By Carlos Latuff

Israel has water for lush lawns and swimming pools while Palestinians die of thirst

Obama's Nobel

Loss Of Innocence: Gaza children's artwork

The paintings show the destruction of apartment blocks, mosques, ambulances and civilians, through the use of helicopters, planes, drones, phosphorous weapons, bulldozers and direct fire from soldiers. The sun, trees, birds and Gaza cry. Gaza sends an SOS and the world simply stands still and looks on. A Dove of Peace, in one painting, sails in a boat over a Desert of Indifference. As a result of Operation Cast Lead over 300 children were killed, many more injured, 1400 children orphaned of at least one parent, 30% of children suffer serious mental health problems and all the children are traumatised. Not surprisingly, the children say that what they dream of for the future is freedom and peace. 
  
The launch of the exhibition took place in the cathedral on Saturday 26th September. The Cathedral Dean welcomed everybody and Professor Victor Merriman from Liverpool

Hope University, gave a remarkable and inspiring keynote speech. Rod Cox guided people around the exhibition adding interesting personal anecdotal material to each painting. A wonderful team of volunteer stewards have patiently watched over the precious paintings from 8am-6pm every day for the duration of the ten-day exhibition.

Hundreds of visitors have now viewed the exhibition. Their comments attest to being profoundly moved and shocked by the children's paintings. Photographs of the paintings in the setting of this magnificent cathedral, the largest cathedral in the UK, will be sent to the children in Gaza so that they can follow the progress of their artwork and know that people are seeing their truth: the truth of the assault. The exhibition has been booked by schools, colleges, conferences and hospitals in the UK where it will continue to do its invaluable work of reaching the hearts and minds of ordinary people.

Anne Candlin

Exhibition Co-ordinator, Liverpool

October 2009

FFI

YouTube movie showing the contents see

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=575N0JRzaIs

Rod Cox has a website with some background information at

http://rodcoxandgaza.blogspot.com/

Currently on show at the Cathedral in Liverpool see

http://www.liverpoolcathedral.org.uk/content/musicandevents/whatson/detail/Loss_of_Innocence__Exhibition__Gaza_childrens_artwork_until_6_Oct_09/371.aspx

http://rodcoxandgaza.blogspot.com

Carlos Latuff's Mother Palestine vs Netanyahula (she's got the key!)

This beautiful short film was produced in the series sponsored by the EU commission on Human Rights.

A must watch clip.

Ben Heine Revisits Banksy

A drawing by Nour Naser from Gaza

A child from Gaza sent us this drawing after the Israeli attack on Gaza. The barbed wire is evident in the drawing that talks of the siege on the city, and the sky is almost blocked by the Israeli planes that are raining on them lots of missiles and fire, while Palestine is bleeding exactly like the injured children who are dying. The faces of the dying children are full of sadness and sorrow, their home has been bombed, yet the Israeli soldier is still firing at them and at the ambulance that came to their rescue.
A picture or a drawing speaks better than a thousand words can.

Romi Elnagar: Art therapy enables children to deal in nonverbal ways with traumatic events in their lives.

Many who work with children who have experienced traumatic events, such as child psychologists, believe it is crucial for children to express their feelings about those events if they are to recover from their suffering.  Art is a way for children to communicate the full range of emotions, and one of the most important ways to express feelings of anger, pain and fear.  Child psychologists have found that art therapy works to enable children to show in nonverbal ways what they have experienced and to deal with traumatic events in their lives.

For example, the organization Darkness to Light, which deals with child sexual abuse, uses art therapy in its work, and says, "Anyone who has experienced psychological trauma may have difficulty expressing their experience directly or effectively in words…Art is a non-threatening way to visually communicate anything that is too painful to put into words." (1)

People working with child survivors of the horrendous civil war in Sierra Leone also used art as part of the healing process.  Children can show in pictures events that are too traumatic to be even brought to the surface of consciousness.  Often, it is only when a child begins to draw that he can even remember what he has suffered, as painful events are brought to consciousness in the pictures he makes.  Elsewhere in Africa, children's drawings of torture, rape and murder have been so detailed and so powerful that they have been used to bring a case in the International Criminal Court against janjaweed groups in Darfur.

I am more concerned, however, with helping children to deal with and overcome their terrible experiences through their art, and in particular, those children who have suffered the devastating and brutal Israeli Occupation of Palestine.

There are some organizations and individuals working on the West Bank and Gaza to help children overcome the traumas caused by seeing the helplessness of parents and caretakers in the face of vicious genocidal oppression, the hopelessness of poverty, starvation and incarceration in Gaza, which has been called the largest open-air prison on the planet and the brutality of daily beatings, violence and murder.  While art therapy cannot be expected to right these wrongs, it may help to make young victims able to achieve a humanity that their oppressors can only envy, if they were even able to comprehend it.

Giving these children in the Occupied Territories and Gaza the tools to show what they have witnessed furthermore enables adults in their lives to understand and to validate their experiences.  Artistic expression can nurture dignity and self-respect when individuals feel powerless in the face of oppression and violence.  Helping children to regain a lost sense of safety and peace is what art therapy is all about, for Palestinian children and for the young victims of war, genocide and oppression everywhere.

These are the goals of organizations like the Palestinian Child Arts Center in Hebron, and Hope and Play.org (a British organization that works with refugee children worldwide).  Another organization, the Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts in Lebanon (al-Jana)  says, "…the belief of Al-Jana [is] that the challenges that face these so called "marginalized communities" have enriched their existence and as such have contributed to a stronger sense of community building; creative problem solving; and communal initiative and resiliency. Their vibrant culture reflects this resourcefulness and deep human spirit." (2)

In Jenin, a Freedom Theater provides a refuge for children from a world of Israeli raids and harrassment.  The director of the theator, Juliano Khamis, says, "Art cannot free you from your chains, but art can generate and mobilize discourse of freedom.  Art can create debate. Art can expose."  (3)

Most of all, children's art can expose the ordeals they have suffered, and by doing so, pave the way for healing.

(1) http://www.darknesstolight.org/KnowAbout/articles_art_therapy.asp
(2) http://www.al-jana.org/thome.htm
(3) http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/general/2008/09/20089513844349738.html

Romi Elnagar is a Palestinian Mothers’ Network Member, retired elementary schoolteacher with master's in art education

Cartoon by Apicella: Gaza "The Boy Without Pajamas" …And without food, water, electricity, medicine.

Years pass, and nothing changes. Here is a cartoon from 2004:

What's left to negotiate about?

A Palestinian looks at the three Sharon conditions for negotiations:

- No to the right of return for Palestine refugees

- No to Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital

- No to the evacuation of the Israeli illegal settlements in the West Bank

(Nasser Al-Ja'afari, Alquds, 12/18/04).

by the indomitable Mr Fish