Let's talk
But not about ethnic cleansing
Forget Dier Yassin
Don't speak of apartheid
Or the destruction of Jennin
Be blind to the pain in Gaza
The hunger, the disease
The rubble, the fires
The uprooted trees
Sewerage floods and darkness
Drones and the Siege
Most of all
DON'T MENTION THE RIGHTS OF REFUGEES
When we talk

Let's talk
Let our words float in the air
Devoid of meaning or clarity
We'll establish our own facts on the ground
And you will be paid your salary
Never before has talking of peace
Caused so much damage and agony
Yet still we talk

So let's talk
let's negotiate
We can have a conference, a summit, a debate
A multifaith dialogue to eliminate hate
We'll shake hands and smile
And make the six o'clock news
For supporting the peace process
Between Arabs and Jews
And we will only talk
http://www.bdsmovement.net/?q=node/68

Take action: Support the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)

Maybe it’s because I’m a numbers guy
Because if I had a dollar for every time an Iraqi died since 2003 
I’d be a millionaire

And don’t get me wrong
Sometimes I don’t know who I hate more
The governments in the West 
Or the politicians in the East
Who sell their souls quicker than the oil they export
Straw men who use Palestine as a tool to line their pockets
And don’t give a nickel to their people
Quisling governments
Who stitch mouths shut for a check from Washington and AIPAC
How can you be their prototypical anti-Semite
If you are signing peace accords to oppress your own people?

And then Orientalists and idiots talk about how 
We can’t have democracy in the Middle East 
Because of what happened in Gaza
A Hamas boogyman wrapped in democratic elections 
Rahm Emanuel wants to educate me and my people about democracy gone wrong
Why doesn’t he try implementing one in Israel first?
Instead of bowing down to terrorists like his father and the IDF
Lauding a third rate, racist, European society that’s imploding quicker
Than its moral standing in the world
Enlightened like 1950s Afrikaners and slave traders
Just because the house is beautiful
Doesn’t mean the bones you built it on have fully decomposed

The Israeli left is about as alive as Ariel Sharon
I’m sick and tired of asking for permission to resist
From antiquated leftists and progressives
Who care more about keeping it Kosher than moving things forward
I put down my pen and waving fist to resist with college kids and Palestinians
Boycott and divest!
Because who cares about preserving a living when governments are killing civilians
Complicity by silence and reserve units bombing Gaza
Your academics and scholars, theater groups and practitioners, are part of the problem

And if logic doesn’t fit into your long term plan of rejecting
My right to return, I’m sorry
Maybe one day you’ll return to reality
Where my people have babies quicker 
Than Zionists can concoct Jordanian options 

I don’t want your sympathy or introspective confessions
Won’t sit on my hands till they loose oxygen
Like the people of Balata and Rafah
Vote for Barack Obama
And pretend that his 22 day silence was golden
While emaciated children starved to death
Surrounded by their parent’s corpses

This can’t be America the Beautiful
A criminal with a few positive attributes
Doesn’t alleviate genocide
Bombing Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq
Into oblivion doesn’t make you historic
It makes you as blind and bloodthirsty 
As the white men that came before you
Apathetic hipsters now excited about a president
Who broke history, but not poverty, occupation, or corporate interests

I’d rather proudly walk through the graveyard of peace accords 
And failed dialogue sessions
Than see my people just as occupied or third class citizens
We are the gavel that will slam down like a verdict
We are not waiting for Israel or America or the Supreme Court to approve it
We’ll boycott Lev Leviev, Caterpillar and your apartheid companies
We’re taking back the right of return and the keys to a country 
Because we never asked you to go back to Europe or sit in open air prisons
I’m not asking for your advice, I’m explaining the decision
You can stay here, with us, but only as equals
It’s not that you’re Israeli, it’s that you’re wrong
That’s why I fight for my people!

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

A must watch clip.

The time has come, the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing wax—
Of cabbages—and kings…      (

These kleptocrats throw themselves at the feet
of Western plutocracies: they spurn 

the real source of power – their own people –
seeking clientage under Western boots.

Lesser rogues gravitate to bigger ones:
this is the law of global hegemony. 

This tendency emerges again and again
as long as its victims stay hidebound. 

These lesser rogues – Zardari, Karzai,
Abdullah, Mubarak, Abbas – 

will get their marching orders from DC,
hold down their own people for a fee, 

unless the people, every one of them,
pick up their shoes, sandals, chappals 

(any old footwear will do),
and point them at these scoundrels, 

a shot across the bow of their kleptocracies.
If this does not work (and it might not), 

ask the shoe-throwing Iraqi.
He knew better what to do with a shoe. 

M. Shahid Alam teaches economics at Northeastern University. He is author of Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism (Palgrave Macmillan, November 2009). He may be reached at alqalam02760@yahoo.com

Author's note: This article was started and mostly completed in December 2008. Then the Israeli massacre in Gaza intervened, followed by an intensification of organizing efforts for the Batsheva Dance Company protests After that, it gathered dust in the Drafts folder while I moved cross-country. An extended, remix version of "People Not Places" was just dubbed "Greatest Hip-Hop Song for Palestine Ever" by blogger Will on Kabobfest. The text that appears below is substantially the same as the one completed last December.

Recently, I got an e-mail from someone about a Jewish Israeli-American rapper who uses the stage name, "Invincible" (pictured at left). The message was a forward of an e-mail from the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) promoting Invincible's song, "People Not Places." One of IJAN's points of unity is "Challenging the privileging of Jewish voices in conversations and negotiations about Palestine." It is, at least partly, in this spirit that I proceed.

So, I listened to the song and read the lyrics. My first impression was of appropriation of Palestinian culture even though Invincible is not entirely insensitive to the issue of "Erasing the culture." It is said that imitation is the highest form of flattery but I wonder. There is a harmful, ongoing process of Jewish appropriation of Arab culture–"theft" is what some people call it.

For example, Israeli linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann says "Modern Hebrew" is "a semi-engineered Semito-European hybrid language." He continues, "The formation of so-called 'Israeli Hebrew' … was facilitated at the end of the nineteenth century by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda … to further the Zionist cause. … it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that the language was first spoken." Some words for this new language were simply invented but others were adapted or lifted from Arabic.

Consider sabr, the English transliteration of the Arabic name for the prickly pear cactus. As Farsoun and Zacharia, authors of Palestine and the Palestinians, note:

The prickly cactus bush called the sabr became a national symbol because it dots Palestine, marking the areas of destroyed villages. In Palestinian folklore it is known as a symbol of patience and perseverance. Like the enduring cactus, the Palestinians remained steadfast (samedoun or samedin) in their struggle despite great pressures threatening to separate and destroy the people's relationship with their land and cultural heritage.

To many Jews, though, the sabra (Hebrew for the same plant) is a metaphor for the idealized, tough Israeli-born Jew.

On food, Jana Gur writes:

The Zionist enterprise brought to Israel Jews from all over the world, each carrying memories of food they grew up on. At first, the ethos was rejection of everything that reeked of Diaspora and an eager, almost childish, embrace of the Levant. The infatuation with falafel and hummus, staples of Arabic cuisine, started there. … While not a single Israeli will claim that this chickpea and tahini concoction [hummus] is anything but Arabic, the status it has reached in Israel is unprecedented anywhere in the Middle East.

