Having lived in Israel for over three years, something that I have yet to come to terms with is the desire on the part of many Israelis to undermine the government’s attempts to protect them. Reader Chris L. has drawn my attention to yet another example of this.
An Israeli fashion house plans to shoot its summer catalog at Israel’s West Bank security barrier this week, the company said Monday, less than a week after troops shot dead two Palestinians protesting the network of walls, wire and ditches.
A statement from the fashion house, Comme-il-faut, said the one-day shoot Wednesday would take place at a section of the barrier on the edge of Jerusalem “for the purpose of creating a dialogue around boundaries.”
The statement said the event would contrast beauty, femininity and fashion with a “concrete wall of insult, ugliness and humiliation.”
Israel says it needs the barrier to prevent suicide bombers and other attackers from entering its towns and cities. Last Thursday two Palestinian protesters were shot dead by Israeli forces not far from the site the company picked to send its models and photographers.
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Comme-il-faut got its summer catalog idea from students at a Jerusalem design school doing a course on the use of ideology in advertising. They came up with the concept of fashion on the fence, with the slogan, “women cross boundaries.”
The fashion firm’s CEO, Sybil Goldfiner, said the project reflects Comme-il-faut’s feminist agenda. Asked by The Associated Press if she was concerned that Wednesday’s front line fashion fest could be seen as trivializing a deadly serious issue, she responded: “You’re a man, you wouldn’t understand.”
Comme-il-faut’s website states their vision as “To create a space forged of love…to be like a home where each woman will feel unique, equal in every way and where she can believe in her true potential.” I wonder what these women would say about that.
Talk about “insult, ugliness and humiliation”.
But what would I know – I am only a man.
