The Shurat HaDin Law Center has formally urged the White House to cancel a Smithsonian museum exhibit it labels as “provocative and anti-Israel,” warning that it promotes a narrative sympathetic to terrorism and detrimental to U.S. interests.
In a letter to Vice President JD Vance and other senior U.S. officials, Shurat HaDin President Nitsana Darshan-Leitner criticized the Patterns of Life exhibit, which is currently on display at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. She described it as “emotionally manipulative storytelling using selectively curated data to promote an extremist, anti-American, and anti-Israel agenda under the guise of academic and artistic engagement.”
The exhibit, which explores architecture and conflict in the Middle East, is accused by Shurat HaDin of aligning with pro-Hamas messaging and promoting false claims that "U.S.-backed Israeli operations deliberately targeted civilian homes." The organization argues that the exhibit entirely omits the context of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 massacre of Israeli civilians, which included mass murder, rape, and arson, acts Shurat HaDin describes as domicide that prompted Israel’s military response.
“The display’s refusal to acknowledge Hamas’s classification as a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, its genocidal charter, and its strategy of embedding militants within civilian infrastructure is not only dishonest - it is dangerous,” the letter states.
Shurat HaDin argues that the exhibit directly contradicts President Donald Trump’s executive order from March 27, 2025, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which requires the elimination of government-funded materials that disseminate misinformation and foster hostility against the West and its allies.
The letter also targets the exhibit’s creators, including “data journalist” Mona Chalabi and SITU Research, a group specializing in “visual investigations.” Darshan-Leitner states these contributors are not neutral academics but “ideologically driven actors using design as a weaponized political tool.”
Their involvement, the NGO argues, raises serious concerns about the misuse of a federally supported institution to promote what it characterizes as “hate, inaccuracies, and antisemitism.”
Shurat HaDin urges federal authorities and Smithsonian leadership to shut down the exhibit immediately and enforce the executive order. “There is no place for propaganda that distorts history and emboldens terrorism, especially not in a taxpayer-funded museum,” the letter concludes.
This article was written in collaboration with Shurat HaDin.