Gur's "not a single Israeli" remark is, perhaps, not so easy to sustain (see here and here). Or see the web site of Sabra Hummus (yes, that "sabra") where hummus is referred to as a "Mediterranean" food. (An Israeli company, the Strauss Group, owns a 50% stake in the company that makes Sabra Hummus and, therefore, Sabra Hummus is being boycotted by people of conscience).

In the aptly titled "Culinary Zionism: an ingathering of the edibles," Eythan-David Volcot-Freeman writes:

When asked to define "Israeli food," Diaspora Jews invariably point to hummus, falafel ["Israel's national snack"], and shawarma. … Presented with the same query, a sabra (native-born Israeli) would likely describe a typical Israeli meal featuring Middle Eastern hummus as a starter … The early halutzim (settlers) found inspiration in their Arab neighbors, whose lifestyle recalled that of the biblical Hebrews. Shawarma, falafel and hummus soon became "sabra" foods.

And here is a passage from "The Jewish Keffyieh":

"I hate the idea" confesses Hasan Nusseibeh, 27, a teacher at Al-Quds University. "They stole our land I guess it’s normal that they steal our Keffiyeh too", comments his little sister Sahar, a student. Their brother Munir reminds that this country dress is part of the culture of the region and that "Israelis are looking for new bonds with this ground". He believes that the "keffiyeh" is only another "effort" they're making in this sense. This young lawyer then enumerates the previous cases of cultural appropriation: traditional dress and embroidery, falafel and hummous. "Soon they'll claim that the Konafa (Arabic pastry) is Jewish!" jokes Ma'moun M. Kassem, responsible for an Italian NGO, who accuses Israelis of being "arrogant" and "thieves".

Pictured at the left is Naji al-Ali's character "Handala" in front of prickly pear cacti. Handala and the key he holds are symbols of the Palestinian refugee right of return. This particular image comes from a mural design for display at San Francisco State University. The mural was held hostage to the demands of Zionists that Handala and the key be removed and so they were.

Overall, Invincible's rap song "People Not Places" calls to mind Edward Said's critique of Orientalism–"A Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient." Here, we have Invincible, an Israeli-American Jew, using a primarily Black spoken word form with the backing of an Arab instrumental track to speak out about the Palestinian Nakba or catastrophe.

In Orientalism, Gustave Flaubert's representation of an Egyptian dancer stage-named Kuchuk Hanem is described by Said: "she never spoke of herself, she never represented her emotions, presence, or history. He [Flaubert] spoke for and represented her." Have things changed so much since Flaubert's time?

Today, the Palestinian voice or 'cause' is frequently mediated through or represented by Jews like Invincible, Ora Wise, Anna Baltzer, Norman Finkelstein, Jeff Halper, Noam Chomsky, Joel Kovel, Michael Lerner, Gila Svirsky, Phyllis Bennis, Susan Nathan, Marc Ellis, Hannah Mermelstein, Daniel Barenboim, Uri Avnery, Mitchell Plitnick, David Wesley, etc. (on mainstream representations of Arabs/Muslims by the predominantly Jewish Hollywood, even by Jewish actors, see "Planet of the Arabs").

The problem is twofold: First, these folks don't typically content themselves with bringing their message to primarily Jewish audiences; rather, they crowd out Palestinian and other non-Jewish voices–they disproportionately occupy the finite social space devoted to 'Israel-Palestine.' And, thus, they enable–inadvertently or not–others who are uncomfortable having Arabs represent themselves. One result is a self-fulfilling prophecy I've personally heard too often: "People won't come to hear Arabs."

Commenting on an earlier draft of this section, a friend wrote "… its high time that more anti-Zionist Jews should step up to the plate. We always hear about the deep moral failings of 'the good Germans' of the Nazi era: where are all 'the good Jews'?" The "good German" is, of course, a trope for Germans who did not oppose the Nazis in the 1930s and 40s. My reply is yes, but the "good Germans" should have been working on/against other Germans not explaining to the French or Swedes that "we're really good people and not all Germans support the Reich's occupation policies." And, certainly, the "good Germans" should not have been displacing Roma/Sinti, Poles, Jews, and other victims of the Nazis and lecturing them and their allies on the 'proper,' philo-Teutonic way to oppose the Nazis.

Frankly, there is something perverse about the prominence in the US Palestinian solidarity movement of so many people who hail from and identify with the oppressor group, especially when one considers that Jews comprise less than two percent of the US population. Do/should we allow male "allies" to so dominate the discourse on sexism? How about White "allies" controlling discussion of anti-Black racism? I know of only one historical parallel and that is the early American anti-slavery movement. Dominated by Whites, it was conservative, reformist rather than abolitionist, segregationist, and had no room in it for the likes of articulate former slaves such as Frederick Douglass or Sojourner Truth. Needless to say, it was largely counterproductive and racist, too.

The second problem is that their presence and prominence allow Jews to strongly influence the agenda and the parameters of 'acceptable' discourse. This often, but not always, means a focus on the occupation of 1967 but not the occupation of 1948, a reiteration of the narrative of Jewish victimhood and the crucial importance of combating 'anti-Semitism', support for the "two-state solution," and a blackout of the BDS campaign. This is understandable as we are all creatures of our own backgrounds and experiences but it is not excusable. To paraphrase Said: For a Jew working on Israel-Palestine there can be no disclaiming the main circumstances of her actuality: that she comes up against Palestine as a Jew first, as an individual second. And to be a Jew in such a situation is by no means an inert fact.

Let us now examine Invincible's lyrics. In the first verse she says:

museum of the holocaust
walkin outside- in the distance-saw a ghost throwing a Molotov
houses burnt with kerosene-mass graves-couldn't bare the scene
it wasn't a pogrom-it was the ruins of Deir Yassin

Prior to this she contrasts "a land without a people for people without a land?" with "But I see a man standing with a key and a deed in his hand". It is clear that she means to expose hypocrisy by contrasting Yad Vashem with the massacre at Deir Yassin but why is it that a pogrom is not a pogrom if it happens to Arabs? As a rapper, words are her medium. Can it be that she does not know that "pogrom," usually applied to attacks on Jews, can also refer to attacks on non-Jews? Even former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert referred to Jewish violence against Arabs as a "pogrom." And since when are rappers bound by linguistic convention? If that is the issue then why not smash that Judeo-centric convention and liberate the word? If that was Invincible's actual intent then it is by no means obvious.

And why is it that the 1933-1945 pogrom(s) detailed in Yad Vashem are implicitly bearable/'bareable'(?) but the pogrom of 1948 against Arabs in Deir Yassin is not? Is it because Jews were the perps just three years after the end of WW II? And as one of my Arab sisters pointed out "ghost throwing a Molotov" is obscure. Why is that? Who's throwing Molotov cocktails at whom? Is all this, as Edward Said put it in "Zionism from the Standpoint of its Victims," some expression of discomfort with "treading upon the highly sensitive ground of what Jews did to their victims"?

Invincible begins the chorus with "my Ima misses people not places". Invincible's "Ima" (Hebrew for mother) is not unknown to me. Although her mother, Tamar, lives in the US now, she is a determined Israeli nationalist who does not shrink from interjecting her opinion at Palestinian solidarity events to support Israel and the "two-state solution" to permanently lock-in the violent theft by Jews of 78% of Palestine in 1947-48.

