Punchline: The Emergence of Humour in Palestinian Art and Film

Chrisoula Lionis

A thesis in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

The National Institute for Experimental Arts

College of Fine Arts

April 2013

ORIGINALITY STATEMENT

‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project's design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.’

Signed ______

Date ______

ABSTRACT

The last two decades have witnessed a remarkable increase in the exhibition and screening of Palestinian art and film in festivals, galleries and cinemas around the world. Since the mid 1990s this Palestinian work has been marked by a distinct turn toward the employment of humour. This shift signals a radical departure from the aesthetic modes that previously dominated Palestinian art and film. Despite this change of direction, there remains a lack of scholarly analysis dealing with this phenomenon.

This thesis offers the first comprehensive study of humour in Palestinian art and film, analyzing both the impetus behind this shift toward laughter and its consequences.

This thesis is also the first study to investigate Palestinian art and film in a single extensive text, revealing the ways in which both art forms developed in response to critical moments in Palestinian history. Described as ‘critical junctions’, these moments have radically transformed modern Palestinian collective identity and in turn Palestinian cultural output. Mapping these critical junctions, beginning with the decline of the

Ottoman Empire up until the present, this thesis explores the historical trajectory of

Palestinian art and film and argues that the failure of the peace process has led to the proliferation of humour in Palestinian visual culture.

DEDICATION

In memory of my father, Dennis Lionis

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I offer my sincere gratitude to those who have encouraged, rallied and supported me during the writing of this thesis.

Firstly, to my supervisor Dr David McNeill for his commitment, unrelenting enthusiasm and support of my research over the years. I am aware that this is a debt I will never be able to repay, but I will remain forever grateful.

To Professor Jill Bennett whose research has been enormously influential and whose work at the National Institute for Experimental Arts has provided me with an inspirational place to both work and conduct interdisciplinary research. My thanks also to the College of Fine Arts that has also supported me by way of training, teaching opportunity and the financial support of fieldwork in Palestine. Thanks also to the academics at COFA that have inspired and supported my work over the years, most notably Associate Professor Phil George and Dr Jennifer Biddle for their patience and encouragement.

To my friend Dr Uros Cvoro for his unwavering faith in my research, his chronic cheerfulness and for always helping me to push through.

To Assad Abdi for his ongoing support, humour and valuable personal insight into Palestinian cultural output in Australia and beyond. My thanks also to Cultural Media and in particular Naser Shakhtour for providing me with the opportunity to work on the Palestinian Film Festival, a role that has directly influenced many of the insights contained within this thesis.

To my family - Alexandra, Peter and Penny. There are no words to express my gratitude for all your support. To Alexandra, my Cretan mama, thank you for always believing in me. You will forever be my strongest role model.

Finally, I thank the Palestinian people whose laughter and sumud is the driving force behind every word of this thesis.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication iv

Acknowledgements v

List of Figures vii

Introduction 1

Part One The Construction of ‘Palestinianess’ and 30 ‘Palestinianism’

Chapter One A Germinating Nationalism?: Before 1948 31

Chapter Two Al-Nakba and the Birth of Palestinianess: 1948-1967 62

Chapter Three Karameh and the Emergence of Palestinianism: 1968- 95 1982

Chapter Four Exile2: A Return to the Abyss of Exile: 1982-1993 133

Part Two The Emergence of Laughter 168

Chapter Five The Punchline: Oslo and the Emergence of Humour 169

Chapter Six What/Where is Palestine?: Humour and the dileneation 204 of ‘Palestine’

Chapter Seven Occupied Laughter: The Failure of the Peace Process 244

Chapter Eight Who is Laughing?: Laughter and the Boundaries of 284 Identity

Conclusion 323

Bibliography 330

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Zulfa al-Sa’di, Hashemite Leader of the Arab Revolt Sharif 54 Hussein Ibn Ali, Oil on Canvas. 1930

Figure 2. Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Untitled, Acrylic on Glass, 1947 55

Figure 3. Lumiere Brothers, Jerusalem, Film Still, 1896 57

Figure 4. Associated Press Photograph, Deir Yassin, 1948. 66

Figure 5. Ismail Shammout, Whereto?, Oil on Canvas, 1953 83

Figure 6. Ismail Shammout, For the Sake of the Palestinians, Poster, 105 1975

Figure 7. Ismail Shammout, Thousands of Arms, Posters, 1968 105

Figure 8. Ismail Shammout, A Sip of Water, Oil on Canvas, 1953 106

Figure 9. Ismail Shammout, Loneliness, Oil on Canvas, 1957 106

Figure 10. Sliman Mansour, Camel of Hardships, Oil on Canvas, 1973 110

Figure 11. Ibrahim Ghannam, The Harvest, Oil on Canvas, 1979 111

Figure 12. Naji al-Ali, Peace Built on Surrender, Cartoon, March 1976 114

Figure 13. Mustafa Abu Ali, They Did Not Exist, Film Still, 1974 128

Figure 14. Mona Hatoum, Measures of Distance, Video still, 15 139 minutes, 1988

Figure 15. Mona Hatoum, The Negotiating Table, Performance Still, 144 1983 Figure 16. Mona Hatoum, Socle du Monde, Sculpture, 1992 146

Figure 17. Mona Hatoum, Self-Erasing Drawing, Kinetic Sculpture, 147 1979

Figure 18. Michel Khleifi, Wedding in Galilee, Video Cover, 1987 154

Figure 19. Michel Khleifi, Wedding in Galilee, Film Still, 1987 157

Figure 20. The Signing Ceremony of the Oslo Accord I, September 189 1993 vii

Figure 21. Areen Omari, First Lesson, Film Still, 2012 208

Figure 22. Larissa Sansour, A Space Exodus, Video Still, 2009 212

Figure 23. Larissa Sansour, Nation Estate, Video Still, 2012 215

Figure 24. Larissa Sansour, Nation Estate, Video Still, 2012 217

Figure 25. Larissa Sansour, Nation Estate, Poster, 2012 219

Figure 26. Amer Shomali, Visit Palestine, Poster, 2010 219

Figure 27. Khaled Hourani, No News from Palestine, 2007 222

Figure 28. Taysir Batniji, Watchtowers, C-Type Photographic Prints, 231 2008

Figure 29. Raeda Saadeh, Vacuum, 2-Channel Video Still, 2007 234

Figure 30. Raeda Saadeh, The Milk Maid, C-Type Photographic Print, 237 2007

Figure 31. Raeda Saadeh, Rrose Selavy, C-Type Photographic Print, 237 2007

Figure 32. Elia Suleiman, Divine Intervention, Video Cover, 2002 241

Figure 33. Sharif Waked, Beace Brocess, Video, 2010 248

Figure 34. Khaled Jarrar, The State of Palestine, Stamp, 2011-2012 255

Figure 35. Khaled Jarrar, The State of Palestine, Jarrar with Stamp, 256 2011-2012

Figure 36. Khalil Rabah, The 3rd Annual Wall Zone Auction, Video, 257 2004

Figure 37. Elia Suleiman, Divine Intervention, Film Still, 2002 260

Figure 38. Sharif Waked, Chic Point, Video, 2003 266

Figure 39. Taysir Batniji, GH0809, Installation View, 2010 271

Figure 40. Taysir Batniji, GH0809, detail, 2010 272

Figure 41. Tarzan and Arab, Gazawood, Posters, detail, 2010 275

Figure 42. Raed Andoni, Fix Me, Film Still, 2009 277

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Figure 43. Rashid Masharawi, Waiting, Film Still, 2005 281

Figure 44. Emily Jacir, Sexy Semite, Installation View, 2000 - 2002 286

Figure 45. Emily Jacir, Sexy Semite, Personals, 2000 – 2002 288

Figure 46. Khaled Hourani, Watermelon, 2007 299

Figure 47. Monther Jawabreh, As Once Was Known, Oil on Canvas, 301 2012

Figure 48. Ihab Jadallah, The Shooter, Film Stills, 2008 302

Figure 49. Elia Suleiman, The Time That Remains, Film Still, 2009 304

Figure 50. Sharif Waked, To Be Continued, Video Still, 2009 315

Figure 51. Pablo Picasso, Buste de Femme, Oil on Canvas, 1943 320

Figure 52. Picasso in Palestine, Installation View, 2011 321

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INTRODUCTION

‘Even in laughter the heart may ache’1 St. John Chrysostom

In early 2008 I met with a group of Palestinians from a local Sydney community interest group. The purpose of our meeting was to organise an exhibition commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the Nakba.2 Having already spent several years undertaking research on Palestinian art, I was keen to put my research into ‘the real world’, believing that an art exhibition would draw attention to an event rarely mentioned in the mainstream media, despite its significance for Palestinians and the

Arab world. Throughout the course of our meeting, conversation meandered around various events in Palestinian history, drifting further and further away from the Nakba.

At one point, discussion turned to the Lebanese Civil War and the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Perhaps inevitably, the conversation’s focus then shifted to the massacres at the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut.3 At this point, one of the

1 St John Chrysostom quoted in Jacqueline Bussie, The Laughter of the Oppressed: Ethical and Theological Resistance in Wiesel, Morrison and Endo (New York: T&T Clark, 2007) 21. 2 The Nakba (or the Catastrophe) is the word used to describe the foundation of Israel and the occupation of historical Palestine in 1948. Throughout this thesis the Zionist take over of historic Palestine in 1948 is described with the term ‘occupation’. However, it must be noted that there is some contestation over this term. Many writers prefer to use the term ‘colonisation’ to describe the 1948 takeover, reserving the term ‘occuation’ to describe the internationally recognised occupation of land seized by Israel in 1967. 3 Amnon Kapeliouk, Sabra and Shatila: Inquiry into a Massacre Ed and Trans. Khalil Jahshan (Belmont Massachusetts: Association of Arab‐American Graduates, 1984) 62‐63; Leila Shahid, “The Sabra and Shatila Massacres: Eye‐Witness Reports,” Journal of Palestine Studies 32.1 (2002) 44. Between the 16th and 18th of September 1982, Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia entered the camps and massacred, beat and raped the camp inhabitants. There remains considerable speculation as to the 1 gentlemen in the room proceeded to explain 'the massacre was so horrible that we didn’t bother counting the dead, only the survivors’. To my bewilderment, everyone else in the room responded to the comment with an explosion of laughter.

I found myself falling completely silent in the face of this laughter; shocked by what I saw and heard around me. At the time, it was completely beyond my comprehension how a group of Palestinians could ever laugh at the traumatic events of

Sabra and Shatila. It was in this moment of my silence and their mirth that I felt a profound sense of complete cultural outsiderness. Being Greek/Australian, I was the only non-Palestinian in the room, and it was as if my silence only served to amplify further the line of difference between my identity and experience and that of the others in the room. I left the meeting deeply troubled by what I had just seen and heard, but equally determined to understand the phenomenon I had witnessed. I was affected so profoundly by the event that I began taking mental notes of all the incidents of humour I saw reflected in Palestinian visual culture, particularly in art and film. These mental notes marked the germination of an enquiry that has culminated in this thesis.

The thesis is entitled Punchline: The Emergence of Humour in Palestinian Art and Film has included the word ‘emergence’ to suggest that focus throughout this thesis is not centred exclusively on laughter in Palestinian art and film. Rather, this thesis provides a critical account of the historical trajectory of these two mediums, discussing the ways in which Palestinian art and film have reflected changes in Palestinian collective identity over a one hundred year period. This thesis maps the trajectory of both art forms and to contend that Palestinian visual culture has arrived at a ‘punchline’.

This ‘punchline’ resulted from the peace process, which ushered in a shift in Palestinian collective identity and experience, resulting in the employment of humour by artists and number of executions and casualties of the massacre. Although no census of the dead has ever been attempted, the number of dead is estimated between 3000 and 3500 people. 2 filmmakers. For this reason, the thesis is separated into two parts. The first deals with the trajectory of Palestinian art and film from the decline of the Ottoman Empire until the ‘punchline’ of the peace process and the emergence of humour. The second part engages critically with the humour of Palestinian art and film, investigating its impetus and consequences.

