Palestinian Culture

Reviewed at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/arabstudquar.43.2.0189
This book offers a much-needed focus on Palestine solidarity films, supplying a critical theoretical framework whose intellectual thrust is rooted in the challenges facing scholars censored for attempting to rectify and reverse the silencing of a subject matter about which much of the world would remain uninformed without cinematic and televisual mediation. Its innovative focus on Palestine solidarity films spans a selected array of works which began to emerge during the 1970s, made by directors located outside Palestine/Israel who professed support for Palestinian liberation. Visualizing the Palestinian Struggle analyzes Palestine solidarity films hailing from countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Iran, Palestine/Israel, Mexico, and the United States. Visualizing the Palestinian Struggle is an effort to insist, constructively, upon a rectification and reversal of the glaring and disproportionate minimization and distortion of discourse critical of Zionism and Israeli policy in the cinematic and televisual public sphere.

تجادل الورقة بأن مفهوم المقاومة تجسد أدبيا من خلال أنماط متباينة من التعابير التي استُمدت مضامينها من مآلات الصيرورة السياسية وموقعية الكاتب السياسية. بمعنى أن مفهوم المقاومة خضع لتحولات جذرية صاحبت مراحل الثورة الفلسطينية من الرفض إلى التساؤل وصولا لشك في جدواها. بذلك شهد مفهوم المقاومة تحول في المتن خاصة فيما يتعلق في المقاومة والعنف الثوري تجلى أدبيا من خلال أشكال متجددة من التعابير والثيمات التي علت نصوص ما بعد اتفاقية أوسلو. كما يجادل المقال بأن الهزيمة والقبول فيها بما فيه النزوح نحو الاستعارات التراجيدية ساهمت في اعلاء استحالة فلسطين وبالتالي إلى نشأة تيارات ثقافية وخطاب ثقافي ينسلخ عن إمكانية التحقق (تحرير فلسطين)، وينشأ احتمالات أخرى يتم تشييدها من خلال عدة مُركبات أخرى يمكن تسميتها بتيارات ما-بعد فلسطين.

ملاحظة: هذه نسخة غير نهائية ولا تعكس النص النهائي المنشور في كتاب مفهمة فلسطين الحديثة بشكل كلي.

My Paper presented at Diyar's Seventh International Conference on " Palestinian Identity in Relation to Time and Space" held in Bethlehem in August 2013. It looks at Mahmoud Darwish's Writings in chronological order and how Bibilcal texts and themes were used in what context and why.
http://www.amazon.com/Palestinian-Identity-Relation-Time-Space/dp/1502713462/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424009505&sr=8-1&keywords=palestinian+identity+in+relation+to+time+and+space

In Palestine/Israel, different colored identification cards are mandated by the Israeli state apparatus to Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and those who are citizens of Israel. The article traces the development of the bureaucracy of the Palestinian ID card since the establishment of Israel and suggests that modern-day ID cards in Palestine/Israel are physical and visible instruments of a widespread low-tech surveillance mechanism to control mobility and a principal means for discriminating, both positively and negatively, subjects' privileges and rights. ID cards are both the spaces in which Palestinians confront, tolerate, and sometimes challenge the Israeli state, and a mechanism through which Palestinian spatiality, territoriality, and corporeality are penetrated by the Israeli regime. Vital in the control and differentiation of Palestinian populations, what makes ID cards unique in the Palestinian/Israeli case is that their materiality is one of their most important and resonant aspects. The article describes various representations of the ID cards, for example in poetry and in murals, to show how they also function as sites of remediation, spaces and moments of renegotiation for their bearers, subject to counter-hegemonic representations, interpretations, and uses. As a special kind of material object, ID cards are an effective and low-tech means of surveillance and differentiation and an important nexus of Israeli power, demonstrating the institutional materiality of the state apparatus's constitution in subjects' everyday life; but they have also become important because they allow a poetics of political resistance.

Contemporary Palestinian adaptations of Red Riding Hood tale focus on figures representing the future generation (Little Red Riding Hood) and the immediate threat to it (the wolf) but completely ignore the figure of the grandmother, who often represents the past. This choice seems particularly surprising given that Palestinian society is deals a lot the past and memory questions besides the collective and political history — because of its history and the political reality in which it lives.