In an interview last Summer, Invincible said, "Recently my mom took a trip back home and her sister kicked her out of the house for protesting the Wall." But her mom is not above getting her own licks in. Just last month she chastised me for quoting Palestinians who dare to refer to "Israeli apartheid" and said that Palestinian calls for cultural and academic boycotts of Israel are "wrong." Further, Tamar, is a member of a Zionist synagogue that poses it's children with armed Israeli soldiers and supports a rabbi who gave a justification for torture from the bima.

So, Invincible's Ima seems pretty committed to Israel as a Jewish place even if she doesn't "miss" it. It is clear that Invincible does not let her mother's remark go unchallenged. As she (and Abeer) indicates, the places and the people cannot be so easily disconnected. But, perhaps, one lesson of this is that Invincible should consider focusing even more exclusively on challenging Zionism within the nerve center of Zionism–the Jewish community.

Certainly, as Israeli Jew, she potentially has entree to the Jewish community that few, if any, non-Jews, esp. Arabs, could hope to achieve. Anti-Zionist Jews can't expect gilded invitations from the Jewish mainstream but there are plenty of Jewish communal events to infiltrate and quietly subvert or to protest and disrupt. No doubt this, in part, explains her connection with the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network but the organization appears afflicted by many of the shortcomings discussed by Gilad Atzmon concerning a not dissimilar Jewish group (see Atzmon's "'NOT IN MY NAME'  An analysis of Jewish righteousness").

Invincible, again in the chorus, tells us "You'll never be a peaceful state with legal displacement." True enough but why not openly and forthrightly interrogate the very "legality" of this "displacement" when in fact all of it violated international law whatever Israeli law may say? "You'll never be a peaceful state with phony legal displacement" works, doesn't it? Also, the implication is that the state will be peaceful when the displacement ends but how realistic or desirable is it that "Israel" would continue to exist if Palestinians were allowed to return?

In the second verse, Invincible tells us:

This aint about a Quaran or a synagogue or Mosque or Torah
The colonizer break it into acres and dunums

This denial of religious motivations in invading and occupying Palestine comes just a few lines after Invincible acknowledges performing a profoundly religious act at one of the most important sites in Judaism:

At the wailing wall I’m rollin a wish
Then stick it in between the hole in the bricks

Although in recent decades Islam has become more prominent as an important ideology in organizing the resistance of Jewish occupations of Lebanon and Palestine (Hizbullah and Hamas were both founded in the 1980s), it is true that–on the part of Palestinians–the conflict in Palestine is not mainly about religion. In "Zionism from the Standpoint of its Victims," Edward Said notes, "… Jewish colonizers in Palestine (well before World War I) always met with unmistakable native resistance, not because the natives thought that Jews were evil, but because most natives do not take kindly to having their territory settled by foreigners."

Conversely, the Zionist invasion and occupation of Palestine is very much "about" synagogue and Torah. "The colonizer" who broke it "into acres and dunums" was a Jewish colonizer on a self-consciously Jewish mission to suppress or remove non-Jews in order to build a Jewish country. As with the Molotov thrower discussed above, Invincible obscures the identity of the "colonizer"–the power of naming is foregone. This is a pattern Invincible repeats in the third verse:

200 year old Olive trees uprooted the groves
to build a wall now Their future enclosed

Who uprooted those groves? Who built that wall? Again, the power of naming is kept in check.

The 'secular Zionism' fairy tale is one that distracts folks from, as Ludwig von Mises put it, "the ideology that generates war"–in this case, Judaism. As noted elsewhere, in The Jewish State, Theodor Herzl, the key figure of modern political Zionism, claimed, "we [Jews] feel our historic affinity only through the faith of our fathers …" and the Jewish "Faith unites us." In The Origins of Zionism, David Vital writes "characteristically, on the day [in 1897] before the [first Zionist] Congress opened, a Saturday, Herzl attended the morning service at the local synagogue and was duly honoured by being called to the reading of the Law …" (p. 355). Also, Herzl described the reaction of his "only spiritual mentor and intimate confidant," the Chief Rabbi of Vienna, Moritz Guedemann, to Herzl's book, The Jewish State, as follows: "Guedemann has read the first proofs and writes me in rapture. He believes that the tract will strike like a bombshell, and work wonders."

And as the Chief Rabbi of Britain, Hermann Adler, said in a sermon published in the Jewish Chronicle in 1898: "Every believing and conforming Israelite must be Zionist …" Adler's successor, Hertz, gave a clear and strong religious imprimatur to the infamous Balfour Declaration before its issuance. After a visit to Palestine in 1925, Chief Rabbi Hertz affirmatively described Jewish colonization there as follows: "Religious zealots and fanatic free-thinkers alike rejoice in the redemption of the soil by Jewish labor, and look upon it as the holiest of human duties." In 1967, the immediate past Chief Rabbi of Britain, Immanuel Jakobovits, called "upon the Anglo-Jewish community to mobilise all its resources in the defence of Israel" which had just launched the Six-Day War. In 1977, Jakobovits wrote:

The origins of the Zionist idea are of course entirely religious. The slogan "The Bible is our mandate" is a credo hardly less insistently pleaded by many secularists than by religious believers as the principal basis of our legal and historical claim to the land of Israeli … Modern Political Zionism itself could never have taken root if it had not planted its seeds in soil ploughed and fertilised by the millennial conditioning of religous memories, hopes, prayers, and visions of our eventual return to Zion … No rabbinical authority disputes that our claim to a Divine Mandate (and we have no other which can not be invalidated) extends over the entire Holy Land within its historic borders and that halachically we have no right to surrender this claim.*

With reference to Jakobovits' "credo" above, in 1936, when asked about the basis for the Jewish claim to Palestine, Ben-Gurion told the British Peel Commission: "The Bible is our mandate." On the matter of Judaism and Zionism see also the 1942 statement declaring Zionism to be an "affirmation of Judaism" and signed by 757 Rabbis–"the largest number of rabbis whose signatures are attached to a public pronouncement in all Jewish history."

Returning Invincible's lyrics, am I the only one uncomfortable with Palestinians being likened to slow, passive marine mammals? Granted, it's not as bad as Israeli general and government minister Rafael Eitan likening Palestinians to "drugged cockroaches" (NY Times 11/24/2004) but, still, it is dehumanizing. From the third verse:

Disguising lies extincting lives like manatees
Callin it a transfer? Please-
More like a catastrophe!
Birthright tours recruiting em, confuse em into moving in

"confuse em into moving in"? Please. This comes across as another example of the victimizer cast as victim. Jewish victimhood of one form or another is a persistent theme and as Norman Finkelstein has observed:

… The Holocaust has proven to be an indispensable ideological weapon. Through its deployment, one of the world's most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a "victim" state, and the most successful ethnic group in the United States has likewise acquired victim status. Considerable benefits accrue to this specious victimhood–in particular, immunity to criticism, however justified.

So, why is Invincible reinforcing one of Zionism's most potent weapons? The entire song is a narrative of a Birthright Israel trip. In notes, Invincible writes:

The song takes the listener on a journey through a haunted "birthright" tour where the buried Palestinian significance of each location comes to light. Along the route i expose the process of historic and continued colonization as being even deeper than land seizure and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, but one that is invested in erasing the Arabic language, culture, and memory.