My analysis of art and film is interlaced throughout with a discussion of

Palestinian history. Given the heated politics that surround the issue of Palestine, a discussion of Palestinian history is always fraught with issues of political subjectivity.

This is evidenced by the proliferation of texts in recent decades that deal with the history of Palestine. This history is marked by revisionism that aims both to unearth previously unpublished material, and to substantiate oral history by placing it in the historical archive. Overall however, the surge in historical texts dealing with Palestine can be said to provide a historical account in order to explain the present political realities facing Palestinians. This thesis draws from many texts in its discussion of

Palestinian history, including the seminal work of Rashid Khalidi and Ilan Pappe, two of the most notable historians working in the field. The historical discussion interlaced throughout this thesis aims to not only narrate the historical epochs explored, but also to unpack the ways in which historical events shaped Palestinian identity, in turn influencing art and film.

The proliferation of texts dealing with Palestinian history has been mirrored by an increase in published material dealing with Palestinian art and film. The expansion of scholarship in this area has resulted from the growing international profile of both these art forms over the last two decades. The fact that Palestinian art and film now circulate in international screening and exhibition contexts is also of vital importance in this regard. This relatively new international profile allows art and film to function as a form

3 of cultural export that lends international audiences a new perspective of Palestinian identity, culture and experience away from the media lens that has long dominated the representation of Palestine and Palestinians. The presence of art and film in international contexts also creates opportunities for analysis and discussion of them by writers and commentators from around the world. This thesis is one example of such writing.

This thesis draws on a variety of scholarly texts dealing with Palestinian art and film. However, it does draw heavily from the seminal work of artist and art historian

Kamal Boullata when dealing with art, and film theorists Nurith Gertz and George

Khleifi when analysing film. Two recent texts written by these authors: Palestinian Art:

From 1850 to the Present and Palestinian Cinema: Landscape Trauma, and Memory, are the most substantial scholarly enquiries into Palestinian art and film, and both uncover previously unpublished historical material.4 Without this seminal research and its publication in English, this thesis would not have been possible.

While building on the scholarship around these two Palestinian art forms, this thesis takes the hitherto unpronounced stance that in the last two decades Palestinian art and film have been marked by a distinct turn towards the use of humour. Admittedly, in the early stages of my research I believed that laughter was, at best, too speculative a cultural phenomenon on which to focus energy, particularly given the ongoing trauma of exile and occupation facing Palestinians. However, any residual concerns about the validity of this research dissipated quickly when I first engaged in fieldwork in the West

Bank. The timing of my visit happened to coincide with the Gaza War of 2008–2009.

Despite the tense political climate (and my limited mastery of Arabic), I was confronted

4 Kamal Boullata, Palestinian Art: From 1850 to the Present (London: Saqi, 2009); Nurith Gertz and George Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema: Landscape Trauma and Memory (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008) The work of Boullata, Khleifi and Gertz is particularly significant for the ways in which it uncovers the history of Palestinian art and film prior to 1982. 4 with laughter everywhere I travelled in Palestine. Although this laughter was manifested in everyday exchanges and conversations rather than in art and film, I realised its importance in not only narrating the Palestinian experience in a charged political climate, but also because of its role in forging a line of intimate connection and communication between myself and the individuals I met.

As much of the laughter I encountered was directed towards the experience of exile and occupation, I realised that my own laughter in response to humorous provocation actually signalled a momentary solidarity with the Palestinians with whom

I was laughing. In contrast to my attitude in Sydney, I felt the need to laugh for two reasons, because I began to appreciate the humour and because I understood that failure to laugh would indicate a sense of disapproval or disagreement. It was here, literally surrounded by the Israeli occupation, that I began to realise the discernible, albeit slippery, difference between laughing ‘at’ and laughing ‘with’ or ‘alongside’,

Palestinian suffering. In short, I understood the social bond formed by laughter and the joint aggression it engenders against outsiders.5 As I also came to understand, and indeed aim to prove in this thesis, laughter draws a line between ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’, and this line demarcates a point of difference contingent on the appreciation of cultural references and signifiers that are employed to elicit laughter.

In order to nurture an appreciation of the cultural signifiers that elicit humour in

Palestinian art and film, it was necessary to understand the deficiencies and limitations of my understanding of these cultural references. That is to say, I needed to understand and rectify the gaps in my knowledge of Palestinian history and culture. Laughter was an excellent tool in this regard, for whenever something was ‘funny’ and I did not

5 John Morreall, “Humor and the Conduct of Politics,” Beyond a Joke: The Limits of Humour, Eds. Sharon Lockyer and Michael Pickering (New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2005) 67; Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression (New York: Bantam, 1963) 284. 5 appreciate it as such, I was made instantly aware of a gap in my understanding. Such gaps related not only to historical research surrounding Palestinian history and the construction and evolution of its national identity, but also to the understanding of humour theory, or the field known as humorology.6

I began my work on humour somewhat guilelessly as I was working in the field of visual culture and assumed there would be a breadth of scholarly work on the subject.

Clearly, I am not the only writer to have fallen victim to this assumption. As many authors have noted, laughter is a serious business, and though it takes a central role in our daily lives, it remains theoretically elusive.7 This observation is frequently qualified by authors’ attempts to humorously convey the irony of their pursuit of critical engagement with the phenomenon of laughter. It would seem that this text is not immune to this trend, given the following reflection, it is often said that a person becomes a critic because they have failed as an artist, so too with humorological research, where it is proposed that theorists are drawn to the discipline only because they are intimidated humorists.8 What this is suggesting is that an author observing and writing around humour within a visual culture perspective is both lacking creativity and seriously unfunny.

However, this should not dissuade people from taking a cross-disciplinary approach, because this has the potential to locate unique insights into the meaning and consequences of humour in contemporary visual culture. This thesis aims to highlight this latent potential in the study of humour by analysing the meaning and consequences of humour in the specific case study of Palestinian visual culture, with a focus on art

6 I have deliberately used the American spelling of ‘humorology’ throughout this thesis as it is the most commonly used spelling for the discipline. I do however use the English spelling of ‘humour’ throughout. 7 Simon Critchley, On Humour: Thinking in Action (London: Routledge, 2002) 2; Michael Pickering and Sharon Lockyer, “The Ethics and Aesthetics of Humour and Comedy,” Beyond a Joke 25; John Morreall, The Philosophy of Laughter and Humour (New York: State University of New York Press, 1987)1; Elliot Orring, Engaging Humour (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003) ix. 8 Khalid Kishtainy, Arab Political Humour (London: Quartet Books, 1985) ix. 6 and film. The decision to look at both art and film was also a deliberate one, because although several texts have been written about both art forms individually, these texts have neglected to put both art and film together to trace the common themes that run through them. Throughout this thesis I refer to Palestinian art and film using the term

‘cultural output’. Although this term might initially suggest an emphasis beyond the mediums of art and film, other art forms such as theatre, literature and dance were intentionally omitted from the discussion. Although they are all important forms of culture, discussion of them was not possible in a thesis of this length. Further, art and film are the two mediums that have proliferated most in international markets and exhibition spaces, making them the most accessible for scholarly analysis and discussion.

This thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach by drawing from both visual culture studies and humorology. Throughout the thesis, I analyse Palestinian art and film using a variety of critical and disciplinary approaches that come together through the field of visual culture. These disciplines include history, cultural studies, art history, critical theory, philosophy and anthropology.9 It is important to note here that although visual culture is itself a multidisciplinary field, with the addition of humorology it becomes even further broadened. However, this broad interdisciplinary approach should not be viewed as a deficiency, because it is arguably only through this diversity of approaches that the phenomenon of laughter in contemporary art and film can be understood.

Although there is substantial writing on the genre of comedy in film, the same cannot be said of humour in art.10 The scarcity of scholarship on the role of humour in

9 Nicholas Mirzoeff, An Introduction to Visual Culture (1999; New York: Routledge, 2009) 1‐20. 10 Geoff King, Film Comedy (London: Wallflower Press, 2002); Andrew Horton ed., Comedy, Cinema, Theory (Berkley: University of California Press, 1991) 7 art is particularly problematic given the growing use of humour in contemporary art practice. Sheri Klein, the author of Art and Laughter (one of the few texts to engage with this theme), comments that this paucity of scholarship may come as a result of humour being defined too narrowly within art history.11 Klein draws here on the fact that though parody, irony, satire, absurdity and caricature, for example, have formed the basis of many art historical endeavours, until very recently few authors used a broad definition of humour in their discussion and analysis of art. The problem with these historical approaches is that they limit the scope of research by demarcating each humorous characteristic as distinct, and therefore possibly not as closely related to other humorous phenomena as it would be if discussed holistically under the umbrella of the word ‘humour’ or ‘laughter’. For this reason, manifestations of laughter are denoted in this thesis by the words ‘humour’ or ‘laughter’. Although various techniques of humour

(mockery, absurdity, pastiche etc.) are referred to intermittently, I have deliberately called upon the umbrella term ‘humour’ to describe the elicitation of laughter.

Despite my use of the word ‘humour’, there is a scholarly reluctance towards the use of it by some authors. This reluctance comes about because the term can be used to encompass all things ‘ha-ha funny’, and this, for some writers, is viewed as problematic. This is because, as Michael Billig notes, ‘Writers or speakers call a joke

‘humorous’ or classify it as an example of ‘humour’, [when] they are indicating their own stance towards the funniness of the material.’12 Though Billig here writes specifically about jokes, his analysis might be broadened to encompass all manifestations of humour. For Billig it is essential that humour be seen as the object of analysis, rather than a reflection of the subjective judgment of the analyst. In short,

Notable texts dealing with the significance, meaning and consequences of the genre of comedy in cinema are Geoff King’s Film Comedy and Andrew Horton’s Comedy, Cinema, Theory. 11 Sheri Klein, Art and Laughter (London: I.B Tauris, 2007) 5 12 Michael Billig “Comic Racism and Violence,” Beyond a Joke 27. 8

Billig highlights the need for a critical approach to laughter, one that reveals the social biases and influences behind humour.

Although my analysis of manifestations of humour is inevitably shaped by my subjectivity towards the ‘funniness’ of the material discussed, I maintain a critical approach to laughter at all times. The elements of this critical approach are twofold.

Firstly, all examples of humorous cultural output are framed by their relationship and dependence upon historical events and their surrounding social and political context.

Secondly, works are analysed according to the discursive approaches of visual culture; employing memory, trauma and identity studies along with post-colonial and subaltern theory.

This critical approach and my emphasis on Palestinian history attempt to theoretically unpack the social biases and influences behind humour. I do this in the belief that there is no such thing as a distinctly ‘Palestinian humour’, but rather that there are examples of humour in cultural output that are informed by Palestinian history and experience. In this way, the thesis posits the idea that humour in Palestinian art and film is idiosyncratic insofar as the events that shaped Palestinian collective identity and experience are particular to them as a cultural group. Although Palestinian history is inextricably linked to that of Israel, this thesis does not focus on Israeli art and film.

This is an entirely separate line of enquiry that, although worthy of its own discussion, is far beyond the scope of this thesis.

That having been said, a primary question remains: why humour? Laughter is increasingly pronounced in Palestinian art and film and yet there is almost no scholarly research focusing exclusively on humour and its corresponding impetuses and consequences. This paucity of analysis is astounding given the proliferation of works of humorous Palestinian cultural output over the last two decades. The growing emphasis

9 on laughter in Palestinian art and film also corresponds with the tremendous growth of the international profile of Palestinian culture output over the same period. Importantly, the emphasis on humour in Palestinian art and film mirrors the interest and expectations of the global art world over the last twenty years. As will be shown in this thesis, humour can be seen to function as a passport to international recognition because it is in keeping with wider trends in art that have increasingly turned towards the critical use of laughter. Though this may be the case, the paucity of scholarly analysis surrounding the emergence of humour in Palestinian art and film is further amplified by a dire lack of scholarly research into humour in contemporary art and visual culture. Thus this thesis marks an ambitious attempt to fill this scholarly chasm.

