How can an artist create an exhibit about terrorism and say it isn’t political? To claim that there is no political implication involved in an exhibit displaying “the effects of terrorism on civilian populations” seems definitely inconsistent.

The X-Ray Exhibit is a display of x-rays taken of victims of suicide-bombings and terrorist attacks from two hospitals in Jerusalem. Given the intense violence that has raged between Israel and Palestine for more than 60 years, for someone to only represent the victims from hospitals in Jerusalem, seems to strongly sympathize with one group, while disregarding the suffering of the other group.

On the official Web site of the X-ray Project, the artist writes, “All of these images are the by-products of terrorism, which is a war on a civilian population.” Nobody is trying to deny that a person who murders civilians is a terrorist, or that attacking civilian populations is wrong. However, anyone who has examined the violence between Israel and Palestine in some depth will realize that there have been civilian fatalities on both sides, except with a significantly higher death toll for Palestinians. The Palestinian attacks have been carried out with low-grade, out-dated weapons, while the Israeli Defense Forces is a professionally-trained military machine, heavily armed with the most technologically advanced weapons.

The core problem with this exhibit is: Whether an attack on civilians is carried out by a single person with bombs strapped to their chest, or the attack on civilians is carried out by a professionally-trained army using high-tech weaponry – Is the act still not terrorism?

The X-ray Project utterly fails to explore the root of the issue; Why do people suicide-bomb? What drives a person to choose to strap bombs to their own body? What kind of grief did this human being suffer through? How many loved ones did this person lose to reach this point of desperation? In order to explore the issue of terrorism to its fullest, these are the questions that need to be asked and answered.

If you claim to promote ideas of peace, you need to recognize that there are human beings on both sides. If you don’t give recognition to victims of both sides, you aren’t looking for peace. Imagine how much stronger and more positive the message of the exhibit would have been, if it had displayed both the Israeli and the Palestinian victims of terror.