November 1, 2007

Painting Dialogue

Posted by kameelah rasheed at 1:00PM

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Much of what we hear about the Arab-Israeli conflict is concerned with air strikes and battles on the ground. However, there are discursive battles fought not with bullets and rocks, but with words and images that often carry just as much strength. Right here in the Bay Area there was a struggle over the images in a large mural in a parking lot on the corner of 24th and Capp streets in San Francisco.

This summer 200 residents of San Francisco's Mission District painted a mural designed by local artist Eric Norberg under the auspices of HOMEY-Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth . HOMEY "is a grassroots organization that serves low-income Latino youth ages of 13 to 24 in the San Francisco Mission District." HOMEY is made up of young people "in gangs, those formerly incarcerated, young people at risk of incarceration, and isolated and disenfranchised youth who are equally at risk of unhealthy behaviors like violence and criminal activity."

The mural, "Solidarity: Breaking Down Barriers" focused on the theme of breaking down physical and social walls. One panel of the 117-foot wide and 10-foot tall mural depicted Palestinians breaking through an Israel shaped crack in the Israeli security barrier, or what some call the Apartheid wall.

Not everyone was pleased with the mural. In fact, the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) and the SF office of the Anti-Defamation League called on the SF Arts Commission to change what they deemed offensive imagery. HOMEY was given a $34,400 neighborhood-beautification grant for the mural project, however payment was withheld until the controversy was resolved.

Many of the offended parties argued that the mural only depicted "one side of the centuries-old conflict." Abby Michelson Porth, the associate director of the Jewish Community Relations Council stated, "The imagery took a radical position on a complex geopolitical issue that was out of touch with the international community, San Francisco and the overwhelming majority of Jews."

However, the San Francisco Jewish community was not unanimous in their dismissal of the mural. Jewish support for the mural materialized as the Jewish Support for HOMEY Mural petition addressed to the SF Arts Commission. In this petition letter, the coalition asserted that:

We want to affirm our support for the H.O.M.E.Y. artists in their expression of the global connections between current and historical experiences of oppression, displacement, and resistance. It has come to our attention that the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) has complained about the HOMEY mural in the name of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish community and we therefore feel it is imperative that you hear from a broader spectrum of organized Jews not represented by JCRC. Our support for this mural stems from our historical Jewish experience that includes oppression and resistance. We therefore stand in solidarity, as Jews, with local communities in their struggle for self-determination and their self-expression.

Hoping to sway the commission with the caveat that "Palestinian representation in the public sphere has been historically silenced, targeted, made invisible and often cannot exist as a legitimate experience on its own," Jewish -- and all supporters for that matter -- waited anxiously until the September 19 SF Arts Commission vote.

The unanimous SF Arts Commission decision reflected a set of compromises. HOMEY and Eric Norberg agreed to remove the elements of the panel deemed "divisive and hostile." While HOMEY was able to keep the original mural design intact, several changes were made.

First, the break in the wall is no longer in the shape of Israel. Second, the figure originally represented wearing a Keffiyeh covering their face has been changed to the image of a strong woman wearing the Keffiyeh wrapped around her face. Third, an olive tree has been added to the wall as a symbol of hope, in homage to trees lost because of the construction of the Wall, and representing Palestinian culture, strength, history and liberation.

Despite this compromise, segments of the Jewish community were still appalled that the mural was allowed to exist at all. The intention of the mural was to start dialogue and that it most definitely did, but questions remain. What does it mean that the mural was changed? Does the mural have the same effect? What message does this send to the artists? Whenever we disagree with the narrative that someone presents through their art or writing, do we have a right to petition its altering? Are there different rules for public art? Does unity have to mean someone else's silence?

This battle over the "truth" in the Arab-Israeli conflict extends beyond this Bay Area example.

This July, in a short article in the New York Times entitled "History Textbooks With Some Varnish Missing," Patrick J. Lyons wrote about the politics of (re)writing history and children's textbooks in Israel using George Orwell's 1984 as a backdrop. As a history teacher who searches for obscure primary sources for fun and loves to discuss the pedagogical problems with textbooks, I was immediately drawn in by the situation and my nerd juices started flowing.

In July, Israel's Education Ministry lead my minister Yuli Tamir announced the approval of a textbook for use in the state's Arab school that for the first time describes the creation of Israel in 1948 as "al-Nakba" or "the catastrophe" for the Arab population. Ms. Fenig, the national supervisor of homeland, society and citizenship studies, noted "Pedagogically, it is not right to hide facts and ignore Arab sensitivities if we want to live together and build something in common." While many Arab members of the Israeli Parliament were excited about the Education Ministry's decision, many Jewish politicians took offense to the decision.

Interestingly, the textbook under scrutiny is only used by the one-fifth of Israel's population who are Arabs. The catastrophe reference doesn't appear in the Hebrew version. The fact that the reference does not appear in the Hebrew version contradicts Ms. Tamir's assertion that "the Arab public deserves to be allowed to express its feelings" and Ms. Fenig argument that "it is not right to hide facts and ignore Arab sensitivities."

If the goal is to engage in critical historical readings that make various narratives visible and to promote coexistence as well as commonalities, how can this happen if these narratives are only presented to one portion of Israel's population? Who are the Arab public expresses their feelings to besides themselves? Who is hearing about these new excavated facts?

Arab and Jewish students in Israel study separately and as is noted their textbooks are quite different. Ms. Fenig commented that "Jewish third graders were considered too young to cope with the conflicting narratives." Irrespective of this fact, many politicians find the reference abominable. In fact, Zevulun Orlev, chairman of the rightist National Religious Party said that Ms. Tamir's decision was "anti-Zionist and goes against the very existence of Israel as a Jewish state." Orlev even called for the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to fire Ms. Tamir.

The battle over images and words does not end there.

Just this October, New York Times reported on the ongoing controversy over the authenticity of a video clip showing the shooting death of Palestinian boy named Muhammad al-Dura two days following the second Palestinian intifada in 2000. The original report was by a French TV network that claimed that the Israeli troops intentionally shot the boy. As such, the shooting death of Mohammad al-Dura carries almost saint-like iconic power. Egypt and Tunisia issued postage stamps of Muhammad al-Dura and Egypt named a street in his honor.

Despite the iconic power invested in this image, some argue that the video is doctored and a form of propaganda that subverts truth. In France there is a running lawsuit. In France, Doreen Carvajal reported that in France, "debate seethes about whether the televised footage of Muhammad al-Dura was genuine, misinterpreted or — as an American academic put it — artfully staged "Pallywood" theater." In Israel, the right-wing Israel Law Center petitioned the Government Press Office calling for the office to pursue criminal charges against France 2, the source of the original report and to revoke the network's press credentials.

However, the petition was rejected.

There are to be many more battles in this vein.

The question is how we will approach these situations in ways that open up dialogue rather than stifle it?