Although this entire thesis falls within the field of visual culture, it is only the second half that deals with humorology. This section presupposes some knowledge of the history of humour theory which, although relatively sparse and under researched, spans over 2000 years. It is for this reason that it is useful here to provide a brief account of the history of humorology, looking first to the three main theories of humour

(Superiority Theory, Relief Theory and Incongruity Theory) and the pioneering work on humour by writers Henri Bergson, Andre Breton and Mikhail Bakhtin. The understanding of the role of humour in Palestinian art and film advanced in this thesis is underpinned by these theoretical approaches to humour.

Superiority Theory is by far the oldest theory pertaining to the understanding of humour.13 Though the theory of Superiority is often argued to stem from Plato and

Aristotle, in recent times it has been more readily associated with the work of philosopher Thomas Hobbes and his text Human Nature (1656). Writers continue to draw upon Superiority Theory, adopting Hobbes’s well known idea that laughter

13 John Morreall, The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor (New York: State University of New York Press, 1987) 12. 10 presents us with a ‘sudden glory’, arising from a conception ‘of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly’.14 For the last one hundred years, writers and theorists have drawn upon this theory to treat laughter as a controlled form of aggression, some going so far as to suggest its evolutionary role, where laughter is akin to the primitive baring of the teeth as a way of asserting one’s prowess.15

Standing in contrast to more positive psychological analyses of humour,

Superiority Theory maintains emphasis on the social order function of humour. In so doing, it concentrates on humour’s role in the maintenance of power and ideological self-deception while challenging the now popular acceptance of humour as fundamentally ‘good’.16 Despite this contemporary relevance, Superiority Theory cannot be endorsed as an encompassing framework for all manifestations of humour and laughter. For Superiority Theory to be entirely correct two conditions must be met; a point of comparison to our current selves and a comparison to where we find ourselves superior.17 The deficiencies of these central criteria in accounting for all forms of laughter are what led in subsequent years to further analysis of humour by theorists of multiple disciplines.

14 Thomas Hobbes, Oxford World Classics: Human Nature and DeCopore Politico Ed. J.C.A Gaskin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) 54. 15 Morreall, The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor, 129; Michael Billig, Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour (London: Sage Publications, 2005) 37. Social scientist Michael Billig makes the crucial observation that subscribers to Superiority Theory have in recent years been dismissed as ‘misogelasts’, or the haters of laughter. For Billig, the current dismissal of Superiority Theory can be linked to our contemporary belief that we hold greater insights into human nature, and therefore laughter, than earlier theorists and thinkers. 16 Billig, Laughter and Ridicule, 39. Returning to inspect the ideas of Plato, Aristotle and Hobbes, Billig turns to the origins of Superiority Theory in the belief that they ‘can provide a mirror of contemporary attitudes, reflecting back the positives and the negatives and vice versa’. When considered through Billig’s framing of Superiority Theory humour is shown to be capable of revealing contemporary attitudes that include manifestations of nationalism and expressions of national identity. 17 John Morreall, “Comic Racism and Violence,” Beyond a Joke 65. 11

The Relief Theory of humour, championed by Sigmund Freud in his seminal text Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905), is essentially an extension and extrapolation of Superiority Theory. The text continues to draw interest and scholarly reference as it not only lends insight into Freud’s life, context and scholarly trajectory, but also because it takes an enviable systematic approach to the understanding of the psychological underpinnings of humour.18

The most important contribution of Freud to the subject of humour comes in his discussion of what he described as the ‘tendentious joke’. Though the discussion of the tendentious joke makes up only a small part of Jokes and Their Relation to the

Unconscious, Freud argued that these jokes marked a release of repressed feelings of anger and criticism towards people or institutions. These jokes therefore offer the possibility of saying what was forbidden otherwise. This aspect of Freud’s analysis has led contemporary theorists to look at humour as emancipatory for oppressed peoples, rather than as an expression of ‘sudden glory’ in the Hobbesian sense. However, the primary of deficiency of Freud’s work is that it suffers from a lack of generalisability and his theory does not adequately address one of the most frequent and obvious laughter situations; that which relies on incongruity.19

The Incongruity Theory of humour remains the most persistently subscribed to theory for the analysis of laughter. This appears to be because Incongruity Theory is the most encompassing and generalisable of the three prominent theories of laughter. The

18 Elliot Orring, Jokes and Their Relations (New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2010) 108‐11; Igor Kitchtaforitch, Humor Theory: Formula of Laughter (Denver: Outskirts Press, 2006) 5. When writing in regards to Freud’s place within the history of humour research, Igor Kitchtaforitch makes the correct observation that Freud has long suffered from oversimplified appraisals of his work. Unfortunately, any exercise in the extensive evaluation of Freud’s works requires a keen understanding of Freudian terminology and thus any discussion of his work on this area is generally confined to an outline of his thoughts around the nature of humour and such is the case here. 19 John Morreall, “A New Theory of Laughter,” The Philosophy of Laughter and Humour Ed. John Morreall (New York: State University of New York Press, 1987) 131; James E. Collins II and Robert S. Wyer Jr, “A Theory of Humor Elicitation,” Psychological Review 99.4 (1992): 664. 12 central premise of Incongruity Theory is that laughter situations are induced by incongruous situations, revelations or observations. The thesis of Incongruity becomes most apparent when looking at the structure of most jokes, which rely on an incongruity being felt between what we expect or know to be true and what is said in jest or is present in a gag. This is evidenced by the following joke about Yassir Arafat. ‘How did

Arafat survive his 1992 plane crash in Libya? He landed on his lips.’ This joke (or any joke about a chicken crossing the road for that matter), exemplifies why Incongruity

Theory is often associated with the nonsensical and/or the absurd.20

Though Schopenhauer, Kant and Kierkegaard are the philosophers most readily associated with Incongruity, it can also be witnessed in the musings of Aristotle.21

Incongruity Theory, in effect, subsumes Superiority Theory, recognising its validity while addressing its deficiency by broadening the scope of what creates and constitutes humour. 22 Following on from this, one might conclude that the chronological progression of Superiority Theory, Relief Theory and Incongruity Theory is an exercise in the broadening of the scope of humour, a process akin to fishing with an increasingly large net, to capture the origins of laughter.

The benefit of the expansion of humour theory’s scope is that it allows analysis to elude the threat of being bogged down in primarily examining the intentions of the individual eliciting laughter. In this sense, it could be argued that Incongruity Theory rescues humour from suspicion, which is intrinsic to the Hobbesian perspective of

Superiority Theory. This stance is supported by Michael Billig, who observed that

20 Elliott Oring, Engaging Humor, 13‐14. Perhaps the most lucid explication of Incongruity Theory is what Elliot Oring describes as ‘appropriate incongruity’. The premise of Oring’s terminology is that humour is created by a presented or observed problem where an incongruity is never completely logically resolved. As such, the perception of humour arises because a tension within an incongruous domain remains spurious and therefore never legitimate. Oring’s description highlights the fact that not all incongruities are funny and hence only ‘appropriate’ incongruities that build upon shared understandings can elicit laughter. 21 Morreall, The Philosophy of Laughter and Humour 130. 22 Morreall, “Humor and the Conduct of Politics,” 66. 13

Incongruity Theory is less about finding the origins or motives of laughter in the individual than focusing on the incongruous features of the world.23 The ability to apply

Incongruity Theory to the incongruous or nonsensical features of the world makes it an ideal framework for the consideration of absurd realities that occur in life and in our perception of the world.

The Incongruity Theory of laughter is also in line with the work of Henri

Bergson and Andre Breton. Both are significant figures in the history of humour theory because of their insistence that humour was always shaped by the context of its time.

Appearing at the end of the Victorian era, Bergson’s seminal essay Laughter: an Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (1905) was largely influenced by industrialisation.24

Similarly, Breton’s work on humour Anthologie de L’Humour Noir was inextricably linked to the trauma of the Second World War. Bergson was explicit about the importance of placing humour within its social context, writing that ‘laughter must answer to certain requirements of life in common. It must have social signification’. 25

Bergson’s contention that humour must have ‘social signification’ is a notion that underpins much contemporary scholarship on humour, particularly that which concentrates on the humour of marginalised groups. 26

23 Billig, Laughter and Ridicule, 57. 24 Orring, Engaging Humor 11; Henri Bergson, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, (CreateSpace, 2011) 15; Simon Critchely, On Humour (London: Routledge, 2002) 57. To unpack his thesis of the functionalism of laughter, Bergson proposes his central idea that laughter is created when there is a momentary transformation of a person into a thing. The philosopher writes that there is ‘a mechanical element introduced into nature and an automatic regulation of society’, in other words, ‘something mechanical encrusted on something living’. One might argue that Bergson’s conception is loaded with the weight of increasing industrialization and further still, as Simon Critchley writes, his theory emerges in 1900 at the dawn of the quintessentially 20th century art form, that of cinema. 25 Bergson, Laughter 3. 26 Joanne R. Gilbert, Performing Marginality: Humor, Gender and Cultural Critique (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004) 15. For Feminist writers such as Joanne Gilbert, marginality is argued to be a choice made by groups who nurture a marginal identity as a site of resistance as ‘a location of radical openness and possibility’. Gilbert argues that humor is a vital tool in the performance of marginality, allowing both individuals and groups the ability to call attention to their subordinate status, whilst also functioning as an indication of 14

The relationship that can be drawn between marginality and humour is a discussion that finds its ancestry in the Bergsonian idea that laughter can ‘awaken us from the callousness we hold toward world and to life’. Bergson alleged that laughter and comedy successfully captured real life because of humour’s ability to move beyond the individual. Bergson contends that tragedy is concerned with individuals and comedy with the ‘classes’, highlighting the social and emphatic dimension of laughter. 27

Bergson’s thesis that humour requires an environment of indifference to flourish becomes particularly appealing when discussing the humour of oppressed or marginalised people, in that it suggests political, cultural and social indifference may be fractured through laughter.

Bergson's argument that ‘a humorist is a moralist disguised as a scientist’, so that humour is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific, adds gravity to his thesis.28 In this sense, for Bergson, humour marked an attempt to pursue the utilitarian aim of general social improvement. The utilitarian function of laughter promotes a subversive moralism that Bergson describes as ‘the robber robbed’.29 This notion suggests that humour allows authority, or indeed an authoritative voice, the potential to be destabilised and delegitimised. 30 Bergson’s argument also suggests that the comic may facilitate an intimacy with vice, both within ourselves and in others. Within this shared understanding and experience. Although Gilbert writes within a Feminist framework her discussion around the role of humour and marginality can also be applied to the marginalised identity forced upon and taken up by Palestinians. 27 Bergson, Laughter 42‐52. 28 Bergson, Laughter 45. 29 Bergson, Laughter 34. 30 Bussie, The Laughter of the Oppressed 39; Sharon Lockyer & Michael Pickering eds., Beyond a Joke: The Limits of Humour (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2005); Leon Rappoport, Punchlines: The Case for Racial Ethnic & Gender Humor (London: Praeger Publishers, 2005) Not surprisingly, this subversive quality of humour has been taken up in recent scholarship around the humour of ethnically, culturally and socially oppressed or marginalized groups. The most notable of these recent texts is the work of Jacqueline Bussie, whose book The Laughter of the Oppressed, postulates that humour reveals the authority of oppressors as suspect. Bussie's work (amongst several notable others including Sharon Lockyer, Michael Pickering and Leon Rappaport) highlights the redemptive possibilities ingrained within humour, serving to showcase the ongoing relevance of Bergson’s assertion over a century ago that laughter is a ‘social corrective’. 15 understanding, he argues that our laughter created an awareness of the wrongdoings and degeneracy in ourselves, and in humankind more generally. Maintaining that ‘laughter corrects men’s manners’, Bergson proposes that our laughter ‘makes us at once endeavor to appear what we ought to be, [and] what some day we shall perhaps end in being’.31 It was for this reason that Bergson argued that laughter was a ‘social corrective’.

The social corrective role of humour is central to the Bergsonian idea that a humourist’s analysis of laughter will lead them to far less than jovial conclusions.

