Yesterday I wrote that Israel’s ambassador to Sweden, Zvi Mazel, who staged a wonderful piece of performance art when he physically shut down an antisemitic exhibit glorifying a suicide bomber, would probably be forced to apologize and resign; well, today I’m happy to report that I was wrong. Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon is backing Mazel all the way.

The artwork depicts a small ship in a rectangular pool filled with red-colored water. The ship carries a picture of Islamic Jihad bomber Hanadi Jaradat, who killed herself and 21 bystanders in an Oct. 4 suicide bombing in Haifa, Israel.

Sharon told a cabinet meeting Sunday he had called Mazel and thanked him “for his strength in dealing with increasing anti-Semitism, and told him that the entire government stands behind him.”

“I think Ambassador Mazel behaved in an appropriate way,” Sharon said. “I think the phenomenon is so serious that it would have been forbidden not to have acted on the spot.”