To Banish the “Levantine Dunghill“ From Within

Toward a Cultural Understanding of Israeli Anti-Iran Phobias

Bibliographic Data

ID8967756
AuthorsHaggai Ram (0000-0003-2515-4711, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume40
Issue2
Pages249-268
Publication date2008-04-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0020743808080537
OpenAlexW2137849516
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited37

Held since 1956, the Eurovision Song Contest is an annual event traditionally dedicated to the eternal themes of love, peace, and harmony. Yet Israelis asked to pick a song for the 2007 contest in Helsinki paid little heed to these themes. Instead, they settled for “Push the Button,” a controversial number by an Israeli punk group called Teapacks; the song is generally understood as a description of life under the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran with its “crazy rulers.” Meanwhile, an Israeli fashion house (Dan Cassidy) commissioned a series of photos at a construction site in southern Tel Aviv that showed a topless model lying in a pit. The project was designed as a warning against the “holocaust” that would follow Iran's possible nuclear attack on Israel; the pit, as the project's creative director explained, represented “the mass grave of complacent Tel Aviv residents.”

Art · CONTEST · Harmony (color · Library science · Media studies · Political science · Sociology · Tel aviv · The Holocaust · Visual arts · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Middle East Politics and Society · Turkey's Politics and Society

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