Comparing humour to salty waves crashing in the sea, Bergson concludes his essay by writing that any philosopher who takes the water of the sea of humour to taste, will inevitably find that the after taste of laughter is bitter.32 The bitter after taste of humour, was to become, in the years following Bergson’s essay, witnessed increasingly in manifestations of humour and in humorological writing. This was most obviously pronounced in the early twentieth century, which saw the emergence of the term ‘humor noir’, a term coined by Surrealist writer, artist and theorist Andre Breton in his text

Anthologie de L’Humour Noir (Anthology of Black Humour). 33

Now used interchangeably with the terms ‘dark humour’, ‘morbid humour’, and

‘bleak humour’, humour noir has a clear lineage to Freud, as it was directly influenced by the psychologist’s discussion of gallows humour in Jokes and Their Relation to the

Unconscious, released only eight years prior to Breton’s book.34 Outlined by Freud as being the crudest type of humour, gallows humour can be considered as a manifestation

31 Bergson, Laughter 6. 32 Bergson, Laughter 71. 33 Anna Balakian, “Andre Breton as Philosopher,” Yale French Studies 31 (1964): 40. 34 Peter Gay and James Stratchey, eds., Sigmund Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious 284. The most prominent Freudian influence in Breton’s work comes in the adoption of the notion of ‘gallows humour’. This breed of humour is now synonymous with a joke described by Freud where a criminal is being lead to the gallows on the morning of his execution only to remark, “well, this week’s beginning nicely”. 16 of the super-ego observing the ego and consequently creating an elevated or liberated feeling, rather than depression. It may be argued that the scale of collective trauma witnessed in the last century can account for the phenomenon of humour noir which, far from receding, only continues to gather momentum. If we are to accept that black humour may come as a result of collective trauma, then the genesis of the term having sprung from the Surrealist Andre Breton might be argued to be a direct consequence of its historical context. 35

Although the Surrealist fascination with psychoanalysis has been written about ad nauseam, writers analysing Breton’s conception of humour noir have not adequately addressed the influence of traumatic experiences during the First World War. The

Anthology used texts by a group of authors with diverse social, political and cultural backgrounds. These included Jonathan Swift, Frederich Nietzsche, Lewis Carroll, Franz

Kafka, Charles Baudelaire and Francis Picaba, to name but a few. Drawing from

Freud’s gallows humour, Breton’s anthology of writers is compelling because, as Doug

Haynes writes, ‘behind its Freudian mask, it demonstrates a critique of aesthetic language from a specifically social perspective’.36 This social perspective of humour was implicit in Breton’s plea that the book be published in its historical context of economic depression and political upheaval, which laid the foundation of black humour.

35 Fiona Bradley, Movements in Modern Art: Surrealism (London: Tate Gallery Publishing, 1997) 6‐17; David Hopkins, Dada and Surrealism: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) xiv; Klein, Art and Laughter (London: I.B Taurus & Co Ltd, 2007) 20; Kristen A. Murray, “Burn, Bury or Dump”: Black Humour in the Late Twentieth Century, PhD Diss. The University of New South Wales 2007; Doug Haynes, “The Persistence of Irony: Interfering with Surrealist Black Humour,” Textual Practice 21.1 (2006): 26. Having begun initially as a literary endeavor, Surrealism is most readily associated with Breton and his artist friends. Surrealism carried the legacy of the Dada movement remaining committed to the idea that human nature is fundamentally irrational. Although Dada might have been more overtly associated with the trauma of World War One, reflecting through ‘anti‐art’ the insanity of a world ravaged and driven mad by war, Surrealism too inherited its emphasis on the irrationality immanent in the historical context of the interwar years. 36 Haynes, “The Persistence of Irony: Interfering with Surrealist Black Humour,” 26. 17

Breton’s plea also makes it clear that he believed that humour noir was inherently tied to the collective trauma of the World War.37

Translated into English as recently as 1997, the Anthology has regrettably not received adequate scholarly recognition. In spite of the neglect of Breton’s seminal work on the subject, the popularity of the term humour noir continues. Humour noir received a surge in popularity most notably in the 1960s, when it was taken up by

Critical Theory. Humour noir was not the only theory of humour salvaged by Critical

Theory. The 1960s Critical Theory movement also reclaimed the work of Russian scholar Mikhail Bakhtin whose work was not translated into French and English until the late 1960s.

Since it was rediscovered by scholars in the 1960s, the work of Mikhail Bakhtin is now difficult to overlook when considering the social value of humour. It is his work on the carnivalesque and grotesque, both appearing in his text Rabelais and His World, that makes up the core of his influential work in the field of humour research. Bakhtin’s book identifies the political and social potency of peasant laughter, thereby marking him as one of the few modern theorists to not conflate laughter with comedy, and more importantly, this marks him as the first author to take the laughter of the disempowered folk masses rather that the hegemonic elite as his theoretical focus.38 In his discussion of the renaissance social system and the carnival, Bakhtin suggests that laughter carries

37 Andrew Breton, “Lightening Rod,” The Artist’s Joke (Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art, Ed. Jennifer Higgie (London: Whitechapel Gallery Ventures Limited, 2007) 47. If Freud and Bergson were influenced by their rejection of sentimentality, understandably then Breton, who both followed in their footsteps and lived in a climate of tremendous upheaval, would also adopt a radical stance against sentimentality and Black humour was to be a superb tool in resistance to sentimentality. Writing in his Lightening Rod essay in the Anthology Breton writes that ‘black humour is hemmed in by too many things, including stupidity, skeptical sarcasm, light‐hearted jokes…it is the mortal enemy of sentimentality’. 38 Bussie, The Laughter of the Oppressed 15. 18 the potential to overcome traditional fears, to crack official and hierarchical barriers and to upset the status quo.39

The discussion of the subversive quality of the carnival and the laughter induced by it can be viewed as reminiscent of Henri Bergson’s idea of laughter as being a ‘social corrective’. Despite the undeniable influence of Bergson on Bakhtin’s work, the

Russian philosopher manages to go significantly further in his reading of the

‘corrective’ dimension of laughter by suggesting that it decentralises power structures.

This cannot be said to be an obvious thread in Henri Bergson’s work which, in contrast to Bakhtin, does not associate laughter with fear or with disempowered masses. By associating fear with laughter, Bakhtin’s interpretation of humour addresses its relationship to ethical revolt and the need for collective freedom and rights.40

Bakhtin contends the carnival to be a temporary liberation from the prevailing truth of the established order, establishing it as an event that subverts social norms.41

Sharing with humour noir and gallows humour the emphasis on physical injury, death and illness, Bakhtin’s discussion of the grotesque in relation to the carnival identifies it as a form of laughter that emerges from damage or threat to the human body.42 The grotesque is therefore capable of revealing the reality of horror and degradation while also creating a sense of hope for renewal and change.43 This tenet of the grotesque is argued by Bakhtin to have been overlooked, with laughter alleged to be bound to the grotesque because it shares with it both ambivalence and the duality of despair and optimism.44

39 Bussie, The Laughter of the Oppressed 15. 40 Samuel Kinser, “Chronotypes and Catastrophes: The Cultural History of Mikhail Bakhtin,” The Journal of Modern History 56.2 (1984) 308. 41 Gilbert, Performing Marginality 61. 42 Murray, “Burn, Bury or Dump” 30. 43 Bussie, The Laughter of the Oppressed 155. 44 Gilbert, Performing Marginality 177. 19

The real argument springing from the criticisms in Bakhtin’s discussion is essentially whether laughter really holds the key to social, political and ideological change or subversion or whether it simply maintains the status quo. Put simply,

Bakhtin’s discussion of laughter might be said to raise the question of whether the laughter of the oppressed functions as a release of a social valve that frees just enough tension to maintain social order or whether it allows for a real and substantive moment of power granted to the powerless. 45 This argument continues to feature in the debate in the literature around ethnic, minority, race and marginalised humour and is far from reaching a theoretical and scholarly consensus.

This humorological debate inevitably finds its way into this thesis because

Palestinians are an oppressed cultural group and are marginalised politically, socially and culturally.46 Rather than seek to answer conclusively, or resolve the debate around the laughter of the oppressed, this thesis argues that humour produced by Palestinian cultural output is capable of both releasing pressure on the social valve and allowing a substantive moment of power granted to the oppressed. This is evidence of the fact that this thesis does not choose a single theory of humour with which to analyse Palestinian art and film. Rather, it draws from all theories of humour through the understanding that no single theory is entirely apt for the discussion and analysis of Palestinian cultural output. Implicit in this approach is an acknowledgement of the primary deficiency of

45 Peter Stallybrass and Allon White, Politics and Poetics of Transgression (New York: Cornell University Press, 1986) 12‐19. Principal to both Palmer and Critchley’s criticism is the notion that Bakhtin may have overstated the redemptive potential of the carnival and the laughter it generated. Peter Stallybrass and Allon White take up this argument claiming that the carnival was not truly oppositional because it was a marginalized opposition that was tolerated by official culture because it posed no substantive threat to the social order. 46 This marginalization is also mirrored in the ways in which Palestinian art and film is exhibited and screened internationally. Palestinian cultural output is almost always framed as through it is from the ‘periphery’. In art exhibitions this can evidenced by the fact that Palestinian art gets lumped under the category of ‘art from the Middle East’; a framing device that when used in the West, smacks of Orientalism. Palestinian film is faced with a similar predicament, often placed under the category of ‘world cinema’, a category that refers to all cinema that is not made in the English language. 20 humorological theory, namely that it often attempts to pin the psychological impetus behind laughter to a single theoretical framework.

For this reason, this thesis draws most heavily on philosopher Simon Critchley’s work On Humour, which to date is the most successful text to utilise all theories of humour to philosophically engage with the impetus behind laughter and its consequences.47 Drawing upon the work of Critchley alongside the multitude of humorological theories, this thesis inverts the conventional approach of humorology by placing emphasis first on humorous content and second on theory. Looking first at the context, meaning and production of specific objects of art and film and then applying humorological theory for analysis allows humour theory to be grounded in the ‘real world’, with contemporary repercussions, meaning and significance created by the

‘real’ texts of art and film.

Although the theorisation of humour is slippery, a turn towards an emphasis on humour is both necessary and revelatory. Humour is an ideal cultural phenomenon to investigate because despite its fluidity and renegade character, it has the potential to bring together the past, the present and the future. Humour, like identity, has very long tentacles that stretch across time, coming together in a moment of laughter. In the case of Palestinian cultural output, this moment of laughter signifies an understanding of

Palestinian cultural signifiers, history and experience. Without an awareness of these signifiers, laughter is rendered impossible. Only through an understanding of

Palestinian history and experience can one break through the line of laughter that demarcates ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. In other words, only with an understanding of the

47 Critchley, On Humour 21

Palestinian past and present can one participate in what philosopher Simon Critchley describes as the ‘secret code’ of humour.48

In order to understand the ‘secret code’ of laughter in Palestinian art and film, one must be aware of significant events in Palestinian history. These moments are described throughout this thesis as ‘critical junctions’ of identity. They are described as such because each of these significant historical events radically transformed

Palestinian collective identity and experience. Further, each of these junctions are argued to have marked a shift in the construction and narration of Palestinian national identity. These critical junctions in Palestinian history can each be traced in art and film that both usurped and reflected these shifts in nationalist ideology, collective identity and experience.

Discussion of these critical junctions forms a framework that supports the ultimate aim of this thesis which is to provide an explanation of the proliferation of humour in Palestinian cultural output. The distinctive stance taken by this thesis has three facets. Firstly, it looks at Palestinian art and film to consider the critical junctions of Palestinian identity, history and experience that shaped both art forms. Secondly, it shows how humour can lend unique insight into Palestinian history and experience and the current political impasse in the region. Finally, this thesis broadens the scope of visual culture studies by forging a bridge between visual culture and humour theory.

This thesis examines the history of art and film according to critical junctions that occurred from the end of the Ottoman Empire through to the present. It focuses on this period of approximately one hundred years because it is argues that it is during this time that a distinct Palestinian national identity became pronounced. There are five

48 Critchley, On Humour 68 Critchley argues that humour is a unique form of cultural insider knowledge that is understood by people that share a familiarity with cultural signifiers. The ‘secret code’ aspect of humour is discussed at length in Chapter 8. 22 historical periods this thesis explores, and each is argued to have been initiated by a particular event that spurred a critical junction in identity. These critical junctions, and their corresponding historical periods, are the end of World War One (1917–1948), the

Nakba (1948–1968), the Battle of Al-Karameh (1968–1982), the Israeli Invasion of

Lebanon (1982–1993) and, finally, the Oslo Accords (1993–to the present). Though this thesis is framed by these critical junctions and historical periods, it must also be acknowledged that history can never be clearly defined and there are inevitably slippages between historical periods. Nevertheless, these historical periods and events are offered as a conceptual framing device for the analysis of Palestinian cultural output because of the pronounced changes they informed in Palestinian identity.

