Picture Perfect

A Thousand Words

If a picture paints a thousand words then the exhibition at Jaffa Port last week wrote a novel.

Forty-one Palestinian Artists brought more than 150 works of art, paintings, imprints, sculpting and pottery to the Israeli public eye in an exhibition entitled: “Jaffa Salon of Palestinian Art”.
These artists are from Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the Jordanian Kingdom. They represented two generations known and prominent alongside novel aspiring hopefuls.
This exhibition is the first step towards a framework, which will increase exposure to Palestinian art giving the Israeli public and art collectors an opportunity to dialogue with Palestinians on an art and cultural level. The exhibition launched three weeks ago showed the finale on 29 May 2010, last Saturday night.

It was refreshing to see an attempt towards reconciliation and social understanding between the two nations.

Off to school

Summer holidays are soon approaching for the students.

Last week, the town of Tulkarem proudly presented their annual graduation ceremonies at the local “kindergartens”. Preparations at some started as early as three months ago. The young ones will be off to big school in the New Year and looked very smart on the stage; it was evident by the performances that Education and gender equality is strongly encouraged. The children were dynamic, impressive and very confident on the stage.

As usual, the mothers were in full view to cheer their babies. However, I am happy to announce that many fathers arrived to show support as well. Hala Azoonee, the manager for public Education, also attended the ceremony. She thanked the parents and teachers for their hard work and interest during this very important stage in the children’s development.

Separation

Many people develop an opinion by their perceptions and misconstrued notions. These thoughts often influenced by feedings from propaganda and inflammatory reports continue to fester until it gives rise to provocation and eventually the proverbial wall.
However, in the case between the Jews and the Arabs, the separation that exists between them is not only proverbial; it is physical, emotional, and spiritual. A huge 9m high wall built in 2003 that is almost 70% complete separate Israelis from Palestinians. Initially the purpose was to prevent the Palestinians entry into Israel when the two nations were at war with each other during the time of the Intifada. The argument was that Arabs are terrorists and Israel should protect its citizens against terror attacks. Instead of building the wall along the agreed demarcations (known as the Green line), it now stands around 25% further into Palestinian territory. This means that a Palestinian requires a special permit to travel into territory owned by Palestine because it is under Israeli occupation and farmers cannot attend to their farms that Israel confiscated. A further implication is that Palestine is now dislocated from the rest of the world with little opportunity for trade, travel and infrastructural development since they are under Israeli control. Palestinians require permission from Israeli Authority for most transactions and are constantly under scrutiny. Their existence is falling more and more dependant on Israel. This situation is crippling the Palestinians who often state that they live in a prison.