Is Invincible or the (at least partly autobiographical) protagonist of the song the only Jew capable of seeing through Zionist propaganda? Is she the only one who can "superimpose the truth"? Do those Jews who emigrate to Israel have no responsibility for their choices, no duty to learn, see, and refuse to become colonizers and instruments of injustice? How can it be that they are just confused?

If the Birthright Zionists are portrayed as passive in "People Not Places," they are not the only ones. Except in one instance, i.e. "their grandkids is the ones that's throwing rocks at borders," Palestinians are merely passive victims, not a resisting people with their own sense of agency.

It's time to bring this to a close. Some will no doubt object to my critique above. It may be argued that Invincible has the support of some Palestinians such as Abeer, who performs on "People Not Places." I would point out that even Gone with the Wind had Black actors. It's not for me to judge Abeer or, for that matter, Butterfly McQueen or Hattie McDaniel but I think the comparison bears some consideration.

The Billy Jack movies of the 1970s–starring Tom Laughlin, a White man playing an American Indian–also come to mind. As Amanda J. Cobb (Chickasaw) observes in Hollywood's Indians, the films:

… say more about white Americans coming to terms with their feelings about the Vietnam conflict than they do about the lives, experiences, or feelings of actual Native American people. These images have contributed to the conceptualization of American Indians not as distinct nations of people or as distinct individuals or even, in fact, as people at all, but rather as a singular character or idea, "the Indian" - an idea that helps whites understand themselves through "play." … Using the idea of the Indian, especially in terms of "playing Indian," time and time again is an act of cultural appropriation - an act that threatens the continuance of Native cultures and Native sovereignty.

Summing up, in the first part of this post I examined how Jews and, in particular, Israeli Jews have appropriated or stolen Arab culture. With that background, I situated Invincible's performance of "People Not Places" in the context of Edward Said's work on Orientalism. In the second part I took a closer look at the lyrics of "People Not Places" and argued, implicitly, that they validate concerns about cultural appropriation and Orientalism. It is my hope that this article will prompt a larger discussion about Jewish representations of Jews, Palestinians, and the Israel-Palestine conflict and also about the dearth of Palestinian self-representations of their own lives and issues.

Note
* Except as otherwise noted, the source for the preceding three paragraphs is Immanuel Jakobovits, The Attitude to Zionism of Britain's Chief Rabbis as Reflected in Their Writings, (London: Jewish Historical Society of England, 1981).

Thanks to LH, H. Samuel, LN, Khawla, and Joseph for their pre-publication comments on this post.

Michelle J. Kinnucan's writing has previously appeared in CommonDreams.org, Critical Moment, Palestine Chronicle, Arab American News, Electronic Intifada, Palestine Think Tank and elsewhere. Her 2004 investigative report on the Global Intelligence Working Group was featured in Censored 2005: The Top 25 Censored Stories (Seven Stories Pr., 2004) and she contributed a chapter to Finding the Force of the Star Wars Franchise (Peter Lang, 2006). Click here for information on how to contact her.

WRITTEN BY SAMEH HABEEB AND AYMAN QUADER

If you are a young Gazan, how do you react to siege, blockade and war? It's time to hear about the struggle to be constructive in the midst of so much hatred and destruction, and to ask how long it can survive.

26 – 08 – 2009

The Gaza Strip has lost 1,400 lives and a further 5,000, mostly civilians, have been maimed and wounded in the latest attack waged by the Israeli government. This came on top of an illegal, yet relentless siege that has dragged on and on for over two years, preventing 1.5 million Gazans from having access to the basic necessities of life, and to the wider world. You might well ask how young people respond to this blockade. Some of course resort to violence. But others have chosen a different tack.

The right to resist derives from the basic values of justice and freedom. It is not confined to the use of force. Millions of people in this world believe in solving conflicts through peaceful means, without shedding blood and causing more hatred. One day this noble struggle could even replace the violence used by humanity against their fellow human beings. Rockets, guns, tanks – as decisive as they are today – have little to say to the wider cultural struggle for a civilised existence.

The first ‘Intifada' uprising was a Palestinian show-case for a unique kind of resistance in which heavily armed Israeli soldiers were confronted by children with stones. That intifada mutated through several phases before it helped us to secure the Oslo agreement in 1993. More and more Palestinians nowadays are revisiting a non-violent resistance that has emerged from their history if only because it has been so dogged by violent conflict and by war.

In the West Bank, the International Solidarity Movement inspired a non-violent movement of resistance in which locals only became involved when Israel started to build the annexation wall. The people of the Gaza Strip started their movement with a different sort of retaliation, this time against the blanket of silence which was the first stage of Israel's siege. Our response was ‘voices instead of bullets'. In the Gaza Strip, by mid-2007 we were engaged in numerous actions which drew international activist attention in our direction for the first time.

Sameh Habeeb, who was coordinator for the Popular Committee Against the Siege (PCAS) when Israel closed down all the border points, cut the electricity dead and with-held all fuel supply, remembers that moment as a turning-point:

"At first, there was just a stunned reaction of helplessness. We all rushed around wringing our hands about what could be done. We were entering an extremely challenging phase in which the question was: how to involve a wider public in our activities? Gazans are notorious for their loyalties and their endless capacity for confrontation. We thought we were in for a very difficult time indeed. But it turned out to be easy.

We realized that it was precisely at that moment, so in need of a clear way forward, that we must bring people onto the streets. We issued a call throughout Gaza to everyone who would listen. It took almost 5 days before any media outlets paid any attention to what we were saying. Then it started. Even the Israeli media were calling us to ask what was going to happen next. The Israeli government called on thousands of reserve soldiers who were promptly deployed along the borders with Gaza. We had promised some kind of action on a specific day – and as the day loomed, the Israeli media carried reports speculating on what might occur. Some predicted that tens of thousands of us would break through the borders with Israel."

The action day arrived and began early with massive media coverage from our side: ‘Human chain to challenge the siege.' Literally tens of thousands of people of all ages did indeed respond: schoolchildren, university students, labourers, women and children and many ordinary people hurried to the Salah El Din. The chain stretched from Rafah to Beit Hanoun and was around 36 kilometers long. The people went to the borders without guns in the manner of Ghandi to make a united protest. However, accorind to Al Jazeera, clashes erupted between youths and the soldiers who fired at them.

Since that memorable day, Jamal El Khoudary, chair of PCAS has launched numerous symbolic activities to end the siege. "Our approach to struggle has many means at its disposal. This is why Palestinian factions, political parties and individuals across the board participate in our actions. Through non-violent actions, we have been able to move the mainstream. However, you have to face the fact that you are always, at any minute, liable to be fired on." This is the price we have to pay to call attention to what is happening to us.

On January 26, 2008 the Palestinian International Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza, led byDr Eyad Sarraj, proclaimed an international day of action against the siege imposed on the Strip. It is important that there is an international response to this call, but at the core of this activity was the coming together of organizations working for peace and solidarity in Palestine, civil society bodies, and human rights advocates and Gazan academics, with Israeli peace activists also wanting to extend solidarity to the people of Gaza in numerous joint actions and events. On that day thousands of activists demonstrated on both sides of the borders between Israel and Gaza. More activists came to Egypt and tried to cross over to Gaza.

The campaign launched a call to gather a million signatures to end the siege of Gaza. Teams of volunteers grouped in villages, towns and neighborhoods of Gaza to collect these names. The aim was to present them to the United Nations, and two hundred thousand signatures had been secured when all this was brought to a rude halt by the Israeli war.