It is the final critical junction of the Oslo Accords and its subsequent ushering in of the ‘peace process’ that this thesis claims encouraged the emergence of laughter in

Palestinian cultural output. However, an exploration of the decades preceding Oslo is necessary to understand the cultural references that inform the humour of cultural output. For this reason, this thesis has been separated into two parts. Part One (Chapters

1–4), is arranged chronologically and focuses on Palestinian history and cultural output prior to Oslo and the emergence of laughter. Part Two begins with an analysis of the

Oslo Accords as a critical junction in Palestinian history in which we are still living. In a departure from Part One, the chapters that form Part Two (Chapters 5–8) are separated by thematics rather than chronology. It is useful here to run briefly through a chapter summary of the thesis.

Chapter One focuses on the period of Palestinian art and film prior to the Nakba.

Although this chapter examines cultural output during the time of the Ottoman Empire, its primary emphasis is on the period of the British Mandate in Palestine. Due to the paucity of scholarly texts on the subject, this chapter draws primarily from the work of

23 artist and art historian Kamal Boullata to trace the emerging art scene in Jerusalem and the influence of various churches, the British and the recently arrived Zionists. Chapter one argues that cultural output from the pre-Nakba period can be viewed as evidence of an emerging Palestinian national identity; thereby delegitimising claims that Palestinian nationalism only emerged after 1948. The analysis of both art and film of this period highlights the social, economic and cultural devastation that was to come with the advent of the Nakba.

Chapter Two analyses the events of the Nakba to reveal how the Israeli occupation of 1948 marked a critical junction in Palestinian identity. Mapping the consequences of dispossession and exile on the Palestinian population, this chapter contends that the Nakba coalesced a collective identity, or sense of ‘Palestinianess’.

This sense of Palestinianess was predicated on the shared experience of exile and refugeedom. Tracing the radical political, economic and social consequences of the occupation on Palestinian refugees, this chapter examines how a new art scene was established in Lebanon and how the work of artists from this period was characterised by a pronounced sense of nostalgia towards their lost homeland. Chapter two concludes by looking at the political climate in the region at the time, specifically the Pan-Arab movement and the June War of 1967.

Chapter Three takes on what is perhaps a unique argument by suggesting that the 1968 battle of Al-Karameh radically transformed Palestinian identity and cultural output. Karameh is argued to mark the beginning of a deliberately constructed revolutionary mythology that sought to transform ‘Palestinianess’ to ‘Palestinianism’.

The battle is argued to have reconfigured the perception of Palestinians away from that of being refugees into the realm of the revolutionary. The chapter elucidates the significance of Karameh by discussing how the event spurred the emergence of

24

‘militant’ cinema and a revolutionary aesthetic in art. Mapping the political context of the time and the transformation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), this chapter reveals how art and film were employed for propagandistic purposes.

Addressing the fact that Beirut had become a surrogate political and cultural capital for

Palestinians, Chapter Three looks at the art and film that was produced in Lebanon and the ways in which it constructed a nationalist iconography. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the devastating effects of the Lebanese Civil War and the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Chapter Four argues that the 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the exile of the PLO to Tunis marked a critical junction in Palestinian identity. Through a discussion of two case studies, looking at the work of artist Mona Hatoum and filmmaker Michel Khleifi, this chapter argues that the generation who came of age during the events of the

Lebanese Civil War and the destruction of Beirut all experienced a form of ‘double exile’ or ‘exile2’. This experience had the effect of sustaining the trauma of exile for the generation of the Nakba through a process of ‘postmemory’, leading the generation who witnessed the destruction of Beirut to understand ‘that the past is not yet passed’.49

Chapter Four discusses the destruction of Beirut as a surrogate capital and argues that, paradoxically, it was the city’s destruction that opened a new door for Palestinian filmmakers and artists to explore the representation of Palestinian identity and experience because, for the first time in decades, Palestinian cultural production became geographically and politically decentralised. This chapter argues that although the emphasis on the experience of exile remained, practitioners were more able than ever before to relay the Palestinian story (both collective and personal) in less didactic,

49 Lila Abu‐Lughod, “Return to Half Ruins: Memory, Postmemory, and Living history in Palestine,” Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory, Eds. Lila Abu‐Lughod and Ahmed H. Sa’di (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007) 79. 25 militaristic and revolutionary forms. This is argued to have laid the groundwork for the emergence of humour in Palestinian cultural output.

Chapter Five is the first section of Part Two of the thesis. It posits the argument that the official ‘peace process’, beginning in Oslo in 1993, marked a critical junction in

Palestinian identity that is still being lived through and has ongoing effects. This chapter discusses the events that built up to Oslo, namely the first intifada, the Gulf War and the end of the Cold War. These events are argued to have roused a Palestinianism that lay dormant following the devastation of 1982. However, Oslo is revealed as the event that signalled the death knell of the re-emerged Palestinian revolutionary identity and

Palestinianism. This chapter contends that as Oslo pushed revolutionary nationalism to the sidelines and that it marked a turning point in the narration of Palestinian identity and experience. The critical junction of Oslo is argued to have been responsible for the ushering in of humour in contemporary Palestinian cultural output.

Chapter Six begins with analysis of the Palestinian Declaration of Independence and the ongoing significance of one line from the document, that which claims

‘Palestine is the state of Palestinians wherever they may be’.50 Theoretically unpacking the ambiguity of this statement, Chapter Six explores the fluidity of the word ‘Palestine’ and its multiple identifications that range anywhere from the West Bank and Gaza or historical Palestine to present day Israel. Considering Palestine as a borderless state,

Chapter Six examines how Palestinian artists and filmmakers such as Larissa Sansour,

Taysir Batniji, Raeda Saadeh, Areen Omari use humour to delineate the borders of

Palestine and to explore the connection to place and homeland.

Chapter Seven centres on a discussion of how contemporary Palestinian cultural output employs humour as a way of articulating the consequences of the ongoing Israeli

50 Cited in Rashid Khalidi, “The Resolutions of the 19th Palestine National Council,” Journal of Palestine Studies 19.2 (1990): 33. 26 occupation. This chapter argues that the failure of the peace process means that

Palestinians live in a constant ‘interim’ period that is characterised by a form of ‘banal evil’.51 Discussing the failure of the Roadmap to Peace to establish a Palestinian state, this chapter contends that many Palestinian artists including Khaled Jarrar and Khalil

Rabah are engaged in an ‘anticipatory practice’ and that their work takes on the role of the absent state by fulfilling the functions typically assigned to state apparatuses.52

Drawing on theories of humour by Simon Critchley, Jacqueline Bussie and Paolo Virno,

Chapter Seven argues that the laughter incited by Palestinian art and film artists and filmmakers (such as Tarzan and Arab, Sharif Waked, Rashid Masharawi and Raed

Andoni) has the potential to destabilise the political status quo, function as a mature defence mechanism against trauma and call attention to Israeli systematic violence.

Chapter Eight draws from theories of humour by Henri Bergson and Simon

Critchley to assert that laughter is always that of a group. Accordingly, this chapter suggests that there are two groups (or ‘circles of laughter’) formed by the humour of

Palestinian art and film. The first is made up of Palestinians and the second of international audiences. Exploring these two circles of laughter, Chapter Eight contends that humour has the ability to teach us something about ourselves. For Palestinians, the laughter incited by cultural output is argued to reinforce a shared understanding of the world and a ‘general will’ that comes together in collective identity. For non-

Palestinians, the increased exposure to Palestinian humour in international exhibiting

51 Julia Kristeva, Hannah Arendt Ross Guberman trans., (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001) 144. The term ‘banality of evil’ was coined by holocaust survivor and intellectual Hannah Arendt in her book Eichmann on Trial: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963). Julia Kristeva explains that Arendt’s term refers to evil that ‘entails the destruction of thinking (a destruction that is surreptious, generalized and imperceptible, and thus banal, though it also scandalous) which prefigures the scandalous annihilation of life’. 52 Chiara De Cesari, “Anticipatory Representation: Building the Palestinian Nation(‐State) through Artistic Performance,” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 2.1 (2012): 86. My discussion of the ‘anticipatory practice’ of Palestinian artists draws from Chiara De Cesari’s analysis of the ‘anticipatory performance’ in Palestinian artistic performance. 27 and screening contexts is argued to engender a new encounter with Palestine and

Palestinians. Discussing the work of Emily Jacir, Khaled Hourani, Ihab Jadallah and

Sharif Waked, Chapter Eight concludes by arguing that the new encounter forged by humour is marked by a greater intimacy, solidarity and, perhaps, even empathy with

Palestinians.

The underlying impetus behind this thesis is the understanding of the fragility of the Palestinian narrative. This thesis marks an attempt to add to the valiant efforts of artists, academics, writers and activists around the world who, for decades, have dedicated their energies into recording the Palestinian story. Their work, and indeed mine, is informed by the need to record Palestinian history and for it to be disseminated.

This is an urgent task, for without an understanding of Palestinian history there is no way for the international community to understand the origins of the conflict that has long ravaged its region. Only with an understanding of history and acknowledgement of the collective suffering of Palestinians under occupation can we ever hope to achieve a lasting regional peace.

That having been said, my decision to focus on humour remains for many people a peculiar choice of investigation and discussion. When considering humour with regard to Palestine, one is often presented with the assumption that humour may not be ethically the ideal aspect of Palestinian experience and cultural output to place emphasis upon. Undoubtedly, the everyday life of many Palestinians can be described as a real emergency, one that should be approached with a seriousness that for some can occasionally verge on historical and political reverence. As humour can be seen as almost irrational, it too can fall victim to being viewed as the least appropriate vehicle for discussion of the Palestinian experience. This stance echoes a sentiment discussed by writer Jim Holt, who writes that the incongruity of life— the source of humour—

28 should be assumed to be met with disdain, anger and arrogance by us, for we are

‘rational creatures’.53 This is something we witness in the discussion of Palestine, where despite the absurdity of the current political status quo, many are reluctant to engage with humour as a way of discussing and viewing the situation faced by occupied, exiled and dispossessed Palestinians.

This attitude is reminiscent of Theodor Adorno’s well known assertion that there can be no poetry after events of enormous collective trauma and to do it would be barbaric.54 This thesis dares to challenge the parameters of Adorno’s assertion by revealing how there can be not just poetry, but also laughter, after tremendous collective trauma. This thesis aims to prove how laughter in the face of trauma is not only an appropriate response to suffering, but also possibly a necessary one. That is because humour is a vital tool for the comprehension of the world and the understanding of the suffering of others. For humour to function it must exist in a shared social world, where points of reference are mutually understood and played with.55 This thesis attempts to illuminate the ways in which the humour of Palestinian art and film creates a shared social world that encourages the international community to understand the scale of political absurdity, violence and trauma that reigns in Palestine/Israel. Finally, this thesis aims to showcase what is ultimately the strongest manifestation of Palestinian sumud—their ability to laugh even though their hearts may ache.56

53 Jim Holt, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes (London: Profile Books, 2009) 92. 54 Rolf Tiedemann, ““Not the Philosophy, but a Last One” : Notes on Adorno’s Thought,” Introduction, Can One Live After Auschwitz: A Philosophical Reader Theodor Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann ed., (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003) xvi. Authors have continuously reinterpreted Adorno’s well‐known assertion that ‘there can be no poetry after Auschwitz’ over previous decades. Adorno’s claim can however be understood to suggest that the events of the Holocaust were so horrific that they are unspeakable and evade representation. 55 Critchley, On Humour 4. 56 Sumud is an Arabic word that means ‘doggedness’ or ‘steadfastness’ in the face of adversity. It is used to describe the ongoing struggle against Israeli occupation. 29

PART ONE

The Construction of ‘Palestinianess’ and ‘Palestinianism’

30

CHAPTER ONE

A Germinating Nationalism? Art and Film Before 1948

‘A land without people, for a people without land.’ 57 The Zionist ethos and motivational catch cry at the time of the foundation of Israel.

