Palestine Activist Marxists Gaslight the Art Scene
Will a "Palestine" supporter ever be honest?
Please refer to this gaslit article:
“Christie’s Pulled Two Works by a Prominent Middle Eastern Artist From Sale After a Complaint”:
https://news.artnet.com/market/christies-ayman-baalbaki-sale-2389182
The gaslight that immediately stood out in the above article is this section (bolding added for emphasis):
“The consignor believes the paintings were removed due to a misunderstanding over the works’ subject matter, relating it to “Islamist extremism” during the present Israel-Hamas war. The portraits could mistakenly appear to depict Islamic resistance fighters or terrorists to anyone unfamiliar with the history of the region.
The first, formerly lot 3, is Al Moulatham, which is a 200 by 150 cm painting executed in 2012 that was catalogued with an estimate of $98,000–$150,000. It depicts the portrait of a man wrapped in a white and red checkered keffiyeh, the traditional headdress worn by men throughout the Arab world to protect against the sun, sand and dust in hot and arid climates.
The keffiyeh has been worn since before Islam across the Middle East and North Africa by Arab men and Iraqi Turkmen, Kurds and Yazidis. Over the last few decades, the checkered black or red headdress has been used also as a symbol of Palestinian resistance. Conversely, in the west it has also garnered an association with Islamist extremism and terror. Against this backdrop, the red checks of the headdress, rendered in Baalbaki’s painterly style, might cause some viewers to confuse them with blood stains.
“These are the double-standards that we are dealing with are dealing with these days,” added the consignor, who is of Middle Eastern descent.
Al-moulatham, which stems from the Arabic word litham, means a mouth-veil or face covering used often by nomadic men in the Arab world and North Africa. The work is part of a series of portraits Baalbaki made depicting Fida’i meaning “freedom fighters” in Arabic.”
These are some examples of the images that were removed:
The above text suggests that someone who is merely uninformed about the Middle East might confuse the red and white possibly with blood stains and that was obviously the issue, right?
The consignor seems to conveniently forget to mention that the red and white keffiyeh as well as the black balaclava worn with a red headband with white text is also associated with some very extremist militant Palestinian marxists.
Although it is not universally accepted, it is widely believed that the colors of the stitching in a keffiyeh are associated with politics.
The traditional black and white keffiyehs are believed to have been associated with Fatah, whereas the red and white were adopted by Palestinian marxists.
One example:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Front_for_the_Liberation_of_Palestine
To suggest that these paintings were removed because the people viewing them were so stupid that they simply thought they were blood stains is insulting. They are clearly pro-terrorist paintings glorifying people in the uniforms of the PFLP, who erroneously call themselves “freedom fighters”.
To try and confuse the issue by saying that the paintings had to do with the Lebanon war, shows that the consignor knows how to manipulate media interviews by using keywords to confuse the internet algorithms.
Rather than outright using the word Palestine or Palestinian, they mention another Arab country, Lebanon and hope that that throws off anybody that's searching for specifically Palestinian militants, hoping that people don't realize that the Palestinian militants were some of the primary belligerents in the Lebanon war that they are referring to.
See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_insurgency_in_South_Lebanon
It's not that anyone had poor vision or didn't recognize the painting style and thought that the red checkered keffiyeh was blood stained, the issue is that there are REAL blood stains associated with the symbolism in the paintings.
During the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, the PFLP's Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades published videos of it storming Israeli watchtowers.
Some additional background:
https://www.dni.gov/nctc/ftos/pflp_fto.html
From the above article:
(PALESTINIAN MARXISTS) NOTABLE ATTACKS:
23 AUGUST 2019
Dolev, Palestinian Territories
A PLFP cell detonates an explosive device near an Israeli settlement, killing a 17-year-old girl and wounding her father and brother
18 NOVEMBER 2014
Jerusalem, Israel
Two PFLP-affiliated Palestinians attack Israeli worshippers in a synagogue with guns, knives, and axes, killing five—including three Americans—and injuring 12
17 OCTOBER 2001
Jerusalem, Israel
Two PFLP gunmen assassinate Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi in a hotel in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike that killed then PFLP leader Abu Ali Mustafa
4 JULY 1976
Entebbe, Uganda
A PFLP splinter group and German Red Army faction members hijack an Air France flight bound for Tel Aviv and land the plane in Entebbe, Uganda, where Israeli commandos later free nearly 100 hostages
30 MAY 1972
Tel Aviv, Israel
PFLP and Japanese Red Army faction gunmen murder two dozen passengers at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport International Airport
Yes people saw blood stains on those paintings all right, but it wasn't a mistake….