Dr Eyad Sarraj, who is amongst various callings, an international peace campaigner said on that day, "The principal goal of this demonstration is to join the hands of both Israeli and Palestinian peace activists who want to end the siege and all kinds of violence. The most decisive factor in breaking the siege will be through a change in Israeli public opinion." The slogans were: ‘No Movement, No Life' and ‘Humanity, Not Humiliation: Peace, Not Punishment'.

By late 2008 this movement of civic protest was growing new dimensions. Seeing the Palestinians so committed to such actions, international support of various kinds began to build. The Free Gaza movement managed to send three boats into Gaza surrounded by such a media fanfare that the Israelis were not able to touch them. The sea of Gaza has been under a blockade for many years: the last boat to arrive was 41 years ago. They made their fourth attempt during the attack on Gaza, and this time, the boat was destroyed. The crew and cargo of the fifth, Spirit of Humanity, have just been seized by the Israeli government who have imprisoned those on board, including the Nobel Peace prize winner, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, and sequestered or destroyed the toys, medicines and tree seedlings. But our message continues to spread.

Then there is the music. In the beginning of November 2008, the Popular Committee Against the Siege organized a candle-lit protest carried out by young children in Gaza City to protest at the closure of the power station providing electricity to the northern Gaza Strip. The protest started only minutes after the main Gaza power station shut down and the entire city was plunged into total darkness. Gaza's residents started marching alongside the children in the city's streets while the children held candles, singing in both, English and Arabic. Indeed, kids are the light of hope of Gaza, when they call for the freedom that comes through peaceful means. The people of Gaza are finding their own ways of struggling against this inhumane collective punishment.

Many people who don't know Gaza reckon that we live under some kind of Hamas-Taliban Puritanical rule. It is't true, and we are proud to have been involved in what we called the first ‘opera show' ever in Gaza, starring an Italian artist who was willing to come over on one of these boats. On November 27 2008, this concert, ‘Sing for Freedom', organized by a group of young people in the Gaza Strip, was a great success. The aim was to find a new way of breaking the siege, through a resilience that young people can discover together through song, dance, poetry, and hip-hop, announcing to their audience and to the world that their spirit is strong, and that they will never give up their demand to live in freedom, justice and peace in Palestine.

These are just a few examples of the kind of actions that show Palestinian aspirations for a dignified, thriving and humane life that we all hope to see one day. Many unanswered questions still fill our heads. Is this movement effective in challenging Israeli occupation? Should Gazans give up armed resistance? Will non-violent resistance bring back our rights? When if ever will Israel stop killing peace activists in Gaza and the West Bank? (The last victim was Basam abu Rahma, Basam who believed in non-violence, but who was met by death for his beliefs….)

Things are looking bad in the West Bank, where Israel has dealt a particularly bleak hand to President Abbas, who, after returning to the road map in the agreement in Annapolis, clamped down on all sorts of armed resistance with the help of Premier Fayyad. In the end, how was this received? His efforts were greeted by more settlement-building, more invasions and more arrests throughout the West Bank. And in Gaza? More and more people were beginning to look to non-violent resistance under their siege conditions: then came the last war. People are bound to argue for a return to armed resistance. What should one say in return?

We asked three of our acquaintances in Gaza to comment:

* Nadine Rajab, a 25-year-old human rights advocate, says, "As a Palestinian citizen living under siege and under occupation in Gaza, I think resistance has a few legitimate aspects: the general humanitarian dimension, the religious dimension and the national dimension. There are many legitimate means of non-violent resistance such as demonstrations, boycotting products and civil disobedience. But we should engage in both non-violent and violent resistance, because we are part of the society and it is our duty to do so."

* Muhammad Ghates, a 25-year-old young man working in the Gaza Strip has a different view. His brother was killed by the Israeli army in 2007: "Israel is a state that only survives on instability in the region. It has launched several wars against its neighbours since its establishment. Israel only agreed on peace after it was defeated by the Egyptians in 1973. Israel can be made submissive again through resistance and fighting. Maybe non-violent resistance can pave the way, but it can never be the decisive factor." Ghates believes that Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 due to the heavy resistance of the Gazan people. He contrasts this with over four years of non-violent resistance in the West Bank that has come to nothing. It may have drawn worldwide attention to the wall issue, but this in turn has resulted in no identifiable pressure on the Israeli state, "My family is pro-resistance and my brother was killed while defending Gaza. We aspire to liberate our country through resistance and fighting as we are under occupation. When the Nazis were invading Europe, nations and populations had the right to resist. But our case is different: we are not granted that right. Our resistance is described as terrorism, regardless of the fact that we are under occupation. It seems Israel as a country only understands the language of power and blood not peaceful means. This was quite clear in their last bloody war on Gaza: everybody was under attack. My house too was damaged. It was a target though I'm a normal citizen and I have never lifted a finger against Israel."

* Another young 21 year-old student living in Al Nuserat camp in the middle of the Gaza Strip says, "Our peaceloving children insist on facing up to Israel, but in a different way. They have escaped into patriotic songs to sympathize with each other. Furthermore, they light candles to express simplicity and innocence. They also draw pictures and write words on walls to show the suffering e.g. even before this gruelling war I saw a picture of a Palestinian child who had written on his chest in Arabic letters, "I'm hungry". I do believe that the non-violent path of activism could be more fruitful than militant resistance."

source:

http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/email/non-violent-action-in-gaza

source: http://peaceforgaza.blogspot.com/2009/08/non-violent-action-in-gaza.html

Ayman T. Quader

He truly loved the world and the simple gifts it gave
It gave him music and his family
More than enough

Never a moment without music, not if he could help it
Often wondered what a thought in his head sounded like

It’s been six years since his music left us
Stopped so abruptly
The sound of the interruption still burns in my ears

Here is the text from the site, which omits translating into English some of the text (about the most moral army in particular). See the video to see (badly) subtitled text.
רוצים גם אתם להפיץ את הבשורה? שלחו את המילה טיל ל 5000 וקבלו את הטרוטון של Xplain היישר למכשיר הסלולרי שלכם!

I wake up in the morning and suddenly fall on me TIL
How would you feel if someone throws on you TIL
לא בשביל זה בנינו בית יהודי

The children theysit in M.M.D
We cant go to MAKOLET, we cant go to school
But you don't understand because you live LACHEM BECHUL
How would you feel if in Paris they throw on you TIL
You ask for croissant but instead they throw on you TIL
Our army is הכי מוסרי בעולם
או לפחות בין החמישה המוסריים מכולם
טוב אולי אפשר לסגור
על הכי מוסרי באזור

They throw on us TILIM, we come with METOSIM
But remember who started shooting on EZRACHIM
How do you feel if in London they shoot on EZRACHIM
You want LASHUT in the TEMZA but instead they shoot on EZRACHIM 

If you ask why we fight
we say
They started
If you ask why we bomb
we say
They started
If you ask what we want
we say
…..

