a group of entertainment figures who signed an open letter to President Biden calling for a ceasefire, does not have a contact form on its website and it is unclear who its organizers are, so Forward could not search for comments.

But there is no clear evidence that the hand on the pin was a reference to the Salha image.

According to a Press release The pin, sent by Artists4Ceasefire to journalists before the Oscars ceremony, “symbolizes collective support for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages and the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.” .

After the ceremony, a new “About” page appeared on the group’s website explaining the pin’s design.

“The Artists4Ceasefire enamel pin is composed of a red background to symbolize the urgency of the call to save lives,” the website said. “The orange hand conveys the beautiful community of people from all backgrounds who have come together to support our shared humanity. The heart cradled in the center of the hand is an invitation for us to lead with the heart, always, to lead with love. When we lead with love, we understand that all our fellow humans deserve to be loved and protected.”

One of the actors wearing the pin, Ramy Youssef, an Egyptian-American actor and director, put it further succinctly on the Oscars red carpet: “It’s a universal message: ‘Let’s stop killing children,’” he said.

Other theories about the origin of the symbol have emerged online. Some He suggested is he Red Hand of Ulster, an Irish symbol of homeland claims, a possible connection to Palestinian claims on Israel. An Instagram comment, which received more than 1,000 likes on A broader framework‘s mailHe said the hand is “the universal ‘stop’ signal.”

Even assuming that the hand depicted is bloody, Israelis themselves have used bloody hands as a symbol after October 7, even during protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Despite both of the group’s public statements calling for the release of the hostages, many people who opposed the pin, including Tishby, reclaimed the organization was not doing it.

Some accounts responded to Israel’s Twitter post by saying or implying that IDF soldiers deserved his lynching.

“It’s very funny how they try to pretend that Israeli soldiers are innocent victims,” ​​said one of them. wrote.

Still, not everyone thinks it’s reasonable for Jews to expect everyone else to see Salha’s bloody hands in the image.

“‘If you are not familiar with my personal trauma as a member of a demographic minority that comprises 0.2% of the world, then you are ignorant,’ is not the persuasive line that some people seem to think,” Roei Eisenberg, a Jewish writer , wrote Monday on Twitter.