‘They did not exist.’ 58 Golda Meir, Israeli Prime Minister, 1969. Speaking in reference to the Palestinians.

Year by year, the presence of Palestinian art and film is increasingly visible in cinemas, galleries and festivals around the world. The rapid expansion of these two art forms over the last two decades has meant that Palestinian art and film is increasingly the subject of scholarly analysis, inquiry and commentary. However, any discussion of

Palestinian visual culture necessitates one vital question—who is Palestinian? The question forms the subtext of almost all commentary surrounding Palestinian cultural output, as writers consistently turn to teasing out the issues explored in each artwork and film in an attempt to relay how these concerns reflect the Palestinian experience of exile and life under occupation.

More importantly however, this inquiry into ‘who is Palestinian’ is something that is witnessed not just in commentary by scholars and writers, but is a query purposefully explored by artists and filmmakers themselves, who have for decades used

57 Alan George, ““Making the Desert Bloom”: A Myth Examined,” The Journal of Palestine Studies 8.2 (1979): 88. 58 Quoted in Ibrahim Abu‐Loghod, et al., The Palestinians: Profile of a people (ACT Australia: Palestine Information Office, 1987) 5. 31 their art forms to mediate and meditate upon what constitutes Palestinianess. The consequence of this inquiry is that Palestinian visual culture has been consistently employed to verify and validate Palestinian identity and humour. Humour is merely the latest technique used by practitioners in this regard. The purposeful employment of art and film to validate Palestinianess arguably comes as a direct result of the historical contestation of the existence of Palestinians as a distinct cultural group. This contestation was most notoriously pronounced by former Israeli Prime Minister Golda

Meir who, in speaking with regard to the Palestinians, claimed that ‘they did not exist.’59

Although Meir’s statement has fallen into disrepute since the beginning of the peace process, the denial of the existence of Palestinians as a distinct cultural group in previous decades meant that Palestinian visual culture found itself implicated in a contest of nationalist ideologies, serving on the one hand to validate Palestinian national identity while attempting to delegitimise Zionist ideology on the other. To understand the ways in which Palestinian visual culture evolved, it is necessary to examine how it reflected shifts in its own nationalist ideology, that of Zionism and, later, of Israel.

Further, it is also vital to examine how Palestinian art and film was influenced by the critical junctions of Palestinian identity that not only marked a pivotal change in the conflict with Israel but also radically affected the social, economic and political experience of Palestinian collectively.

An understanding of these critical junctions necessitates a return to what is feasibly the first junction of modern Palestinian national identity, the decline of the

Ottoman Empire and the end of World War One. Returning to this period lends insight into the cultural output of Palestine prior to the foundation of Israel while also shedding

59 George, ““Making the Desert Bloom,” 88.

32 light on the germinating Palestinian nationalism that emerged with the decline of

Ottoman rule. Aside from shining light on the cataclysmic consequences the occupation held for Palestinians, a return to this pre-Nakba period also lays bare the Zionist ideology that has for decades overshadowed the Palestinian national movement in the eyes of the international community.

At the time of the foundation of Israel in 1948, Zionist sentiment and ethos argued that the land of historical Palestine had no inhabitants with a long-standing relationship to the land. For the Zionists, the occupation of historical Palestine signalled an end to thousands of years in exile and was seen as a process that would eliminate the potential for persecution or, indeed, genocide. Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern

Zionism, outlined his justification for the need for a Jewish state in his 1896 pamphlet

The Jew’s State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution to the Issue of the Jews. He argued that anti-Semitism is inevitable and Jewish assimilation is doomed to failure.60 Herzl’s plan for a Jewish state came to fruition with the establishment of Israel on 14 May

1948. Often, and very problematically, this foundation is claimed to be a process of not only colonisation, but also modernisation of the land of historical Palestine. Herzl’s proposition claimed that ‘the present possessors’ of the Palestinian territory should be set aside, arguing that the Jewish state would benefit from the area’s development into a modern society.61 This process of alleged modernisation by Zionist forces was in fact, as Edward Said has strongly argued, an act of colonisation over the Palestinians that disguised Zionist ideology beneath the veneer of modernist ideals. Said further writes that, the ‘greatest battle Palestinians have waged as a people’ is the battle for the right to

60 Alan Dowty, Israel/Palestine (Massachusetts: Polity Press, 2005) 21‐40; Edward W. Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2002) 178. In Reflections on Exile, Said notes the irony,that Jews, the people of which the very language of diaspora and exile was anchored on for centuries, were responsible for the exile and eventual mass diaspora of Palestinians around the world. 61 Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State (New York: Dover Publications, 1989) 33 a remembered presence. This battle is fought by all colonised people, ‘whose past and present were dominated by outside powers who had first conquered the land and then re-wrote history as to appear in that history as the true owners of that land’. 62

Reinforcing Said’s claim is the fact that the Palestinian experience of 1948 and their relationship to the land prior to Al-Nakba have been actively omitted from the

Israeli collective memory. 63 Further, until recent revisionist Israeli analysis by historians such as Ilan Pappe, Rashid Khalidi and Benny Morris, the Palestinian experience has held a subordinate position to the Jewish experience in the historical archive.64 Ilan Pappe cites Modernisation Theory as the determining factor for the absence of historical analysis. Modernisation Theory privileges the experience of cultural groups who have ceased to be traditional and operate under the Enlightenment philosophy of progress. Therefore, the subaltern society of local Palestinians prior to

1948 has largely been neglected by historical research because historical investigation has maintained a privileged stance toward archival history. As the local Palestinian agricultural population prior to 1948 was largely absent from the political archive, the history of Palestinians has, until now, chiefly focused on the culture’s urbanised elite, who were predominantly from Jaffa and Jerusalem.65 This historical emphasis has led to

62 Dowty, Israel/Palestine 36; Edward W. Said, “Invention, Memory and Place,” Critical Inquiry 26. 2 (2000): 184. 63 Said, “Invention, Memory and Place,” 184. 64 Ilan Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) xx. In the foreword of his seminal text, A History of Modern Palestine, Ilan Pappe explains his motivations for the text writing, ‘This book is written with the view that in order to perform this liberation act in Israel and Palestine, you need first to rewrite, indeed salvage, a history that was erased and forgotten’. For Pappe, the violence of the present is seen as a result of the exclusion of Palestinians from the hegemonic narrative of the past. 65 Walid Khalidi, All that Remains: The Palestinian Villages Destroyed by Israel in 1948 (Washington D.C: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2006); Walid Khalidi, Before Their Diaspora (Washington D.C: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2004) Walid Khalidi’s texts All that Remains and Before Their Diaspora are notable exceptions in this regard. All That Remains marks a valiant effort to chronicle and catalogue the geographical sites, population data etc. of Palestinian villages destroyed by Israel. Similarly, the text Before Their Diaspora provides valuable insight into Palestinian society and life prior to occupation by way of a photographic history. The text is 34 the binary perception of Zionists who perceived themselves as a modernising Western entity and Palestinians who have sought to disrupt this conception.66 Ilan Pappe elucidates upon this critical issue, writing that ‘it would be natural to assume, at the present stage, that Israeli historiography will subscribe to the modernist narrative and that Palestinian historiography will challenge it.’67

The Zionist settlers in Palestine were mostly Ashkenazi Jews and in turn their movement also brought concepts of Westernisation to historical Palestine. Among these, modernisation itself is of obvious paramount import and privilege. Another

Western ideology to have entered Palestine during the time of Zionist settlement is that of nationalism. It can be argued that in the story of modernisation it is written that ‘a society will be nationalised under the influence of the Western moderniser, only to rebel against the moderniser in the name of Western ideals’.68 This sentiment can explain the popular, albeit ideologically motivated and problematic assertion, that Palestinian national identity formed largely in response to the Zionist presence.69 This conception not only limits the roots of Palestinian identity as being a relatively recent construction, but also creates a binary opposition between its national identity and that of the also significant as many of these photographs also reveal the growth of the photographic art in Palestine. This is an art form that is not dealt with in this chapter in detail as the photography of this period comes arguably prior to the advent of photography as a distinct artistic discipline. 66 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 4‐9. 67 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 6; Dowty, Israel/Palestine 36. To accept the historical analysis that the colonization of Palestine was also a process of modernization, is to perhaps play to the Zionist notion, outlined by Theodor Herzl in his pamphlet The Jew’s State, that historical Palestine was an unmodernized society, and that Zionism would herald the onset of ‘progress’ in the region. 68 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 6. 69 Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997) 154; Dowty, Israel/Palestine 61; and Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 5. Khalidi notes the importance of the fact that there were other foreigners prior to the Zionists; the Europeans and the Turks. In Dowty’s analysis, Palestinian identity was reinforced by the Zionists but not created in response to them. Ilan Pappe’s, Modern Palestine is an attempt to de‐nationalise the history of Modern Palestine/ Israel, and to create a history that is inclusive of both Jews and Palestinians. He argues that it is at 1918, that most historical analyses divide the region into two separate histories: Palestinian and Zionist. Therefore 1918, is cited as the time when a Palestinian national identity was congealed. 35

Zionists. Perhaps more problematically, this assertion implies that antagonism between the Palestinians and the Zionists is the foundation of Palestinian national identity.

Though there is danger in claiming that Palestinian identity was formed in response to the Zionists, the occupation did coalesce a new Palestinian shared experience, and therefore cultural identity, predicated on dispossession and exile.

Despite this, a germinating Palestinian national consciousness can be argued to have existed well before the Nakba of 1948. The case for this argument is most convincingly found in Rashid Khalidi’s seminal book The Construction of Modern Palestinian

Consciousness. Khalidi closely examines the political and cultural landscape of

Palestine under Ottoman rule and later in the British Mandate period and suggests that the growing shift toward nationalism in the Arab world came with the fall of the

Ottoman Empire following World War One.70Although he writes that ‘Arab nationalism appeared to be the obvious successor to Ottomanism as the hegemonic ideology through the former Arab provinces of the now defunct Ottoman Empire’, he goes on to explain that the nationalist movement in Palestine was not to be as straightforward as that of its neighbours.71

The justification made for this difficulty was the fact that the collapse of the

Ottoman state had gravely affected Palestinians materially, politically and psychologically. This was amplified by the occupation of the region by the French and

British forces. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the Sykes-Picot agreement, both of which were both made public only weeks before British General Allenby’s forces

70 Khalidi, Palestinian Identity 158; Haim Gerber, Remembering and Imagining Palestine: Identity and Nationalism from the Crusades to the Present (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) 42‐106. An excellent analysis on Palestinian national identity is Haim Gerber’s text Remembering and Imagining Palestine. Haim Gerber follows from Rashid Khalidi to suggest that the formative years for Palestinian national identity came after 1918. Gerber also looks to elements of Palestinian‐Arab identity from centuries prior to suggest that a Palestinian national consciousness might be evidenced earlier than the end of World War one. 71 Khalidi, Palestinian Identity 158. 36 occupied Palestine, had tremendous consequences for Palestinians.72 As is now both well known and documented, Britain had engaged in international negotiations regarding Palestine during the war. Both these agreements were secret and included arrangements for Britain’s disposition alignment with France and its support of the

Zionist movement in Palestine.73

Although Palestinians had witnessed and directly experienced important and substantial changes in government, social structures, education and ideology in the years between 1870 and 1914, Khalidi suggests that the pace of change did not substantially change Palestinian attitudes, mentalities or self perceptions until after

World War One.74 Khalidi’s assertion reinforces the notion that the end of World War

One was the first critical junction of modern Palestinian identity. However, it was the

British occupation that followed World War One that amplified the enormous transformations in geopolitics of the region. These transformations forced Palestinians into a position where there was a re-evaluation of collective consciousness, spawning a more pronounced Palestinian nationalism.