העיבודים הפלסטיניים העכשוויים למעשייה "כיפה אדומה" מתמקדים בדמויות המייצגות את דור העתיד (כיפה אדומה) ואת האיום המיידי עליו (הזאב), אך מתעלמים לחלוטין מדמות הסבתא, שמייצגת לעתים קרובות את העבר. בחירה זו נראית מפתיעה במיוחד לאור זאת שהחברה הפלסטינית היא חברה העוסקת בשאלות על העבר ועל הזיכרון וההיסטוריה הקולקטיבית והפוליטית — בשל ההיסטוריה שלה והמציאות הפוליטית־מדינית שבה היא חיה. נוכח זאת ההתעלמות מהסבתא בעיבודים של המעשייה "כיפה אדומה" ניכרים ואף צורמים, ודורשים התייחסות.

This article focuses on a rare leitmotif in literary productions by Palestinians. Both Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin and Sayed Kashua’s Second Person Singular present Arab characters who, under unusual circumstances, impersonate or literally acquire the identity of the Israeli-Jewish other. In the respective fictional creations of Ismael/David and Amir/Yonatan, both Abulhawa and Kashua construe characters whose existence blur the borderlines between various versions of today’s Palestinian Arab and mainstream projections of its Israeli-Jewish counterpart. These characters represent, as the article demonstrates, the authors’ attempts at working out the implications of the idea that, as a result of the historical events of the Israeli Independence and the consequent Palestinian Nakba, the collision of two national yearnings has created a liminal space in which both the Israeli and the Palestinian narratives gradually infiltrate one another, developing an inextricable and dynamic bond between the Palestinian identity and its adversarial counterpart.

In this paper I explore how uniquely Palestinians are using the digital world for grass-root non-violent resistance and activism. And I address the question of whether they jumped in to the bandwagon of the Arab Spring snowball of social media or they started earlier. Palestinians aptly thrive through the digital world, just like the last Kuffiyeh Company in Palestine, which represents a non-violent resistance dynamic, is thriving through marketing online. And like the last Olive Trees Palestinians tie themselves to. I also point how and why for two decades would cyberactivism, digital cameras, and citizen journalism be special to Palestinians compared to its neighboring countries. I do this by both interviewing and analyzing specific popular social network accounts, sites, and online activists who posses high outreach, both in English (targeting international crowds) or in Arabic (targeting more local crowds).

"Dear Chairman, dear friends, thank you for your warm friendship and solidarity. We are continuing to work in spite of the hard situation, which is becoming our daily life."
So wrote Mona Saudi (b. 1945), Jordanian sculptor and founding director
of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Plastic Arts Section, in a letter from Beirut to Thorstein Rittun, director of Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo (1978–83) in June 1981.

The letter was one of many exchanged regarding the organisation of the large group exhibition ‘Palestinske kunstnere’ (‘Palestinian Artists’) at Kunstnernes Hus, which opened in November 1981. The exhibition included some fifteen artists and nearly 100 works, all of which were for sale in support of the artists and the Palestinian cause. There were also plans to open a fund during the exhibition for donations ‘for establishing a Palestinian Museum’ (Letter from Mona Saudi to Torstein Rittun 28 July 1981, co-signed by Vesla Lange-Nielsen). The exhibition continued to Kristiansand, where it opened at the Christianssands Kunstforening on 17 January the following year.

The exhibition at Kunstnernes Hus was conceived by Mona Saudi as part of a series of initiatives by the Plastic Arts Section of the PLO to activate art and the exhibition format as a means of providing a Palestinian perspective and catalysing international solidarity in their struggle for statehood and human rights. Earlier initiatives, as recounted by Saudi in letters to Kunstnernes Hus, included exhibitions of Palestinian Resistance in Tehran (1977), the International Art Exhibition for Palestine in Beirut (1978), an exhibition in Tokyo for Palestinian artists, which was joined by 300 Japanese artists expressing solidarity (1978), an exhibition of Palestinian posters in Beirut (1979), and exhibitions for Palestinian artists in the Oriental Museum of Moscow (1979), among others.

