(JTA) — A public university in Spain dismantled an exhibition that attributed false quotes about killing Palestinian children to Ariel Sharon.
Following complaints from Spain’s Jewish community, the exposition in the economics department of the Autonomous University of Madrid was dismantled last week.
The Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain, or FCJE, complained to the university’s administration that the display was “incompatible with academic principles,” an FCJE spokesman told JTA on Wednesday.
The exhibition featured a number of posters, including one with an undated quote attributed to Sharon, Israel’s late prime minister.
“I don’t recognize such a thing called international principles,” the poster quoted Sharon as saying. “I swear I will burn every Palestinian child who could be born in this area. The Palestinian woman and child are much more dangerous than the man. Because the existence of a Palestinian child ensures future generations while the man causes more limited damage.”
The FCJE spokesman told JTA that it was particularly disturbing that “this exposition of falsehoods under a pedagogic pretense” was being held with taxpayers’ money.
The posters carried the logo of the nongovernmental organization Solidarity for Development and Peace, or Sodepaz, which in recent years has received frequent funding that comes from the Spanish Foreign Ministry.
Another poster at the exhibition showed a map of Israel emblazoned with the words “Israel = aggression” and a swastika connecting four red arrows pointing from Israel’s territory outward, ostensibly to suggest expansionism.
The university did not immediately reply to questions about faculty and administration involvement in the exposition.