It's so hard when there is TZEVA ADOM
We have to לארח תושבות מהדרום
They walk naked in the house, they are so MISKENOT
Because גראד פגע להן בחדר ארונות

You support us or we take Benayun from Liverpool
And we tell Noa Tishbi to take back BETIPUL
We take Bar Refaeli, נשאיר את ליאו בלי כלום
Lets see (Leo Di Caprio) him dating with Um Kultum
How do you feel if Leo was dating Um Kultum
And in "Sports Illustrated" instead of Bar there's Um Kultum

Look on us
Look on them
מי יותר דומה לכם
We have McDonalds
תיכף H&M
אפילו סודוך לא הגיע אליהם
אם לא תהיו בעדינו, לא תהיה ברירה
נזכיר לכם מה פעם באירופה קרה.
(הדי ג'יי: ) "שריפה אחים שריפה"….
נראה לי שהנקודה ברורה

Now you know how it feels if someone throws on you TIL
I hope they know how it feels if someone throws on you TIL
Support us, Hate them!
X-Plain!

מילים: אסף שלמון, אסף גפן, אילן שפלר
לחן: דודוש קלמס, גל תורן

http://www.mako.co.il/tv-erez-nehederet/fd82c9a2478a8110/Article-f85dd0df440de11004.htm

where my people seek peace

And freedom from police control, checkpoints and patrols

Domination from another nation

We used to be brothers like Cain

Now they got us living under occupation the pain

Is just a feeling I can't possibly explain

But the population of Palestine could probably paint

A proper picture of their predicament to publish and frame

Put it down for posterity's sake:

Free the P

Which stands for free the Public from the Prejudices

That Pop culture Places in your Psyche Permanently

Propaganda from the President to the media Pundits

To Preachers Preaching on the TV 'bout the People who done it

Politicians getting Paid to Put People in Prison

For Puffing Pot and just building

Something different from what they live in the vision

Is not to give in but to just give 'em hell

Impel Proactive change with the thoughts I Propel -

Free the P?

That's for anybody trapped in jail

That should be free instead of breathing stale air in a cell

For every Parent that to Protect their child would spark heat?

Free the P is for the women living in this Patriarchy

And for all the artists

That do this shit from the heart:

From the West Bank to the West Coast we start

To connect and get close, Professin' our best hopes -

Despite the stress blessed 'cause it's something in our chest

That Love -

Nizar Wattad (aka Ragtop) was born in Palestine and raised in Tennessee, USA. He is a Palestinian-American hip-hop artist and screenwriter. He earned his undergraduate degree from the George Washington University in 2001, and has since written and edited for several literary and news publications. Wattad earned an M.A. in screenwriting from the University of Southern California in 2006, and his thesis screenplay Agency, was a semi-finalist in that year's Final Draft Big Break, Brass Brad Mentorship and ABC/Walt Disney Company Writing Fellowship competitions.

This poem is from Poets for Palestine, edited by Remi Kanazi.

http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/12/10/poets-for-palestine/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nizar_Wattad

Before talking about Duraid, I should mention that the political Syrian drama and theatrical art finds itself in a predominant place in the Arab world. This position has been earned by the best script writers, actors, producers and researchers who took the acting mission seriously, especially when it comes to producing masterpieces about the history and the political struggle in the Middle East.

Duraid, well known by the nickname of one of his characters as Ghawar Al-Toushi is a Syrian actor who occupied every Arab heart through his satirical and sarcastic roles on TV and the stage of the theatre. And as much as he made us laugh he forced us many times to cry when he criticised corruption and identified with the poor, oppressed, and the vulnerable – especially the Palestinian symbols who were part of almost every role he played.

Duraid was the leading actor in many theatrical plays, one of which was titled Kasak Ya Watan which meant in Arabic  To drink the toast of one's homeland. In his genius roles he was the platform that represented everybody, but some would wonder, why did he call to drink a toast of his country? Duraid is a Shia Muslim born 1934 in Lebanon and lived all his life in Syria, but most of us never knew that because he was never the voice of one area or certain faith, he was any one of us, whoever we choose to be.

He knew the rules in our part of the world, the law will not punish him if he criticised the authorities or the government while he was drunk. In his extra special play Kasak Ya Watan he declares that he is about to burst with pain and disappointment, he was longing to say how he feels about corruption and defeat in a society governed by censorship, so he knew how to get out of such an awkward position by deciding to get drunk, so that he could express himself and escape the punishment at the same time, for the legislations dictate to ignore and pardon the drunken for he does not know what he says. By God, almost every Arab individual felt like getting drunk because every one of us, especially the intellectuals… have a great deal of things to complain about. But we are all cowards, frightened to breathe under imposed censorship.

But here he is, arriving in Gaza as the first leading Arab artist to show support for the city under siege, and after the Israeli attack. The comedian and icon of the Arab political theatre arrived upon an invitation by the theatrical women's team of Gaza who are playing Sabr Ayyoub which means the Patience of Jacob. This expression is used by Palestinians when describing reaching the limit of perseverance and patience. Of course the women of Gaza are as patient as the messenger of God and the prophet Jacob, who came in terms with losing everything including his children and health, but never lost faith or hope.

Duraid's visit to Gaza is a great gesture since he taught us politics in small doses while we were smiling. The people of Gaza needed him, especially the mothers who were the axis of most of his great works; the mother was a key figure in his plays. I can almost hear him sing from behind the prison bars to his mother  Yamoo ya set Alhabayeb Yammo the song that made every mother cry. …Yamoo is the slang word for mother in Syria.

As a Palestinian mother, I just could not hear about his visit and not cry of joy, for he is the son of every Palestinian mother. He played sometimes characters of a troublesome mischievous son, who always got himself in trouble, nobody could tame him, but when it comes to his mother's memories, he turns to show a fragile character of a boy wearing the skin of a grown up man, in desperate need to be hugged by his mother.

Supporting the theatre in Gaza is of great importance, for Palestinians need to vent their pain through art and literature to rise above the rubble and shake off their homes the ashes.

The play had its opening debut at the Rashad Shawa theatre in the Cultural Centre of Gaza City, the drama talked of a Palestinian woman searching for her children in the rubble of her house that was bombed by the Israeli air force.

Then comes the birth of Ayyoub, the leading actor in the play, played by the author and director Saeed Beetar. He emerges carried on the shoulders of Palestinian women in a basket made of straw, that resembles the baskets used during the harvest season.

The play portrays the struggle of Palestinian women detained in Israeli prisons through the character of Maryam the Palestinian young mother who was imprisoned by the Israeli system and had to give birth to her baby boy Mahmoud inside the prison. Somehow this story reminds me of the Palestinian prisoner Fatima Alziq who has given birth to her son Joseph inside an Israeli prison too, she is also from Gaza and she and her son are still prisoners.

One of the most important scenes of the play portrays the exceptionally strong relationship between Christians and Muslims in Palestine where a Christian nun offers refuge to Muslim women who fled from the Israeli bombing in the church, then sacrifices herself while trying to protect an injured woman.

The play demonstrates the agony of women suffering the siege, but also talks of the divisions in the Palestinian society, a subject Duraid dealt with over and over again on the stage. The play ended with the leading actor refusing to leave the basket when he found out that his society was divided.

British author Michael Palin at the Second Annual Palestine Festival of Literature

WRITTEN BY BRENDA HEARD: When Right Succumbs to Might

“The only democracy in the Middle East.”  It has become a cliché amongst supporters of Israel, a phrase as common with parliamentarians as it is with propagandists.  These supporters excuse themselves from turning a blind eye to Israeli violations of international law by claiming that they are not taking sides, but that they are defending the very principles of democracy.  They are ostensibly defending one of the basic tenets of democracy—the freedom of a people to think and speak for themselves.   

