Palestinian Cultural Resistance

Palestinian Cultural Resistance: Violence or Peace?

1948 brought terror to Palestine and a homeland for the Jews who had long migrated to the area following the brutal Holocaust just ten years earlier. Now began the age of the returning Jew, seeking a homeland in Palestine. Since then, the Palestinians have been both driven under the burden of the Israeli occupation manifested in tedious checkpoints, soldier patrols, and a massive wall, and have experienced the semi-liberation of self-rule under Hamas. The political history of the Israel/Palestine conflict is the subject of several conflicting narratives. While for Israel, the walls, checkpoints, and patrols ensure safety and security from terrorists, to Palestinians, they are oppressive

Living in Israel, Saeed is constantly swayed by the will to live by shadowing his Palestinian identity or by showing his nationality to appear trustworthy to his comrades. Ironically, it is when Saeed finally reveals his identification with Palestine and is imprisoned that he is awakened to a true feeling of national loyalty and subsequent freedom (Habibi, 132). Habibi uses this literary picture to show how, even in times of conflict and oppression, the greatest individuality and nationalism will

The public art of Gaza differs from the same expression in other areas during the Arab Spring because by that time it was already embedded in Palestinian culture (Rolston, 41). Additionally, with the rise of Hamas and the relative peace in Gaza and the West Bank at the start of the Second Intifada in 2000, Israel released its control over Gaza. Therefore murals evolved as more of a pictorial portrayal of the Palestinian oppression because artists were relaxed, with almost no threat of sudden incarceration or death (Rolston, 47). The Second Intifada broke out in a spate of violent militarism after a visit by former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the controversial Al Aqsa Mosque (Rolston, 43). Hamas took control of Gaza in opposition to the Israeli Government, set up checkpoints that still severely limit transport of goods. The result of this poor flow of goods has led to poverty, lack of hospital aid, poor drinking water, continuing violence especially within Gaza. As a result, the murals, although of varied content, all seem to exalt the Palestinian either through the depiction of martyrs or by showing a plan for peace where all distribution will be equal. Rolston concludes, “… the murals spell out a message of Israeli aggression and justified Palestinian resistance (51)”.