Photo courtesy of Jay Galvin via Flickr.
Rao discusses the importance of Palestinian art as a way to resist Israeli occupation and oppression. Pictured above is a mural by Chris Gazaleh, a Palestinian-American muralist and activist, called “Humanity is the Key” located in San Francisco, Ca.
By Madhavi Rao ’24
Staff Writer
In a time when Palestinians are dehumanized to justify their deaths en masse, art is an outlet for Palestinians to assert their culture, identity and existence.
Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967, Palestine has created art specifically resisting the occupation.
With this has also come the repression of Palestinian art and culture, including the assassination of literary activists, bills banning the display of the Palestinian flag, the closure of artistic spaces and the assassination of their creators. In the wake of the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict, Palestinian artists have remained steadfast in their commitment to voicing resistance to Israel’s violent acts through their craft.
For many Palestinian artists, their work is not only a way of reaffirming Palestinian culture and heritage but a channel for resisting the Zionist colonial project. Zionism is an ideology that advocates for the creation of a separate Jewish state. In the case of Israel, the state was created on Palestinian land by displacing indigenous Palestinian people.
However, alongside this history of oppression comes one of artistic opposition. Art is a powerful means of giving agency to the downtrodden to tell their stories. It is a way of recording the cultures and struggles of those who are being intentionally and ruthlessly silenced.
“Art is a powerful means of giving agency to the downtrodden to tell their stories. It is a way of recording the cultures and struggles of those who are being intentionally and ruthlessly silenced. ”
One of the earliest instances of mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians occurred in 1948, during the Arab-Israeli war, a period Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic. A catalyst for what UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, called the “longest unresolved refugee crisis in the world,” the Nakba displaced around 700,000 Palestinians. On June 5, 1967, 19 years after the Nakba took place, Israel declared war on the neighboring Arab countries of Jordan, Syria and Egypt, defeating them after only six days of fighting.
This event later came to be known as the “Six-Day War.” “[It] is considered to be a historic military achievement [but] wasn’t even a real war,” Uri Milstein, an Israeli military historian, told Al Jazeera. “It was just a chase with live fire against an escaping enemy that didn’t fight.”
This attack was a catalyst for the creation of a Palestinian art movement resisting the war and the subsequent occupation of Palestine. This artistic movement established the Union of Artists for Palestinians in Diaspora by the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the League of Palestinian Artists in the occupied land.
The Palestinian literary tradition is a strong one which allows Palestinians to tell the stories that would otherwise go unheard. Journalist and writer Ghassan Kanafani’s book, “Palestine’s Children: Returning to Haifa and Other Stories,” was published in 1984, 12 years after his assassination. The book is a collection of short stories highlighting experiences of living under intense colonial repression. Each story narrates a child’s journey from oppression to opposition. The titular novella, “Returning to Haifa,” follows Said S. and his wife Safiyah as they return to Haifa, the city where they lost track of their son Khuldun’s whereabouts in an explosion.
The explosion and the subsequent attack on Haifa meant that Safiya and Said S. had to flee the city, leaving their son to grow up with an adopted family after he was found alone, as well as the home in which they grew up. Kanafani’s writing is a harsh insight into the terror of the Israeli government’s occupation, told through the lives of civilians and children killed.
More contemporary Palestinian literature includes novels such as “Salt Houses” by Hala Alyan and “Against the Loveless World” by Susan Abulhawa. “Salt Houses” follows Alia as she is displaced from her home in Palestine after the Six-Day War, following her life fleeing from country to country as a refugee. “Against the Loveless World” is a story about Nahr, a second-generation Palestinian refugee in Kuwait, as she undergoes a process of radicalization, ultimately resulting in her arrest and solitary confinement under the Israeli government’s occupation.
Both stories explore the sense of loss and ephemerality that defines the lives of Palestinians caught up in the politics and violence of colonial occupation.
Theater has also flourished in Palestinian resistance movements. The Jenin Freedom Theater, founded by Juliano Mer Khamis, was established in 2006 and operates in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. The project aims to address the experiences of the victims of occupation through cultural resistance. Khamis was an artist who dedicated his life to documenting Palestinian oppression and opposition up until his assassination on April 4, 2011. His mother, Arna Mer Khamis, then began running the theater. Juliano Mer Khamis’ identity as the son of a Zionist-turned-revolutionary mother and a Palestinian Arab father gave his art a specific political angle strongly opposed by extremist right-wing Palestinians and the Zionist Israeli state.
By repressing Palestinian art, the Israeli state is only revealing how threatening the portrayal of empowered and dissenting Palestinians is to their settler-colonial mission.
The Freedom Theater is a space for Palestinian, Israeli and international artists and activists to come together and advocate for Palestinian freedom through art. It hosts productions, theater workshops, training and creative writing events. Some of these events include “Lost Land,” a retelling of the French novel “Les Grands Meaulnes” in the Palestinian context featuring themes of loss and displacement, and “Us Too – Women of Palestine,” a story of the misogyny and danger experienced by Palestinian women at the hands of Palestinian men.
