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Museum blames Palestinians for years of violence

Osama bin Laden memorabilia forms part of the display at the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center near Tel Aviv on Wednesday. PHOTO: AP

A new Israeli exhibit gives visitors a disturbing view of nearly four years of violence with the Palestinians: a female mannequin strapped with an explosives belt alongside piles of confiscated weapons and documents showing how Palestinian militant groups operate.

The display, with grisly scenes of terror attacks and documents purporting to show that Palestinian officials are involved in violence, is a new element in an Israeli effort to fix the blame for nearly four years of conflict on the Palestinians.

Palestinians, who blame Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and harsh military measures for the bloodshed, denounce the display, saying it will only create more animosity.

The originator of the museum at the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, which opened this month next to an army base just outside Tel Aviv, says the exhibit shows that support for the militants runs deep throughout Palestinian society.

"The goal is to try to present the terror, the society that supports terror, as they are expressed in these documents and the weapons that were found" in Israeli army operations, said Reuven Ehrlich, a retired colonel in Israeli military intelligence, founder and director of the center.

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat charged that the exhibition would not help foster understanding between the sides.

"Such actions of demonizing the other and scoring points and pointing fingers and turning the other side into evil will only add to the suffering of people," Erekat said.

The exhibit, packed into two crowded rooms, is not meant to be pleasant.

In one corner, a light flashes on a wall covered with a picture of the aftermath of a suicide bombing in an Israeli shopping mall in May 2001, when five Israelis were killed. In the center of the debris covering a sidewalk lies a leg attached to a charred torso.

Nearby, a mannequin dressed as a Palestinian woman has a fake explosives belt strapped around her waist, laced with bolts to increase the lethal effect.

Across the room, Palestinian school notebooks full of praise for suicide bombers and colorful drawings of M-16 assault rifles fill a display case.

A battery-operated Saddam Hussein doll jumps into action, waving a gun in the air. Before he was overthrown, Saddam sent money to families of Palestinians killed in the conflict, including suicide bombers. A doll of Osama bin Laden is also featured, along with items like cigarette lighters decorated with his image, common in the West Bank and Gaza.

One wall is covered with official Palestinian maps with "Palestine" written over the area where Israel is located. On another wall, recordings of Palestinian TV broadcasts show Muslim clerics calling for expulsion of the Jews.

The center hands out free postcards showing a bombed bus with a severed, bloody limb next to a shattered body. The museum library offers 15,000 books in English and Hebrew and dozens of films about terrorism.

Ehrlich said he came up with the idea for the exhibition in 2002, when Israel completed a raid in the West Bank town of Jenin, in retaliation for a suicide bombing.

Israeli forces confiscated hun-dreds of thousands of documents showing ties between violent groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian Authority, Ehrlich said. Palestinian officials deny such ties.

Instead of letting the documents gather dust in warehouses, Ehrlich proposed that they be put on display.

The only soft side of the exhibit is a display of ceramic plates painted with roses, outstretched hands and barbed wire. The explanation card nearby tells of how Palestinian inmates in Israeli jails decorated the plates out of longing for their mothers.
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