Press releases
AJC Transatlantic Institute and IMPAC Co-organizers of 7 October Exhibition in the European Parliament Condemn Conduct of MEP Rima Hassan
Brussels– 6 October 2026
IMPAC and AJC Transatlantic Institute, co-organisers of the European Parliament exhibition in Strasbourg honouring the victims of 7 October 2023, “Memory, Dignity and the Duty to Prevent,” unequivocally condemn the conduct of Rima Hassan MEP at the exhibition yesterday afternoon.
The exhibition exists to remember the men, women and children murdered, tortured and taken hostage in the 7 October pogrom, and to affirm a simple duty: that such crimes must not be denied, minimised or repeated. It is a place of memory, not a stage for provocation.
Ms Hassan and an associate spoke with Yaron Bob, an Israeli artist and blacksmith whose work is on display (but not for sale). When he identified himself as being from Israel, Ms Hassan replied that “Israel does not exist.” She and her associate then left.
On their way out, Ms Hassan knocked the flags of the European Union and of Israel to the floor. The flags had been placed in the exhibition only a short time earlier by parliamentary staff. She stepped over both and made no attempt to pick them up. The incident was loud and was witnessed by at least four members of the exhibition team.
To deny the existence of the state whose citizens were massacred, inside an exhibition dedicated to those victims, and then to throw down and walk over the flags of Israel and of the European Union, is an act of calculated contempt. It dishonours the dead, insults the survivors and their families, and traduces the values the European Parliament claims to uphold.
Memory requires dignity. Dignity requires truth. Neither was shown by Rima Hassan yesterday.
Patricia Teitelbaum,
President, IMPAC
Nigel Goodrich,
General Secretary, IMPAC
Benedetta Buttiglione
Director, AJC Transatlantic Institute
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