Celebrities on the Angels provoked with badges reminding Israelis of the massacre in Ramallah

The artists’ protest is related to the “Czech artists for ceasefire” petition, which calls on representatives of the Czech Republic “to call for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Gaza and Israel before thousands more people lose their lives”.

Popular names such as Tomáš Klus, Vojtěch Dyk, Bára Basiková, Jana Kirschner and Vladimir 518 appear in the first places in the list of signatories. The text of the petition does not mention what such de-escalation should look like, it only focuses on the description of the catastrophic situation in the Gaza Strip, which it blames exclusively the State of Israel.

Although the petition speaks of condemning the killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians, there is not a single mention in it that the war was started by the terrorist movement Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 17 years. And that with the barbaric massacre in southern Israel, during which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, died last year on October 7.

Hamas has started shelling Israel again. From the humanitarian zone

Near and Middle East

About 250 more people were taken hostage, about 130 remain in captivity, dozens of them are probably dead. The text attributes the high number of civilian casualties during the Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip to the Israelis again, without taking into account the strategy of Hamas to hide behind the civilian population and influence world public opinion precisely by maximizing its own civilian casualties.

As a symbol of their conviction, the artists adopted a badge that had already caused considerable controversy among their American colleagues at the Oscars. According to the American organization Artists4Ceasefire, the orange palm on a red background with a heart in the middle is meant to symbolize the urgency of the call to save lives and support common humanity.

Israelis and Jews in the diaspora, however, immediately recall a photograph from Ramallah from 2000, in which the then 20-year-old Palestinian Aziz Salha leans out of the window of the police station and shows the jubilant crowd on the street his palms completely covered in the blood of two Israeli soldiers who wandered into the place. Salha and other Palestinians brutally lynched the two Israeli youths. They then threw their mutilated bodies to the people below, who dragged them down the street and continued to beat and kick them.

The killer of Salha was later caught and sentenced to life in prison, but he served only a year, as he was one of the prisoners released in exchange for the return of the soldier Gilat Shalit held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“This is what comes to mind for every Israeli and Palestinian when they see a red hand: the lynching of two Israelis by Palestinians in 2000 at a police station. Killers have their hands soaked in the blood of their victims and celebrate their murder. Don’t support this,” Israeli government spokesman Ofir Gendelman told artists on the X network.

The link between the badge and the massacre was also mentioned by the Czech media after the Oscar ceremony, so it is unlikely that the artists at Anděle would not have known about it.

Angel awards were awarded on Saturday evening in Prague’s O2 universum center, this year’s winners were decided by 487 academics. The album of the year award was won by the group’s eponymous recording November 2nd. David Koller and Pam Rabbit became solo performers. The award for composition of the year went to the song Údolí včel by Tomáš Vartecky, which is sung by Anna K on the album of the same name. The group of the year was chosen by academics for the album Jezus Kristus Neexistus? the JAR group, which consists of ten artistic personalities led by Roman Holý and Ota Klempíř. Jiří Korn was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Ban arms sales to Israel, more than 130 British lawmakers write to Cameron

World