UN peace exhibit features slogan calling for Israel to be wiped off the map: 'Shameful'

FIRST ON FOX - A Global Peace Flag exhibit at the United Nations New York City headquarters features a slogan that many Israelis regard as an explicit call to wipe Israel off the map. 

The picture shows a map of Israel, resembling a watermelon, without any West Bank or Gaza partition. In the top right-hand corner is the Palestinian flag. 

The left side of the map contains the phrase "From the River to the Sea" and the right side contains the phrase, "Will be Free." It is an obvious nod to the phrase, "From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free."

Supporters of Palestinians maintain that the phrase is merely a slogan to represent the Palestinian struggle against the State of Israel, which they see as an occupying force. 

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Israelis, meanwhile, regard the phrase as an explicit call to genocide, a call for Israel to be wiped off the map completely. 

The phrase has gained a resurgence since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, in which nearly 1,200 Israelis were killed and hundreds more were taken hostage. 

The phrase was widely used during protests that swept college campuses in the spring. 

As of November 4, 2023, around 100 hostages are still believed to be in captivity in Gaza. 

The UN's Global Peace Flag exhibit contains no explicit call for the hostages to be released. Nor do any messages condemn Hamas, or the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets into Northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas for over a year. 

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"This appalling display is front and center at the UN, and included art that unambiguously calls for the destruction of the Jewish people and the State of Israel," Jonathan Harounoff, the international spokesperson for Israel's Mission to the UN, said in a statement. 

Danny Danon, Israel's permanent representative to the UN, called the display a "disgrace" and "shameful" and demanded that the UN remove it. 

"Look at the drawings of children from all around the world," Danon said in a video posted on X. "Nothing about Israel. Nothing about our hostages. Look what they have. They don't recognize Israel. They promote hate in those drawings. That is shameful. This is part of the hypocrisy of the United Nations. I demand that the UN will remove this exhibit immediately and will stop the hypocrisy against Israel." 

A UN spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the "Peace Flags" exhibit was compiled by a fashion designer who asked students and other people from around the world to send messages of peace on fabric scraps "as a way to repurpose fashion waste for positive impact." 

The spokesperson said UN staff, upon installation, informed the exhibit's sponsor, SDG Action Campaign, that several panels "could not be displayed." Among these were the panel that said, "From the River to the Sea." 

"Those panels in the quilts [were] covered with square cloth in agreement with the organizer in the second week of October. Earlier last week, someone removed those covers. Our colleagues covered it twice last week and were planning to do the same today upon learning that it was uncovered again," the spokesperson said. "We have alerted UN Security to the continued unauthorized interference in the exhibit and to review security footage to find out who is responsible."