It boggles the mind, then, how one can explain away the recent actions of the so-called Israeli democracy.  On 23 May 2009, in a public display of ridicule, a dozen armed Israeli policemen entered the Palestinian National Theatre in East Jerusalem and ordered the closure of the Second Annual Palestine Festival of Literature.

Although a full programme had been publicly announced on 16 April 2009, the Israeli Ministry of Internal Security waited until moments before the Festival opening to dictate that the “event could not be held because it was a political activity connected to the Palestinian Authority.”  Participants were ordered to leave and Israeli police were posted on the street outside.

The Palestine Festival of Literature, or “Palfest,” is an academic, literary event.  It aims to bring writers and artists from around the world to Palestinian audiences.  Part of a UK registered charity, Palfest is supported by UNESCO and the British Council, among others.  Palfest is the essence of transparency: its website offers minute detail of its organisational makeup.  A full list of literary participants can be found here.  A full festival programme can be found here.  Still photos here.  There is nothing devious afoot here, nothing to be construed as a threat to “Israeli internal security.”

Yet Palfest was forcefully and publicly snubbed.  Not to be undone, the Festival was by chance able to re-group at the nearby French Cultural Centre.  But not before the forces of Israeli “democracy” made their point.  As one participant described:

“The sight of the expelled participants and audience as we filed down East Jerusalem's main street, some people carrying dishes of canapes, to the new and hastily organised venue at the French Cultural Institute might have seemed merely odd or amusing. In fact, it was a vivid reminder of Israel's fear of anything which might suggest that Palestinians are as cultured, civilised and deserving of respect as their Israeli neighbours.”

This sort of action mocks the very foundations of democracy.  Yet we encounter such noble statements as the pledge of loyalty given by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on 21 July 2008.  He stated that Britain was a true friend to Israel, one “who shares an unbreakable partnership based on shared values of liberty, democracy and justice.”  Many British citizens would beg to differ.  Watch the video below and ask yourself if the attitudes expressed are values you would share, values you would condemn the lives and liberties of the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples to uphold.  (police enter the festival at approximately two minutes into the video.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJU7-9r-pVA&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Epalfest%2Eorg%2Fvideo%2Ehtml&feature=player_embedded

source: Friends of Lebanon

 

On 5 June there will be a Symposium that accompanies the events, lasting until 30 September. In the Symposium, issues to be discussed will focus on art in the time of perpetual crisis, the role artists play in civil society as activist and as catalysts of democratic discourse, and the artists’ activation of public spaces as alternative venues in the absence of museums and state support. Symposium participants include the artists, art historian and art professionals representing several Palestinian art institutions.

Program:

10:00 am –until 12:30 (registration starts at 9:30am)

Ramallah Syndrome – A community based art project that explores the rise of Ramallah from a resort town into a de-facto capital of the future Palestinian State

Discussant: Salwa Mikdadi –Curator

Dr. Yazid Anani, Prof. of Architecture, Birzeit University, Birzeit, W. Bank

Dr. Alessandro Petti, Research Fellow at Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths College, University of London and Architect based in London/Bethlehem  

Dr. Sandi Hilal, artist and architect. A visiting professor at the International Academy of Art Palestine, Bethlehem.

June 7 until September 30, 2009

Open daily from 10:00 am until 6:00 pm (closed Monday, except June

Convento Ss. Cosma & Damiano,

Campo S.Cosmo, Giudecca Palanca, 30133 Venezia

Giudecca Vaporetto stop Palanca Lines # 1-2, 41- 42

Free Admission

Preview: June 3 – 6, from 11:00 am – 7:00 pm

Symposium: June 5th, 2009, 9:30 am – 5:00 pm

Early Registration required, contact info@palestinecoveniceb09.org  

Opening Reception

June 6,   5:00 – 8:00 pm 

Khalil Rabah Performance, June 6, 5:30pm

Ramallah Syndrome Sound-System Performance
June 6, 9pm at:

Symposium: Conversations

Date: June 5th, 2009 9:30 until 5:00 pm

Free Admission. Limited seating, early registration required

Contact: info@palestinecoveniceb09.org

Seating 80 capcity 99

Location:

Spazio Thetis    

Arsenale, Sestiere Di Castello,

Vaporetto/Waterbus N° 41 / 42
Fermata/Stop “Bacini”

For more information and registration contact: info@palestinecoveniceb09.org

Break 12:30 – 1: 30 pm lunch served by canteen 7 euros

1: 30 – 3:00 pm

Palestinian Art

Discussant: Dr. Vittorio Urbani, Venice

Speakers:

Kamal Boullata, artists and art historian, France, Jack Persekian, curator, artistic director of 7, 8 & 9th Sharjah Biennale and the Director of al Ma’mal Foundation for contemporary Art, Jerusalem, Dr. Tina Sherwell Director, International Academy of Art Palestine, Ramallah

3:15 – 5:00 pm 

A Geography: 50 Villages – Riwaq’s 3rd Biennale, Ramallah

Speakers:

Khalil Rabah artist and Director of Riwaq Biennale for Art and Architecture, Ramallah

Dr. Suad Al Ameri, Director, Riwaq Center for Architectural Conservation, Ramallah

Farhat Yousef, Head of Planning Unit, Riwaq, Ramallah

Opening Reception

June 6,   5:00 – 8:00 pm 

Khalil Rabah Performance, June 6, 5:30pm

Khalil Rabah, 3rd Riwaq Biennale 2009. A Geography : 50 Villages

                           Act Three, 

                           Geography 102:  50 Local Pavilions, in four parts

                                   Part D:

                                   Geography 201: Press

                                   Geography 202: A Case

Ramallah Syndrome SOUND-SYSTEM PERFORMANCE*

June 6, 9.00 pm

S.A.L.E

Dorsoduro 265
Venezia boat stop: Zattere or Salute
www.sale-docks.org

The sound system performance is part of the Ramallah Syndrome project presented at Palestine c/o Venice by Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti with Nasser Abourahme, Yazeed Anani, Laura Ribeiro, Reem Fadda, Omar Jabary-Salamanca, Yazan Khalili.

Sound Sytem by Aswatt (Basel Abbas) and Ruanne Abourahme

* Ramallah Syndrome Sound-System collects materials as its initial starting point and then it is reworked for the sound installation presented at Palestine c/o Venice. The performance while a result of this process, is not intended as a replication but rather a re-examination of the material, picking up threads from the original piece in a dynamic exploration and experimentation of ‘found’ footage, archive sample, audio-video location recordings, and heavy electronic music.

 info@palestinecoveniceb09.org

www.palestinecoveniceb09.org

Taysir Batniji was born in 1966 in Gaza, Palestine. His exhibition venues include the A.M Qattan Centre in London, Goodman Gallery in Cape Town, Le Quartier in Quimper, Galerie, La Bankin Paris, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Genève, French Cultural Center in Gaza and the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, among others. He also participated in the following Biennales:  Sharjah, Riwaq, 50th Venice Biennale, Havana, Alexandria and Thessaloniki. He lives and works in Paris and Gaza.

Hannoun 1972-2009

For this exhibit, he uses performance, installation and photography to evoke notions of memory, erasure, non-being, and destruction/construction (deconstruction/restitution). The red shavings suggest the appearance of a field of poppies: an impalpable landscape that one observes as in a dream from an un-crossable vantage point. The piece follows several performative projects undertaken in the last few years. Each of these “acted shapes” is the result of obsessive, repetitive, and often useless or absurd gestures. 

