Controversial, New Anti-Semitic Mural Defaced
Mural criticizing Israel for war in Gaza includes a Star of David with a swastika at the center.
Swastika Star of David Mural Defaced. Photo by Graham Kilmer.
A controversial mural incorporating a swastika into a Star of David has been defaced.
The mural was painted on the building at 428 E. Locust St., near the corner of N. Holton Street and E. Locust Street. It included images of drones, bombed-out buildings and Palestinian families, along with the words, “The Irony of Becoming What You Once Hated.” At its center is the Star of David, with a swastika painted in the middle.
The mural is a reference to Israel’s sustained assault on Palestine following the Oct. 7, 2023 attack led by Palestine-based Hamas that killed almost 800 civilians. Hundreds of Israeli citizens were taken hostage. The mural compares Israel’s sustained bombing of Palestine to the Nazi-led Holocaust during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced since the war began, and many thousands have been killed.
The building owner, Ihsan Atta, told members of the media the mural was not intended to be offensive. He also said he knows who defaced the mural and will report them to the police.
The Milwaukee Jewish Federation called the mural “horribly antisemitic.”
Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who is African American, compared the experience of a Jewish person seeing the swastika in the mural to one of a Black person seeing a Confederate flag.
The mural was installed in place of a 2020 mural of Breonna Taylor, who was killed by Louisville police in March of that year while inside her own apartment. Her death was one of many that spurred a year of Civil Rights protests and reforms.
Breonna Taylor Mural
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Maybe the mural is more anti-genocide than anti semetic?
Mural is antisemitic, pure and simple. Give Israel it’s hostages back. Until then, stop whining about Israel agression. What would the USA do in this situation? And btw, read some history, read the definition of genocide. Just because you call something genocide that does not make it so.
Sometimes the truth is difficult to face. The message of this art is powerful.
“I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us,” Taher El-Nounou, a Hamas media adviser, told The Times.
This is Hamas’ goal for their attack on Israel. It is why Hamas refuses to agree to a ceasefire and why they break ceasefires when they can. Hamas sees the death of Palestinians and destruction of Gaza neighborhoods as collateral damage for their ultimate goal, a permanent state of war with Israel.
If the Palestinians want peace, they must throw off the Hamas yoke. If the Israelis want peace, they need to get rid of Netanyahu. BTW Palestinians are also semitic peoples.
I find it sad that there is a belief that the mural was antisemitic. I also find it sad that there is so little understanding of what is happening in that area of the world.
What is Benjamin Netanyahu doing? Why was there a Hamas attack?
According to the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territory, Israel prisons, on 31 January 2023, 4,336 were held with 2,237 serving sentences, with 2,514 just detained. Do you think that they are treated well in prison? According to Wikipedia, between 2000 and 2009, 6,700 Palestinians between the ages of 12 and 18 were arrested by Israeli authorities. How many were assaulted (raped) in prison?
Did the Nazis imprison and kill the innocent? Is Netanyahu imprisoning and killing the innocent? The sad part is the likes of Representative Fitzgerald.
Have you ever wondered why we keep failing and doing dumb things? There are Soldiers and military personnel who do their best, and then there are those like Representative Fitzgerald. Representative Fitzgerald doesn’t think much about accountability or what happens when US Bombs are given to Netanyahu. He doesn’t consider the deeper questions of how killing women and children will bring security for anyone. He doesn’t consider the cost of giving away military equipment. There is a reason that taxes in the United States are so high, and the country is in debt. We can’t pay for medical care, and we are giving away bombs.
Do the people in the United States believe that the answer is to kill everyone in Gazza, or is it only a few like Representative Fitzgerald and the people who don’t take the time to look hard at the problem?
I don’t see the same world Representative Fitzgerald sees – and I’m not voting for Representative Fitzgerald. We, the people in the United States, can vote against those in office that do nothing to improve conditions. The Government is supposed to represent the views of the people. Do the people in the United States feel it is ok to kill women and children?
“ART DOES NOT HURT ” Bob Watt Stop using art to convey hatred.
How did it “art” convey hatred?
There was a statement of fact that people in Gaza are being killed by Netanyahu’s direction of the military forces of Israel.
There is also the statement that of fact that what the Nazi did was “horrible” – killing innocence – women, children, . . .
Where in the “Art” is hatred?
Perhaps the answer is to stop killing and starving – mistreating all people – all humans? Can we treat all people with respect and love?
Again – it may hurt to think of what is happening. I believe it hurts those who see their families killed and torn by bombs (provided by the US, and then there is Representative Fitzgerald). It’s hurt seeing your children without food. It also hurts when there is no respect for you or anything you own.
It hurts the family of a young woman – a United States Citizen – when she is shot in the head.
I am hurt to think that the elected leaders of our country, the United States of America – do nothing – “sort of say” that killing innocence is wrong and then — are they chasing dollars – donations to their political campaign, or do they wonder about what is right?
I really want to understand your position on why you feel that the mural is bad or poorly thought out.
Thank you for taking the time to think about all of this. I wish more in the United States considered where our tax dollars actually go. I wish that they wonder why our national defense costs so much. We have money for aircraft carriers and don’t have money for health care or to take care of the old.
Again – than you…