The germination of national consciousness can be explored through a variety of discursive approaches. Rashid Khalidi’s seminal text Palestinian Identity: The

Construction of Modern Palestinian Consciousness is notable in this regard because of

72 Jonathon Schneer, The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab‐Israeli Conflict (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010) 75‐86; Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Home Land, trans. Geremy Forman (London: Verso, 2012) 119‐170. Both the Sykes Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration continue to be some of the most hotly contested topics amongst historians dealing with the Middle East. Jonathon Schneer provides an excellent analysis of the Balfour Declaration and the Sykes Picot Agreement in his The Balfour Declaration from 2012. In brief, the Sykes‐Picot agreement was a secret pact made in 1916 by French and British diplomats to carve up the Middle East into spheres of influence under their respective countries. It was made public by the Bolsheveiks. The Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917, was a letter from UK Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Baron Rothschild. The letter saw Balfour declare his support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The agreement led Jews to believe that Palestine would become a Jewish state, leading to increased migration to the region. At the same time, the Arabs believed Palestine had been promised to them. 73 Khalidi, Palestinian Identity 159. 74 Khalidi, Palestinian Identity 159. 37 the ways in which the text forges historical analysis grounded on economic, social and political evidence of the emergence of Palestinian national identity. Examination of

Palestinian visual culture of the period only further reinforces Khalidi’s arguments.

Although cultural output cannot be looked at in isolation as verification of a germinating Palestinian nationalism, an enquiry into the output of this period lends unique insight into how the emerging Palestinian nationalism of the era was reflected through the arts. A discussion of visual culture in this period of declining Ottoman rule and the British Mandate inevitably relies on the pioneering work of Kamal Boullata.

The most important commentator and writer on the topic of Palestinian art, artist and writer Kamal Boullata, makes the poignant observation that it was at this time of collective Palestinian transformation in the final years of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning of the Mandate period that easel painting made its way to Palestine.75

Boullata’s claim holds several vital revelations. The first of these is the fact that the visual arts were an important tool in the formation of a Palestinian national identity as well as a representation of Palestinians embracing and illustrating their own cultural modernity.76 The significance of Boullata’s claim here is that it repudiates the notion that Palestinian identity emerged only after the Nakba and validates this claim through looking at art. Further, Boullata’s observation is also important because it undermines the idea that Palestinian art only emerged after 1948. This suggestion continues to problematically form the central argument in most recent scholarship on Palestinian art.77 The inherent problem with this stance is that it both suggests that Palestinian art prior to 1948 was scant and insubstantial and that forms of cultural modernity did not exist in the Arab population of historical Palestine. Further, the danger of this claim is

75 Kamal Boullata, Palestinian Art: From 1850 to the Present (London, Saqi, 2009) 41. 76 Boullata, Palestinian Art 41. 77 Gannit Ankori, Palestinian Art (London: Reaktion Books, 2006) 17. 38 that it potentially reinforces the notion that only with Zionist influence did Palestinians embrace both modernity and modernist aesthetics.

Kamal Boullata, as the primary voice arguing for an understanding of

Palestinian cultural modernity in the form of visual art prior to 1948, dedicates considerable research and writing to the topic in his 2009 book Palestinian Art: 1850–

2005. The text marks the culmination of decades of research and writing by Boullata, who holds the paramount position in art scholarship of Palestine. He is a long established abstract painter himself and so often calls upon his own personal experience and connection to Palestinian artists and historical events to analyse the evolution of the

Palestinian arts. In his seminal text, Boullata describes the period of 1850 to 1948 as the birth of ‘Palestinian pictorial language’.78 Explaining that easel painting appeared in

Palestine at the same time as photography, he argues that artists working in the field of painting fused this art form with the previously dominant art forms, including religious iconography, handcrafts and, of course, the oral/auditory arts.79

Boullata suggests that the cultural influence established by European colonial penetration in the Levant accentuated the contrast between the cultures of colonisers and the local population, leading to a process of naturalisation that, in turn, formed a visual articulation of national identity that reflected the encounter with the West.80 His analysis of art in this period marks yet another of his significant contributions to the study of Palestinian art. Indeed, his work on the subject forms the basis of most of the significant scholarship within the field.

Boullata’s work was also crucially influential on Israeli art historian Gannit

Ankori, whose 2006 book Palestinian Art, was the first substantial book in English

78 Boullata, Palestinian Art 41. 79 Boullata, Palestinian Art 41. 80 Boullata, Palestinian Art 42. 39 dedicated to the subject. Ankori’s text received a mixed reception, largely because of the problems associated with her revisionist approach and the political and cultural ramifications of writing a sweeping history of Palestinian art as an Israeli art historian.

Further, Kamal Boullata accused the author of plagiarism and the League of Palestinian

Artists followed suit, releasing a statement saying that ‘Gannit Ankori’s plagiarism did not only violate Boullata’s rights as a writer but we consider her own writing as an assault of the very historicity of Palestinian Art’.81

This controversy continued to cause commotion within the international art community through the two scholarly journals The British Art Book and the American

Art Journal. Both journals published reviews of Ankori’s book by reviewers who were sympathetic to Boullata’s claims. In response, Ankori engaged legal representation demanding both journals retract the arguments put forth. Both journals reached a settlement plan, issuing public apologies.82 Most extraordinarily, and in what might be seen as a violation of academic freedom, American Art Journal even requested that its viewers tear out the Ankori review from their issues. This controversy highlights the political gravitas of scholarly research on Palestinian art that is best articulated by

Boullata himself, who claimed that Ankori’s text signals the ‘occupier's cultural appropriation of the occupied’.83 This remarkable controversy aside, the greatest downfall of Ankori’s text may well be her approach to the art that preceded the Nakba.

Though Ankori goes to considerable effort to reveal Israeli practices of cultural destruction, looting and theft at the time of the occupation, as well as acknowledging that most of the cultural artefacts of this pre-1948 period have been lost or destroyed,

81 Nada Shabout, “Palestinian Art,” Arab Studies Quarterly, 29.2 (2007): 60. 82 “Art Journal Legal Settlement,” College Art Association, May 20th 2012. < http://www.collegeart.org/ArtJournal/legal_settlement.php>. 83 Tahel Frosh, “Palestinian Artist Accuses Israeli Professor of ‘Colonizing’ his Ideas,” Haaretz, 13 August 2008. 20 May 2012. < http://www.haaretz.com/culture/arts‐leisure/palestinian‐artist‐accuses‐israeli‐ professor‐of‐colonizing‐his‐ideas‐1.251612>. 40 she maintains that ‘pre-Nakba art exists as a vital cultural genealogical force and as a significant historical foundation for the Palestinian Art of today’.84 Despite this assertion, she goes on to say that she ‘cannot fully substantiate this thesis’.85 Though her revisionist approach here might be commended, it is symptomatic of a shift in the consideration of Palestinian art that now at least acknowledges modes of visual art practice in historical (that is, pre-Nakba) Palestine. Ankori is herself emblematic of this turn, admitting in her book that she now revises her previous stance, argued in the late

1980s, that ‘although several Arab artists are known to have been active in British

Palestine before 1948, a distinctly Palestinian brand of ‘fine art’ was virtually non- existent at the time’.86

The failing of Ankori’s revisionist claim is that her text does not adequately address the manner in which pre-1948 art was shaped by its cultural and political context. As Nada Shabout points out in her review of the book, Ankori ‘does not account for historical developments in pre-British Mandate Palestine, the effects of the

British Mandate, the Jewish colonization and all the ensuing ramifications’.87 Ankori’s work is no doubt let down by the paucity of analysis highlighted by Shabout, because without this historical and contextual frame, the fine art of the pre-Nakba period cannot be substantially shown to express an emerging ‘Palestinianess’. Where Ankori fails,

Kamal Boullata attempts to succeed, filling in the contextual background of art in this period in his 2009 book.

Importantly, however, the valiant attempts to reveal the status of fine art and its relationship to national identity in historical Palestine do not entirely delegitimise the claim that Palestinian fine art practice emerged following the foundation of Israel.

84 Ankori, Palestinian Art 24. 85 Ankori, Palestinian Art 24. 86 Ankori, Palestinian Art 23. 87 Shabout, “Palestinian Art,” 58. 41

Rather, they suggest that the Nakba irrevocably altered the face, function and impetus behind Palestinian art. In other words, the experience of dispossession and exile that followed on from 1948 created a Palestinian art with a new emphasis, purpose and set of priorities. In order to understand the process of change in post-Nakba art, one must understand what preceded it. This exercise not only reveals the social, historical and political context and changes in place both before and after the Catastrophe, but also draws a line of connection between Palestinian art practice in both periods.

It would be a mistake to focus on fine art as the only area of consideration, for traditional arts, crafts and folk practices are also vital to understanding the historical and social climate of the era. Further, as art historical scholarship has come to acknowledge, both ‘high’ and ‘low’ art are equally worthy of consideration, research and discussion.

Traditional Palestinian craftwork has a tremendously long history and is worthy of analysis in its own right. This is something that has been taken up in force by scholars in recent years. Of particular interest are the crafts of glass making, ceramic work and

Palestinian ‘fellahi’ embroidery.88 Of these three traditional craft practices, embroidery has received the lion’s share of attention and analysis.

The two most substantial books on Palestinian art, the texts of Kamal Boullata and Gannit Ankori, interestingly do not elucidate the art of embroidery. Although both authors do stress its importance as a Palestinian cultural artefact, they do not spend considerable time analysing embroidery practice and its social, regional and even political significance. Ankori instead prefers to briefly discuss embroidery through the lens of Feminist Theory, which suggests that as the work of women, textile work has, like the voices of Palestinian women, been lost beneath the weight of art history.

88 The art of fellahi embroidery is only dealt with in considerable length in Chapter 1. References to embroidery appear throughout this thesis but are not elaborated upon as this is beyond the scope of this thesis. 42

Similarly, she reminds us that the significance of the art of embroidery has been reclaimed as the art historical approach to craft has increasingly turned away from the dichotomy of high and low art and from a clear distinction between art and craft.89

Ankori’s reluctance to discuss embroidery in great detail in a book with a title suggesting it covers to entire breadth of Palestinian art may seem to run counter to her claim that we can now accept fellahi work as ‘fine art’.90 However, her hesitation to explore embroidery probably has more to do with the fact that fellahi work has achieved substantial scholarly attention in its own right in the past two decades.91 This attention might not only be attributed to the reclamation of ‘craft’ as fine art and to the recovering of the voices and lives of Palestinian women in history, but is also symptomatic of the association embroidery has with being a vehicle for the narration of Palestinian experience, identity and culture throughout history, in particular in the years prior to the foundation of Israel.

The continuing popularity of embroidery as not only the subject of research and publication, but also for collection and international exhibition would suggest that fellahi work is seen as a signifier of the continuity of Palestinian cultural identity. As objects utilised in everyday life, embroidery works are invested in as artefacts that simultaneously reflect and transcend the political devastation and challenges faced by

Palestinians. A key example of this view towards embroidery could be witnessed in the

2011 exhibition Beyond Aesthetics at the Birzeit University Ethnographic and Art

Museum in Ramallah. In an attempt to ‘surpass the stiffness of nostalgia and conservatism which seem too often to confine and limit discourse and imagination when

89 Ankori, Palestinian Art 32. 90 Ankori, Palestinian Art, 33. 91 Notable examples of texts dedicated to Palestinian embroidery include Kawar, Widad, and Margarity Skinner eds., Palestinian Embroidery Motifs: A Treasury of Stiches 1850 – 1950 (London: Rimal Publications & Melisende Publishing, 2010); Weir, Shelagh, Shahid Serene and Serene Shahid eds., Palestinian Embroidery (London: British Museum Press, 1988); Widad Kawar, Threads of Identity: Preserving Palestinian Costume and Heritage (Nicosia: Rimal Publications, 2011) 43 cultural heritage is in question’, the exhibition displayed Palestinian costume with explanatory notes that discussed the social, cultural and political function of textiles, going so far as to explore their role in Palestinian identity and cultural resistance to the social mores of occupational forces.92

Embroidery, textile and costume, as symbols of Palestinian heritage, manifested themselves in every aspect of Palestinian life.93 Further, Palestinian embroidery designs vary according to regional location within historical Palestine. As Leila El Khalidi notes

‘geographical location, local culture and outside influences all combined to localize garments, to integrate them with customs, traditions and the way of life generally’.94 In keeping with this, embroidery could be viewed as a symbol of the richness and diversity of Palestinian culture and experience throughout history and thus strong evidence of the

Palestinian presence across the entire Holy Land.