OCA commissioned Toufoul Abou- Hodeib (b. 1975), Lebanese-Palestinian scholar and Associate Professor of History at the University of Oslo, to pair
her ongoing research with a deeper investigation into the historic display of Palestinian art within the very walls of the present exhibition. Who were the personalities, in Norway, Beirut and further afield, who made the exhibition happen? What were their motivations? What were the networks of Palestinian solidarity that pre-existed and deepened around this event? How did friendships establish crucial links in these networks? And what made Kunstnernes Hus such a receptive partner in disseminating solidarity for Palestinian artists?

Abou-Hodeib conducted new interviews with Mona Saudi in Beirut, participating artist Samia Halaby in New York and activists and members of the Norwegian Palestine Committee Ebba Wegeland and Eldbjørg Holte in Oslo. The result is three short films that assemble previously unpublished perspectives on the Oslo event, across different geographical and socio-political contexts, and bring together complimentary material from the Kunstnernes Hus archive held by Norway’s National Museum Documents Archive.

Cet ouvrage examine les romans écrits en hébreu par les écrivains palestiniens en Israël (1966-2017), avec un aperçu sur leur investissement dans une production culturelle qui inclut non seulement la littérature, mais aussi la traduction, le théâtre et les médias. Cette analyse est posée dans le contexte littéraire et culturel arabe minoritaire auquel appartiennent ces écrivains et le champ culturel hébraïque auquel ils sont supposés appartenir. Ces textes littéraires sont l'expression manifeste, au sein de la littérature hébraïque, d'une virtualité latente : celle d'une langue arabe qui circulerait sous l'effort pour faire exister l'identité palestinienne et son paysage historique marqué par la Nakba dans l'espace linguistique hébréophone.

Although Palestinian citizens of Israel remained in their homeland, this community has undergone massive transformations in almost all aspects of life. The 1948 War, during which Israel was created, was a catastrophe (Nakba) for the Palestinians. Some 750,000 Palestinians were displaced during this war, which erupted in November 1947, and became refugees. A group of 156,000 Palestinians remained to become citizens in Israel. How did the Palestinian citizens of Israel adapt to their new status as a minority, numerical and political, and to the subsequent social and political reality? To answer this question, in this article I will analyze the first Palestinian novel to be published in Israel after the 1948 War. Mudhakkarāt lājiʾ aw Ḥayfā fī al-maʿraka (A Refugee’s Memoirs or Haifa in the Battle, 1958), by Tawfīq Muʿammar. This novel registers some aspects of the initial transformation in Palestinian discourse, as well as the considerations that underlie them. This article will focus on the political motivations as well as the inhibitions
that surround the publishing of this novel.

Hajj Amīn al-Ḥusaynī – the «Grand Muftī of Jerusalem» – is often portrayed as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in the first part of XX century. Due to his collusion with Nazism, such a position implies that the Palestinian people are, at least in principle, responsible for their own tragic destiny. This study challenges that assumption and sheds light on how and why the Grand Muftī was imposed on the Palestinian people by London. Analyzing the rise to power of Hajj Amīn al-Ḥusaynī and the means granted to him is crucial for understanding the ways through which the British authorities related to the local realities in post-World War I Palestine and to what extent these practices have marked the subsequent development of Palestinian society.

By drawing on scholarship that focuses on cinema and music, the author argues that the very act of ‘creating culture’ in the contemporary Palestinian period is a form of political resistance. Second, given political conditions of countering Zionist/Israeli erasures, the study of Palestinian culture is also a form of political resistance. The author argues that the resistance at the heart of the two ‘analytics’ of culture and cultural studies is imperative.

This personal account, by the first director (1996–2005) of the Sakakini
Center in Ramallah, describes the rewards and difficulties of establishing
and running an NGO dedicated to culture and the arts in occupied
Palestine. In the process of recounting the story of the center—its vision
and objectives, multidisciplinary programming, funding constraints,
its efforts to develop a diversified audience, and the impact of the second
intifada—the author touches on a number of broader issues. These include the NGO scene in Palestine, international donor agendas, the
inevitable intertwining of culture and politics, questions of identity
and survival, and the challenge of finding ways to impart meaning to
the arts in a situation of scarcity and siege.

