Boland As Brass

"When Sydney gallery owner Gene Sherman asked an Israeli architecture collective to create a series of tent-like structures to display at her Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation in Paddington, Sydney, she knew the commission would be contentious." (Layers of meaning in canopies from Israel, Michaela Boland, The Australian, 21/8/15)

Contentious, yes, but did she know who'd be reviewing the exhibition for the Murdoch press? Apparently not.

You see, just occasionally a journalist for the Australian has been known to go off-script. The last to do so was their Middle East correspondent, John Lyons, and, to cut a long story short, well, he's no longer their Middle East correspondent. Still, truth will out occasionally, even in the Australian:

"As rockets were raining down on the Gaza Strip last year leaving tens of thousands homeless and killing many others..."

OMG, Michaela Boland's gone way off-script. She's got the rockets raining down bit right, but they're supposed to be Hamas rockets raining down on Israel, FFS, not Israeli rockets raining down on the Gaza Strip!

Poor old Gene Sherman's probably thinking:  'Why the hell did they have to send someone who flunked Zionist Talking Points 101? Couldn't they have sent bloody Greg Sheridan instead?

Pushing on:

"... architects Sack and Reicher + Muller started working out in Tel Aviv how to shape the canopies from greenhouse fabric.

"The resulting curved, airy shelters go on display free to the public at SCAF this week but they should not be construed as a straightforward solution to homelessness, or as a simple show of empathy from behind the barrier to homeless Palestinians."

Homeless Palestinians! Homeless Palestinians?

This Michaela Boland's as bold as brass. Doesn't she give a damn where her bread and butter's coming from? Is this some kind of death-wish? 

 "Sherman is a frequent visitor to Israel where her daughter and grandchildren live. 'Certainly the Palestinians (have been made homeless), the Jews were homeless for thousands of years,' she says."

Again! Will you look at that interpolation! That's Palestinian homelessness twice in the same piece!

Is it Boland or just plain BOLD?

Ah, but Sherman's not taking this lying down:

Notice how she hits back with  the old 'Our homelessness is bigger than their homelessness' line? And then, just for good measure, throws in:

"'The Palestinians are equal contestants for the same land. I support a two-state solution'."