Palestinian film is a thriving artistic industry, with Palestinian filmmakers releasing documentaries and cinema-verite-style independent films depicting the reality of the Israeli government’s occupation. Juliano Mer Khamis directed a documentary about the Freedom Theater in Jenin called “Arna’s Children” in 2004. The documentary narrates the stories of children who participated in a theater group, flashing back and forth from their childhood to their adult fates.
“Palestinian film is a thriving artistic industry, with Palestinian filmmakers releasing documentaries and cinema-verite-style independent films depicting the reality of the Israeli government’s occupation.”
Palestinian film festivals are held throughout the United States, including the Boston Palestine Film Festival, the Houston Palestine Film Festival and Unprovoked Narratives: The Chicago Palestine Film Festival. A few Palestinian films that have been showcased in these festivals include “3000 Nights” (2015), “Gaza Ghetto” (1985) and “Habibi Rasak Kharban” (2011).
“3000 Nights” depicts the life of a pregnant woman within a high-security Israeli prison as a political prisoner. “Gaza Ghetto” is a documentary that portrays the horrible living conditions of Palestinian life under the Israeli government’s occupation in 1984. “Habibi Rasak Kharban” is a romance film following two students who fall in love while living in the West Bank, despite the societal forces that forbid their love in their home of Gaza. It is a story of star-crossed lovers and a retelling of the famous Sufi story of Majnun Layla.
Another artist, musician Bashar Murad, is challenging societal and political systems of power. Known as the “Palestinian Lady Gaga,” Murad is an openly gay artist whose lyrics advocate for LGBTQ+ rights while also advocating for a free Palestine.
“It’s about the feeling of not feeling like you belong anywhere. And so, you know, you’re - you'll be fighting for Palestine, and then people will tell you Palestine doesn't exist. Palestinians don’t exist,” Murad told NPR in an interview while discussing his song “Makshara” — taken from the Arabic word for “mockery.”
Photo courtesy of Guillaume Paumier via Wikimedia Commons.
A sign outside the entrance of the Jenin Freedom Theater, founded by artist Juliano Mer Khamis.
“And then in your own community, you’ll be fighting against conservative norms but also carrying the message of Palestine with you,” Murad said. “And so [Makshara] was about how cruel and harsh this reality is that it pushes people to just want to escape.”
Outside of literature and the theater arts, a wealth of Palestinian digital artists populate the Palestinian political realm with their artwork on resistance and advocacy.
Narmeen Hamadeh, or @narmeenh.illustrations on Instagram, is a second-generation Palestinian immigrant born in Saudi Arabia and has let activism, advocacy and Palestinian culture inspire her artwork.
“I always thought that the world didn’t know or just looked away from Palestinians. But now it’s evident that they know and they are watching [with] wide eyes open, but the world actually chose to just watch, as if it's a horror movie on TV,” Hamadeh remarked in the caption of an Instagram post of her digital artwork on Oct. 20, 2023.
Hamadeh’s image depicts a humanlike television looking out at the viewer from big blue eyes. On its screen, red poppy flowers bleed as the sun sets over the sea. A news banner at the bottom of the screen reports a “ceasefire on Gaza” below the picture of the poppy flowers, and a pair of open eyes hangs above the television. Behind the television, “Gaza” is written several times in stylized Arabic text.
The post came in the wake of Israel’s ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip as retaliation for the Palestinian-militant group Hamas’ attack on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Oct. 7, 2023.“It’s not, this is real life. Gazans are getting killed, children are getting murdered. My heart my soul my sanity it's all shattered. Tomorrow lets all pray for ceasefire lets pray for freedom lets pray that not one more child is killed. Bless Gaza, bless its people, and bless Palestine,” Hamadeh said via Instagram.
Chris Gazaleh, or @c.gazaleh on Instagram, is another digital artist. Palestinian-born Gazaleh, born and raised in the United States, is a muralist who spreads awareness and advocates for Palestinian-Muslim rights through his artwork on the walls of buildings in San Francisco. He works in many mediums, including painting, digital art and graffiti.
“3.8 billion U.S. tax dollars goes to the illegal Zionist occupation of Palestine to bomb, kill and steal life. How many North Americans know this? Is it not a crime in itself to keep information from a whole population? …The cultural problem with western countries is that they are still stuck only seeing those that look like them as legitimate suffering,” Gazaleh stated in the caption of a mural he posted to Instagram on Oct. 20.
“This goes back to the days of slavery. It goes back to the genocide of the Americas and this problem is obviously still alive and well for the criminal will never admit what they did was wrong, but in this case, the criminal is acting as if they are doing any good for the world,” Gazaleh continued, via Instagram. “For all the children of Gaza, for all the people I pray for you every night and I promise we will never let this world forget what they did to you and what they’re doing to us as a People … Free Palestine.”