Shadi HabibAllah was born in 1977 in Jerusalem. He is pursuing his M.F.A. at Columbia University. He has participated in exhibits at the Riwaq Biennale, Ramallah, the Tate Modern, London, and was awarded 2nd prize for the A.M. Qattan Hassan Hourani – The Young Artists Award. He lives and works in Ramallah and New York.

Ok, hit, hit but don't run, 2009   
HabibAllah builds an intricate play out of patterns of instantly legible behaviors, thereby questioning the primary experience of perception among a pre-determined set of forms.

The animation / installation, Ok, hit, hit but don't run, 2009 is distilled to its barest elements, suggesting a new language of classification. In this manner, the work disrupts commonly held notions of engagement with materiality and substance.

Sandi Hilal was born in 1973 in Beit Sahour, Palestine. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Trieste, Italy in 2006. Alessandro Petti was born in 1973 in Pescara, Italy, and received his Ph.D. in Urbanism at the IUAV University of Venice in 2006. They have exhibited in Venice Biennale, Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, Istanbul Biennial, and Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, among others. They live and work in Bethlehem.

Ramallah Syndrome, 2009

For this exhibit, they use a sound installation to activate an almost non-exiting community discourse on the colonialist socio-spatial reconfiguration of urban centers.  Their project examines the effects of the new spatial and social order that emerged after the collapse of the Oslo ‘peace process’, manifested in a kind of ‘hallucination of normality’, the delusion of a co-existence of occupation and freedom in Ramallah. 

Emily Jacir was born in 1970. Among her recent awards are the 2008 Hugo Boss Prize, the 2007 Golden Lion Award, 52nd Venice Biennale, and the 2007 Prince Claus Award.  Her most recent solo exhibitions include New York Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, and Alberto Peola Arte Contemporanea in Torino.  She lives and works in Ramallah and New York.

stazione is an intervention that will be situated on each of the vaporetti stops along line #1. It will begin at the Lido stop, weave through the Grand Canal, and end at Piazzale Roma. Jacir will translate the names of each vaporetto station along this route into Arabic and place these translations onto the stops next to their Italian counterparts, thereby creating a bilingual transportation route through the city. 

Vaporetto # 1 stops at every station along the Grand Canal where centuries of cross-cultural exchange between Venice and the Arab world is clearly visible in the architecture along its banks. The Arabic names inscribed onto the vaporetti stops will put them in direct dialogue with the architecture and urban design of the surrounding buildings, thereby linking with various elements of Venice’s shared heritage with the Arab world. 

Emily Jacir's public project seeks to seeks to transform the cityscape of Venice into a contemporary dialogue with this rich history of cross-cultural fertilization. 

Jawad Al Malhi was born in 1969 in Jerusalem. He completed his MA at Winchester School of Art in 2007 and has had solo exhibitions at the al Hoash Gallery, Jerusalem, Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, and participated in Turin Biennial, Sharjah Biennial and was shorted listed for the Frieze Foundation's Cartier Award (2009).  Al Malhi lives and works in Jerusalem.  

House No. 197 explores the site and experience of marginality via the architecture and geography of the refugee camps. Al Malhi’s project focuses on panoramic views of Shufhat Refugee Camp in Jerusalem, taken from hills surrounding the camp. Through photography and video, Al Malhi investigates the architectural structures of the camp and their continuous transformation as well as the experience of claustrophobia, containment and the monotony of time within such an environment, which is also explored in the video work The Gas Station.

Khalil Rabah was born in 1961 in Jerusalem. He has exhibited in the Liverpool Biennial, the Tate Modern, the British Museum, at the Istanbul Biennale, Biennale of Sydney, The São Paulo Biennial; and Kwangju Biennale. He is the co founder and director of the Riwaq Biennale, Palestine, and lives and works in Ramallah.

In 3rd Riwaq Biennale 2009, A Geography : Fifty Villages, Rabah creates a time specific work which uses large installation, performance, and video works to explore the epistemology of the concept of biennales. The Riwaq Biennale and the fifty ongoing series of interventions, transform Palestinian towns and villages into a vital hub of multiple activities and services. By using renovated historical buildings for a range of art and cultural projects, the aim is provide an alternative vision to challenge the perceptions and expectations of what a biennale can be as well offer the public a quieter register through which to engage with the contemporary cultural landscape of Palestine. 

As a Palestinian citizen of Israel, Rana deeply understands how feelings of belonging and claims of ownership, irrevocably separate, yet permanently connect Arabs and Jews in their struggle for a land that is called Palestine by one group and Israel by the other. Each of the two cultures wants to hold on to every inch of land claimed by the other. The Palestinians strongly feel that they belong to the land, while the Israelis insist that the land belongs to them.  Bishara’s artwork is deeply embedded in and informed by the Palestinian experiences of displacement, exile and occupation and the desire of Palestinian refugees to return to the lands they were displaced from. Through her work, Rana wants to convey the wounds of the heart inflicted upon her father’s generation and subsequent generations of Palestinians. She wants to bear witness to a once multicultural Palestinian society that was destroyed in 1948 and a once thriving agricultural society that has been irrevocably changed.

2009 release by SittingCrow Productions
www.sittingcrowproductions.com
Produced, filmed, written, narrated and directed by John Halaka.
Edited by Marissa Bowman.
Music composed and performed by the Ramallah based musician Samer Totah
Running time: 53 minutes

For further information regarding the film, please contact John Halaka at sittingcrowproductions@gmail.com, or call 619.260.4107.

http://palestinethinktank.com/ptt-tv/

SEE ALSO: http://www.art.net/~samia/pal/palart/rana/rana.html

http://www.tribes.org/web/2008/01/30/homage-to-palestine-by-rana-bishara/

A grain of earth

A drop of oil

A flag on a hill of holy soil

A cross…a star…a crescent moon…

Is it worth ending a life too soon?

What sacred verses can explain

Sniper fire…

And white phosphorus rain?

What Holy Scripture gave the command

“Thou shall wipe out their villages

And scorch their land”

And after the massacre

Did they lament?

Did they seek forgiveness?

Did they repent?

Did they try to sanctify their burdened souls

While besieging a people behind their walls

Or did they wear with pride their murderous skills:

A pregnant woman with a caption “1 SHOT  2 KILLS”

No rest for the less sacred, no safety, no light

No benediction no prayer no end in sight

No bread, no medicine no shelter no salvation

No angels can survive this holy Occupation 

TELL ME THIS:

          What is the life of a Palestinian worth,

                 In your God forsaken earth? 

 

Samah Sabawi is a writer/playwright and poet who advocates for Human Rights and Social Justice. Ms. Sabawi was former Executive Director of the National Council on Canada-Arab relations (NCCAR) and is currently on the board of directors of NCCAR as well as the Canadian Palestinian Congress. She designs and facilitates educational workshops for Canadian diplomats, civil servants, military personnel as well as for high school students on the politics, culture and history of the Arab World. Ms. Sabawi is also involved in the theater.  She has written and produced two plays:  Cries from the Land and Three Wishes both dealing with the plight of the Palestinian people.   Her opeds and poetry are published in both print and electronic media.

http://nuke.kalandiachildren.com/PressKit/tabid/487/Default.aspx

http://nuke.kalandiachildren.com/