Depuis les années 2000, Israël exporte avec succès un nouveau cinéma, donnant place au destin de groupes jusque- là peu ou pas représentés sur l’écran : femmes, juifs mizrahim (orientaux), minorité palestinienne d’Israël. Ce cinéma plus critique n’est-il pas aussi utilisé comme « soft diplomacy » par un État particulièrement soucieux de son image ? Fondée principalement sur une analyse des critiques de films en France, États-Unis, Grande-Bretagne et Israël, cet article propose une réponse nuancée. La pratique du financement et la production de ces films n’obéit pas à un souci politique. Bien reçus à l’étranger, et très minoritaires, les films critiques de l’armée et de l’occupation suscitent l’ire des représentants de l’État israélien, qui, sous Netanyahou, sont allés jusqu’à l’appel à l’autocensure. Au-delà de toute intention politique, les films font l’objet de réinterprétations et de malentendus qui peuvent provoquer des effets imprévisibles, par exemple sur la compréhension du statut des femmes, juives ou arabes, en Israël. Chaque pays met l’accent sur des aspects différents : l’Angleterre est la plus critique et la plus politique, les critiques français écrivent dans le contexte de leur culture cinéphilique, les Américains sont les plus prudents à l’instar de leurs journalistes. À l’exception de certains cinéastes palestiniens d’Israël, les créateurs ne s’exilent pas ou très peu, et continuent de porter un discours critique, par ailleurs rare dans les médias israéliens.

Resumen
En este artículo presentamos el interesante modelo de gestión del patrimonio desarrollado en la aldea palestina de Battir, como respuesta a la amenaza de construcción del “muro del apartheid”  israelí a su paso por este territorio. Battir cuenta con un conjunto arqueológico de terrazas romanas para la agricultura, únicas en el Mediterráneo. Analizaremos el recorrido del proyecto hasta la actualidad y, en consecuencia, reflexionar sobre la importancia de la gestión integral de los recursos y su protección,  como herramienta viable, para el desarrollo de territorios en conflicto.
Palabras clave
Battir, Palestina, paisaje, desarrollo, patrimonio
Abstract
In this paper, we present the interesting heritage management model developed in the Palestinian village of Battir as a response to the isreli threat of construction of the “apartheid wall” passing through the territory. Battir has roman agricultural terraces unique in the Mediterranean. We intend to analyse the course of the project to the present day, and therefore reflect on the importance of comprehensive management of heritage resources and their protection as a viable development tool in territories in conflict.
Key Words
Battir, Palestina, landscape, development, heritage

Case study of Palestinian theatre in Australia.

Palestine was, and will continue to be seen like a hot potato issue for many individuals and organisations. The courage of Don Mamouney and the Sidetrack Theatre was notable because the company did not shy away from the political controversy its works dealing with Palestine might stir. Sidetrack reinforced an important point for us dealing with the representation of Palestine here in Australia. Namely, that as exiles it is important that we understand that we have the choice to utilise the vehicles of culture and art in our struggle. This in turn makes it more difficult to dismiss our stories and experiences as simple propaganda.

For over a decade now there’s been a surge of cultural and artistic representation dealing with Palestine. This Palestinian cultural renaissance demands that Israel take stock of itself and realise its own current position: it is they who are increasingly becoming the political hot potato. In this shifting cultural and political landscape, the popularity and significance of the Palestinian arts have helped to expose Palestinians as the new David. With art as our stone, we will continue to rage against the Israeli Goliath that struggles to muddy our story, shroud our experiences and silence our voices.

Paper originally presented as ‘Playing Palestine: Staging Exile’, Beyond the Last Sky Symposium, The National Institute for Experimental Arts, The University of New South Wales, September 8 2012.

Also published in: The 7arakat Conference: Theatre, Cultural Diversity and Inclusion. 2-3 November 2012
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/humanities/about/conferences/7arakat

