Art on the Wall of Hate

Paintings by a Palestinian artist on the security fence.

I really wanted to share these because many people in the United States have this view of the Palestinians as brainwashed Islamic fundamentalists. They inhumanely attack Israeli's by blowing themselves up. Atleast that is the image you get in the media. But there is a lot more to life in Palestine then Islamic fundamentalism and suicide bombings. There is art, music, film. There is life in Palestine and I think people tend to forget that, or never realize it in the first place.

Another reason I wanted to share these photos, is to show how Palestinians are fighting nonviolently against the occupation. These paintings are commentary on life in Palestine under occupation. Take the painting of the girl grasping a bundle of balloons that are raising her off her feet. I interpret this image to be a symbol of imagination. The wall is suffocating for Palestinian society, but with a little imagination symbolized in this image of girl floating away with her balloons (an image I know I have once imagined myself) a door is open, providing a breath of fresh air for the men, the women, the children who walk by it every day.

Painting is a form of nonviolent resistance. It is active, not passive. And it is difficult. Any artist will tell you that. It is easier to succumb to violence, but to have the courage to stand up against oppression with a paint brush, not knowing if you will fail or succeed is more frightening to me then jumping out of a plane from 18,000 feet in the air.

Olmert denies Right of Return

Of course Olmert denies Palestinians the right of return.What's one more broken international law to the list? Let’s see here. Continued illegal occupation of territories seized in during 1967 war…check. Use of excessive force in occupied territories…check. Constructing a "security fence" on Palestinian territory…check. Deliberately targeting civilians in Lebanon…check. And the list goes on.

Amy Goodman Interview with Sami Rasouli

What is really going in Iraq?

When it comes to Iraq everyone has an opinion. But it angers me because many times I see people arguing that U.S. troops should stay in Iraq to provide security amidst the civil war, or that U.S. troops should stay to train Iraqi forces to stabilize their own country. I always hear people thinking what they think is best but rarely do I hear people referring to what the Iraqi's want. Hell, I actually do not want to hear what anyone thinks should be the U.S. policy in Iraq except for Iraqi's themselves.

Who are we to step on to foreign soil, beat their people to a pulp, then ask, what should we do now? But what about Saddam Hussein, is not life better in Iraq without him? William Blum spoke on campus and had a great analogy, I'll paraphrase. Imagine a patient goes to a doctor with a knee problem and the doctor amputates his knee and then says, but hey, you don't have knee problem anymore!

Get the hell out of there. That is what the Iraqi's want. According to a World Public Opinion poll, 70% of Iraqi's want U.S. troops to withdraw within six months. Whatever happened to popular sovereignty? Popular sovereignty doesn't exist in the face of the American Empire, we seek only “democracy.”

The Emerald Queen

I revisted Ultraviolenceland, a series of paintings by Camille Rose Garcia. All the paintings in this series intend to describe recreational violence. The castles are a symbol of empire. The vampires are armies that feed on violence and destruction. The dark forest symbolizes subconscious fear while inside the city symbolizes unhappiness with the "pristine but ultraviolent world."

This particular painting screamed to me the ills of the empire. The depressed princess toys with her gems in oblivion of fear. No castle can hide violence. Regardless of beauty and peace in the empire, when built by blood, fear and violence will lurk in the subconscious. The dutiful worker extracting dead souls from life reminds me of a soldiers work: the violence an army must enact to maintain an empire.To me, it also raises the question of the rationalization of violence. Violence is rationalized to protect an empire. Those who live outside the empire live outside of the care of the empire, and therefore suffer. However, all, inside and outside the empire suffer from violence. The categorization of within and outside an empire becomes arbitrary. This painting leaves me questioning. What is a nation? What is a state? Why do we substantiate violence for this arbitrary, imaginary concept?

Non-violent struggle takes many shapes and many forms. Vampires in forests, ghouls sucking souls, and princesses in castles slitting wrists and downing pills are all images of violence that Garcia painted with the intention to evoke thoughts on the use and need of violence in this world. Most people don’t look at a painting and see non-violent struggle, but it is there. Took view more of Garcia's work visit her online gallery.

Sewage Floods Village in Gaza

Five killed after sewage floods village in Gaza

A couple thoughts on this article: First off, I find it interesting that the author wrote, "Hamas gunmen, along with rescue crews, rushed to the search for residents." Maybe the representatives of Hamas carried guns to the scene, maybe not. Regardless I think using the term "gunmen" exacerbates the already warped US perception of Hamas as a solely right-wing militant terrorist organization.

Yes, Hamas calls for a one-state solution. And yes, after the Oslo Accords failed, Hamas claimed responsibility for suicide attacks during the second intifada. However, since the second intifada, Hamas ceased using the deplorable tactic.

Hamas funds social programs such as education (and no these are not terrorist brainwashing madrasas), welfare programs, orphanages, and healthcare clinics. To the Palestinians, Hamas is a political party fighting to end the occupation and protect the Palestinians.

Overall this article really brings to light how neglected the human rights, and deplorable living conditions are for people living in the occupied Palestinian territories. It seems like the media, finally, has the guts to reveal at least bits of truth regarding the brutal and illegal Israeli occupation.

For more information on the occupation check out:
End the Occupation
Electronic Intifada
Jewish Voice For Peace

Hebron is Hell

I'm posting this article for those who either do not know much about the occupied Palestinian territories and especially to those who claim to have gone to Hebron and returned with smiles and postcards.

I'm saying this because I have quite a few friends who traveled to Israel through Birthright. They think they are getting a real experience of the country but what they get is far from it. Many of them have no idea that the routes they take detour around Palestinian inhabited areas, sometimes up to a 7 hour detour, just so they never see what the IDF is doing there. When they visit Hebron, IDF locks in the Palestinians in their homes by MILITARY force, while the young Americans enjoy their time in the suburban paradise.

A representative from Women in Black, and Israeli peace organization, spoke to a small group of us on campus last year. She described the violent acts of settlers against the Palestinians. The most horrific that stains my mind still was her description of settler women throwing rocks at Palestinian CHILDREN. A photographer friend of mine who has also spent time in Hebron described settler men urinating on Palestinians. The Women in Black, when under attack from the settlers for protecting the Palestinian children, were subject to threats such as, "We killed Jesus, we'll kill you too."

Hebron is hell. Occupation is hell. Read this article if you don't believe me.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6470375.stm

Billboarding the Iraqi Disaster

"Why is it that we are counting and thinking about the Sudanese dead as part of a high-profile, celebrity-driven campaign to "Save Darfur," yet Iraqi deaths still go effectively uncounted, and rarely seem to provoke moral outrage, let alone public campaigns to end the killing? And why are the numbers of killed in Darfur cited without any question, while the numbers of Iraqi dead, unless pitifully low-ball figures, are instantly challenged -- or dismissed?"

In New York City giant billboard display the number dead in Darfur. Save Darfur campaigns flood universities, corporations etc. What about the Iraqi's? Why has Darfur recieved the media attention it has regarding casualities, living conditions, horror stories, while Iraq has not? Arnove makes a keen argument regarding the Iraqi Disaster.