Anti-War or Anti-Israel: Another Royal Academy Controversy
Louisa Parker describes two works by Michael Sandle in this year's Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, both of which imply that Hamas and IDF are morally equivalent. Are they art, or propaganda?
It’s easy to be “passionately against war” as Michael Sandle is. What reasonable person isn’t? Like many of his generation, Sandle sees pacifism and non-violence through the lens of the nuclear arms race, the golden age of CND and anti-American sentiment that is motivated by a love for all revolutionary movements—no matter how misguided—and a hatred of capitalism/imperialism. But the world has changed and it is becoming clear that too many western world peaceniks like Sandle (89) have not kept up. They really should speak to diaspora Iranians about the realities of a left/Islamist revolution, or consider the plight of the Yazidis, who genuinely suffered an act of genocide, perpetrated by Islamists in 2014.
Many of Sandle’s past sculptures are beautifully executed and testament to his contribution to the strand of monumental, art-as-memorial that runs through contemporary art.
lynsey.clague
He has been described as “our finest contemporary artist of war”. But in comparison to his sculptural work, the 2024 and 2025 drawings–selected for the Summer shows at the Royal Academy–have the appearance of something made by a 17-year-old A-level Art student trying to impress his friends with edgy artwork and hoping to get an A* from the cool teacher.
Shouting From the Rooftops
There are two drawings in this year's show, the first titled APROPOS TERROR - A PILOT DOESN'T HEAR THE SCREAMS OF THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN HE IS MASSACRING WITH IMPUNITY, and the second, smaller drawing titled TERRORIST VERSUS SMILING MASS MURDERER OF INNOCENTS.
The drawings are shallow, shocking (not in a good way) and shout at their audience in the manner of the obscene placards and slogans that have carried hate to our streets since October 7th, 2023.
Of this willingness to 'shout' Sandle once said:
I am interested in a declamatory art. I remember a tutor at the Slade saying to me "now you are doing art like standing on the rooftop, shouting at the top of your voice." He meant it as a criticism, but I can't see anything wrong with that.
He should have listened to his tutor. His work in this year's summer show debases him, the Royal Academy—indeed all of us.
Anti-Semitism on Repeat
Yet this is not the first time the art establishment has allowed this to happen since the atrocities of October 7th, and for this they should be challenged and held accountable.
Last year Sandle exhibited an equally controversial piece, called THE MASS SLAUGHTER OF DEFENCELESS WOMEN AND CHILDREN IS NOT HOW YOU DERADICALISE GAZA.
Our Fight
Last year's entry by Michael Sandle to the summer show was equally controversial.
And although the RA didn't remove this piece, it did succumb to pressure and remove two other anti-Semitic works, both by young artists.
Jane Prinsley
After last year's furore over these works it seems pertinent to ask what on earth this artist thinks he is doing, what does the RA think it’s doing, and is the provocation less an artistic one and more an anti-Semitic one?
A Recognised Trope
From Sandle’s Gaza drawings it’s hard not to infer that his thinking tallies with centuries old mythology around the nefarious immorality of Jews—a recognised trope of anti-Semitism.
In 2024 the Board of Deputies of British Jews questioned the judgment of allowing clearly anti-Semitic material into the summer exhibition—yet here we are again.
The whole of the British art world is captured by the anti-Israel cult—being Pro-Palestine is practically mandatory—so it is likely that Sandle knows he preaches mainly to the converted. In addition, contemporary left activists think objections to their hate and anger about Israel can be easily dismissed as the knee-jerk reactions of far-right bigots–you know, those uneducated morons who don’t understand the “context”. This self-congratulatory thread has alienated thinking people who are doubting the wisdom of an anti-Israel sentiment that is destroying the integrity of the art world and the left more generally.
The anti-Semitism in Sandle’s current anti-Israel drawings is clear to anyone with working eyes and an understanding of the English language. First there is the now customary blood libel—a classic piece of anti-Semitism—that Jews kill children. And then there are the titles; without these, the drawings would be more ambiguous, even poignant, so Sandle hammers his point home by making the titles part of the work.
Hearing the Screams
Presumably intended to reflect Sandle’s thoughts on mechanised war, the effect of the words APROPOS TERROR - A PILOT DOESN'T HEAR THE SCREAMS OF THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN HE IS MASSACRING WITH IMPUNITY is to impress upon audiences that somehow the Hamas terrorist is more heroic than the IDF pilot because he is prepared to hear the screams of the women and children he massacres with impunity. And in the second drawing, the title TERRORIST VERSUS SMILING MASS MURDERER OF INNOCENTS, equates Hamas with the Israeli Defence Force—an outrageous assertion given the IDF is an army of young conscripts who are all that stands between the annihilation of the only Jewish state and the apocalyptic jihadis that surround it.
In fact, on October 7th those who were smiling and massacring innocents were Hamas, Islamic Jihad and some residents of Gaza. On October 7th they murdered, tortured and abducted over 1200 Jewish children, men and women with smiles, laughter and a level of sadism against Jews not seen since Nazi Germany. Some survivors of the Nova music festival—at which over 340 young party-goers were slaughtered—have even taken their own lives because they could not recover from the trauma of hearing the screams that surrounded them.
Hamas were not only prepared to hear the screams, they wanted to hear them. One was recorded calling his father to boast as he did so. “I’m calling from a Jewish woman’s phone” he said. “I killed her and killed her husband.” “Open your WhatsApp…look how many I killed with my own hands. Your son killed Jews!” Meanwhile the IDF has to try to fight these terrorists while adhering to International Humanitarian Law.
Hamas had access to plenty of weapons that allow them to be as distant as the IDF pilot. In fact they fired 4,300 missiles on October 7th, using schools and hospitals in Gaza as sites for their truck-mounted rocket launchers. They did not need to get as close as they did with their guns, knives, machetes and garden hoes. Hearing (and enjoying) the screaming and smiling while murdering was a conscious choice.
War
War is hell, but we have choices. Don’t start them. If someone starts a war with you, operate within international law and the Geneva Convention or face the consequences. Try to limit civilian casualties or face the wrath of the international community.
The Washington Times https://www.washingtontimes.com
Identify and punish those among you who refuse these rules. Like it or not, the IDF has to play by these rules like any other armed force fighting a war on behalf of its country. Here in the UK we should just be glad that we don’t live in a tiny state surrounded by enemies.
The Western anti-Israel movement believes that Hamas do not and should not need to play by the rules.
Free, free Palestine!
By any means necessary!
Because somehow, regardless of the savagery of Hamas towards the Israeli people (and their own people in Gaza) the state of Israel is held to have moral responsibility for all of Hamas’s actions. Is this the story we want our artists to contribute to? Sandle and the rest of the UK art world need to get out of their bubble and consider whether they want to encourage the spread of blood libel and other anti-Semitic myths.