PhD Dissertation abstract:
This dissertation’s object is the mode of articulation of the political with the aesthetic in contemporary Palestinian cultural practices. The research poses the question of the new valence of the political following the 1993 interim peace accords between Israel and the PLO. The dissertation examines two of the historically most developed fields of cultural praxis, and that often articulated esthetics with narratives of struggle for liberation: literature and the visual arts.
This dissertation’s research problem derives from the contradictory assessments of contemporary signifying practices: Palestinians face the prospect of the demise of their independence and return aspirations.  Yet, the socio-political field has been widely assessed as having become depoliticized and demobilized. Further, contemporary artistic production is empirically characterized by an unprecedented expansion and globalized exposure, and deploys its political thematics along prevalent international styles and strategies, in rupture with its previous militant approaches. 
The textual stakes and production processes of the objects of this research are analyzed within a critical and cross-disciplinary cultural studies approach. I frame the research with Laclau and Mouffe’s work on ideology theory and notion of the heterogeneity of the social space. The work of Fredric Jameson on Third World cultural expression and Jacques Ranciére’s on aesthetic regimes inform the textual analyses of this investigation. The Circuit of Culture model structures the mapping and analysis of production and circulation data.
My principal argument is that the projection of political and nationalist problematics in contemporary artistic praxis endures, despite the immediacies of its new libidinal cathected representational modes. However, the fragmented and ex-centered deployment of these practices renders their emancipatory dimension increasingly un-decidable and contingent.

Palestine. We lack for nothing here:  New essays, poems, and art work by prominent Palestinian and international artists and intellectuals.
Livre collectif sous la direction d'Adila Laïdi-Hanieh:
Palestine rien ne nous manque ici, ou La banalité combative : Où l'humour, l'autocritique, la mémoire, la découverte d'identités multiples, la résistance individualiste, entêtée, inscrite dans une pratique quotidienne de liberté sont les nouvelles armes d'un exercice quotidien en dignité. Ce livre est le premier à penser une Palestine contemporaine de manière introspective, multidisciplinaire et critique, telle que vécue et perçue par des artistes et intellectuels Palestiniens et non Palestiniens internationalement confirmés et émergents, a travers des textes en majorité inédits - dont trois nouveaux textes de Mahmoud Darwich.
Artistes et auteurs invités:
Jumana Emil Abboud (Palestine, artiste visuelle), Hany Abou-Assad (Palestine, cinéaste), Atef Abu Seif (Palestine, écrivain), Abdul-Rahim Al-Shaikh (Palestine, écrivain),  Souad Amiry (Palestine, architecte et écrivain), Gharib Asqalani (Palestine, écrivain), Mourid Barghouti (Palestine, poète), Taysir Batniji (Palestine, photographe), Raed Bawayeh (Palestine, photographe), John Berger (France, écrivain), Yves Berger (France, peintre, écrivain), Mahmoud Darwich (Palestine, poète), Mahmoud Shukair (Palestine, écrivain), Fayçal Darraj (Palestine, critique),  Isabel de la Cruz (Allemagne, photographe), Nathalie Handal (Palestine-USA poète),  Akram Haniyyé (Palestine, journaliste, écrivain), Mona Hatoum (Palestine, artiste visuelle), Emily Jacir (Palestine, artiste visuelle), Hassan Khader (Palestine, essayiste), Yazan Khalili (Palestine, photographe architecte), Michel Khleifi (Belgique/Palestine, cinéaste), Adila Laïdi-Hanieh (Palestine, essayiste), Francis Martens (Belgique, psychanalyste), Aicha Odeh, (Palestine, écrivain), Els Opsomer (Belgique, artiste visuelle), Elias Sanbar (Palestine, historien, essayiste), Raja Shehadeh (Palestine, juriste essayiste), Adania Shibli (Palestine, écrivain), Ahlam Shibli (Palestine, photographe), Hala Shrouf (Palestine, poète), Jacques Sojcher (Belgique, philosophe), Soumayya Soussy (Palestine, poète), Tania Tamari-Nasir (Palestine, chanteuse), Vera Tamari (Palestine, artiste visuelle), Marc Trivier (Belgique, photographe, écrivain), Satoshi Ukaï (Japon, philosophe, essayiste), Christiane Vollaire (France, philosophe) Manar Zuabi (Palestine, performer).

Preface de l'ouvrage collectif "Palestine rien ne nous manque ici". Paris-Bruxelles: Editions Ah!-Cecrcle d'Art, 2009.
Ce livre est le premier à penser une Palestine contemporaine de manière introspective, multidisciplinaire et critique, telle que vécue et perçue par des artistes et intellectuels Palestiniens et non Palestiniens confirmés et émergents, à travers des textes en majorité inédits et des images.