The continuing popularity of Palestinian embroidery must be seen as far more than merely an art historical or Feminist reclamation of women’s work. Though these perspectives are valid acts of political reclamation, they do not account for the vital political agency held by embroidery.95 Namely, that fellahi work is a symbol of a

Palestinian identity and presence on the land, something that historically has been denied by the state of Israel. This view of Palestinian embroidery became more

92 3DVM The Three Dimensional Virtual Museum – Birzeit University Museum 2011 Birzeit University. 26 May 2012 < http://3dvm.virtualgallery.birzeit.edu/>. The Beyond Aesthetics exhibition explored the political function of textiles as resistance to Ottoman social mores by highlighting the role of Palestinian costume in subverting the sexual expectations of women under Ottoman rule. 93 Hanan Karaman Munayyer, Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution (Northhampton: Interlink Pub Group, 2011). 94 Leila El Khalidi, The Art of Palestinian Embroidery (London: Saqi Books, 1999) 36. 95 Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana, Speak Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales (London: University of California Press, 1989) The interest in female craft is also mirrored in the scholarly interest in Palestinian Arab Folktales that relied on women for transmission. Kanaana and Muhawi look to the folktale tradition to explore Palestinian identity and connection to place in a way not dissimilar to the approach applied by scholars of traditional Palestinian crafts. 44 pronounced and urgent in the 1980s when Israeli industry began selling Palestinian embroidery as ‘Israeli handicraft’ and Israeli air carrier El Al modelled some of its airhostess uniforms on fellahi designs.96 Indeed, this trend in Israeli industry might explain the growth of publication on Palestinian embroidery that emerged in the 1980s.

Palestinian embroidery finds itself in company with glass making from Hebron, soap making from Nablus and Palestinian ceramic work as a signifier of Palestinian history, experience and cultural identity. Similar to embroidery, these crafts continue to hold popular appeal.97 This is particularly true of ceramic work, which has evolved over thousands of years to reflect shifts in production and cultural, social and religious influences. Like embroidery, the ceramic arts continue to be viewed as cultural output that reflects a direct line of connection to the Palestinian presence in the Holy Land and thus continuing to be an important source of inspiration for contemporary Palestinian artists and art writers. Artist and academic Vera Tamari conveys this sentiment clearly, saying that ‘my own artwork is inspired by seeing the history in Palestinian land…you find shards of pottery everywhere because Palestine has had so many thousands of years of history that you walk on a hill and you just find these little pieces of pottery that are evidence of life that was there’.98

This interest in ceramics has not been limited to Palestinian commentators such as Tamari but, in recent years, has also been taken by Israeli historians. Of particular interest has been the discussion and writing around Armenian pottery in Jerusalem prior

96 ‘Palestinian Costume and Embroidery Since 1948, The Palestine Costume Archive 15 May 2012. < http://palestinecostumearchive.com/contemporary.htm>. 97 Chistiane Dabdoub Nasser, Classic Palestinian Cuisine (London: Saqi, 2008) This resurgence in the interest in traditional crafts has also been taken up with other Palestinian cultural traditions, including food. Christine Dabdoub Nasser’s book, Classic Palestinian Cuisine is a fine example. Explaining the impetus behind her text, the author explains that ‘Palestinian identity has been crushed by the irreverent and overwhelming encroachment of a nascent Israeli ‘culture’ upon what is specifically Palestinian’. Writing here about Palestinian food traditions having been co‐opted by Israel, it is clear that the reclamation of Palestinian tradition has a wide depth and breadth, inclusive even of food. 98 Vera Tamari, “Interview: Vera Tamari,” Mother Jones, 11 May 2005. 20 July 2012. < http://www.motherjones.com/media/2005/05/interview‐vera‐tamari>. 45 to the Nakba. Having migrated to Palestine in 1919, Armenian craftsmen fused together traditional Ottoman floral motifs with local influences including Palestine’s ancient mosaics.99 The work of Armenian ceramicists, particularly that of Nishan Balian and

Megerdish Karahashian who established their workshop named Palestinian Pottery in

East Jerusalem in 1922, continues to be described by Israeli scholars as Armenian rather than Palestinian.100 As Boullata notes, this would indicate an attempt by Israeli authors to overwrite the pluralist nature of Palestine’s cultural history.101 Undoubtedly, it is denial such as this that informs contemporary scholarship of Palestinian traditional crafts.

Similar to that on embroidery, the publication of scholarly research on

Palestinian ceramics is a relatively new trend. However, the emphasis on the preservation and collection of these craft works is by no means a new phenomenon.

Indeed, the understanding of the importance of collecting and preserving these traditional crafts extends as far back as the early twentieth century.

During the British Mandate period, mass produced goods began to overtake local traditional handicrafts. Realising this, amateur collectors in the Palestinian middle class began to amass their own private collections in order to preserve Palestinian traditional culture and heritage. These collections included, amongst other things, icons, paintings, pottery, peasant jewellery, rugs and even musical instruments.102 The efforts of these Palestinian collectors were also reinforced by the British who evidently also appreciated the importance of preserving traditional local crafts. Despite the understandable Palestinian scepticism and resentment towards the British, they did

99 Boullata, Palestinian Art 85. 100 Boullata, Palestinian Art 83. The Palestinian Pottery workshop in Nablus Road in East Jerusalem continues to be in operation under the ownership of the Balian family. 101 Boullata, Palestinian Art 83. 102 Boullata, Palestinian Art 72. 46 bring notable benefits to Palestine, particularly in regard to the preservation of local culture. A key example of this was their foundation of the Pro Jerusalem Society in

1918. This was established to preserve Jerusalem’s antiquities, promote city life and secure employment for local practitioners working in art and craft.103

Critical to the success of the Pro Jerusalem Society was the appointment of

Charles R. Ashbee as civic advisor and secretary. His appointment to the position in

1919 would come to change the face and standing of Palestinian craft in Jerusalem.

Ashbee was the ideal figure for this post, for beyond being well known for his role in sustaining the arts and crafts movement in Britain, he was also living and teaching in

Cairo and had become familiar and fascinated with the Islamic arts. The combination of his knowledge of Islamic art and his belief in the importance of promoting craft traditions would prove vital to Palestinians at this time of political and social upheaval.

Most significantly, Ashbee reflected and affirmed the concerns of the Palestinian middle class who wanted to safeguard against the intrusions of industrialisation.104

While in his position at the Pro Jerusalem Society, Ashbee suggested several important projects, including the establishment of the British School of Archaeology and the building of a National Museum. The latter came to fruition in 1922 as the

Islamic Museum, which laid the foundations of the establishment of the Palestine

Archaeological Museum in 1938. The promotion of these projects was part of Ashbee’s push toward the preservation of antiquities in Palestine.

Symptomatic of this drive was Ashbee’s additional call to restore the ceramic walls of the Dome of the Rock for which he commissioned and brought from Turkey

Balian and Karahashian. Ashbee’s embrace of religious craft work extended beyond that of Islam. He believed that the three monotheistic faiths of Palestinian could work

103 Boullata, Palestinian Art 81. 104 Boullata, Palestinian Art 81. 47 together, and when called to furnish the interior of Government House Ashbee commissioned craftsmen of all three faiths, working with local crafts and materials.105

The Government House project was a symbol of the cultural and religious diversity and richness of Palestine. Ashbee’s acknowledgement and success in the projects he instigated were not lost of the local population, who were grappling with the increased industrialisation of the era. This period not only represents resurgence in the understanding of the importance of Palestinian craft, but also marks a turning point for the Palestinian arts more generally.

Importantly, the Mandate period was also a time of great migration of Jewish settlers, mostly from Europe. Of these migrants, many were artists and art collectors, who would in time be perceived as the founders of Israeli art. These artists cultivated the idea of a national art movement that reconnected Jewish migrants to biblical times.

A key example of the emerging Jewish art of this period is the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts, which is discussed in great detail by Kamal Boullata. The Bezalel School attempted to fuse together arts and crafts from the East and West in order to suggest for

Jews a visual return to their historical land of origin. Explicitly utilised as a tool of propaganda, the teaching at Bezalel was initially limited to Jewish students. Despite this, practitioners and students often learned from crafts of neighbouring Islamic and

Arab countries and even occasionally bought objects from Arab craftsmen and decorated them at the school to make them a ‘Hebrew craft’.106 Alongside this growth in the Jewish art scene, Palestinian art was also rapidly developing at this stage and by the

105 Boullata, Palestinian Art 83. Unfortunately Balian and Karahashian were unable to complete this work due to budgetary and administrative problems. Nonetheless, Ashbee’s commissioning of these two ceramicists is what brought them to Jerusalem and allowed them to establish the Palestine Pottery workshop in East Jerusalem. 106 Boullata, Palestinian Art 76‐80. 48 time of the Nakba, the studio arts had achieved their place in the Palestinian cultural landscape.

In the years of the Mandate period a national Palestinian art, one that could be argued to have been germinating since Ottoman times, began to become more pronounced. More and more young Palestinian artists trained through various missionary and local schools were emerging from different areas in Palestine. This went so far as to cultivate a growing artistic scene that found its nucleus just beyond the Jaffa

Gate in Jerusalem. This location, being the doorway to the new neighbourhoods of

Jerusalem where increasing numbers of the Palestinian middle class were relocating, symbolised an embrace of Jerusalem’s modernity.107

At this doorway to a new modern Jerusalem, one could find antique dealers, art and craft studios, photographic studios and even the first Arab Bank.108 This new artistic nucleus also comprised studios of artists working in the studio art forms, a practice that had also developed rapidly in previous decades in Palestinian society. Importantly, as

Boullata reminds us, though the traditional crafts of Palestine were reinvigorated at this time, it was the studio arts that emerged at the same time as growing Palestinian nationalism following the decline of the Ottoman Empire.

Boullata maps out the rise of the Palestinian studio arts as a trajectory beginning in religious iconographic painting and moving eventually to secular art. For Boullata, this course is representative of a rising sense of collective national identity.109

Palestine’s standing as the Holy Land has meant its role has always been as a major monastic centre, and this was particularly the case during the time of the Ottoman

Empire. The religious importance of Palestine is understandably responsible for why

107 Boullata, Palestinian Art 75. 108 Boullata, Palestinian Art 75. 109 Boullata, Palestinian Art 42. 49 religious iconographic art is viewed as the beginning of Palestinian painting practice. Of particular interest within this history of Palestinian iconographic practice is what has come to be known as the Jerusalem School.

Kamal Boullata has maintained in several publications that the Jerusalem School of Christian icon painting is the most important component of pre-1948 art.110 To justify this claim, Boullata examines the distinct regional developments that adapted Byzantine art of the seventeenth century, leading to a thriving icon painting practice in Palestine in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.111 The iconographers of the Jerusalem School developed a reputation during the Ottoman period and their work travelled as far as

Tripoli in Lebanon and to Damascus. Significantly, these iconographers signed their works in Arabic with Al-Qudsi meaning ‘the Jerusalemite’. For Boullata, this

‘naturalisation’ of the Byzantine icon by painters signified ‘the indigenous beginnings of a personalized form of painting in Palestine’, something most clearly evidenced by the minimising of Greek inscriptions on the icons they produced.112

Christian missions of varying denominations began to compete for cultural hegemony in Palestine as Ottoman influence waned with the degeneration of the empire. This process was achieved through the establishment of missions, hospitals publishing facilities and educational institutions. In the midst of this process, the visual culture of each religious denomination began to find a place in Palestine.

Photographers, landscape artists and Orientalist painters visited the region concurrently,

110 Ankori, Palestinian Art 37. 111 Ankori, Palestinian Art 37; Boullata, Palestinian Art 43‐52. Boullata’s Palestinian Art provides the most detailed account of the evolution of iconography in Palestine from the seventeenth to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries available in English. 112Boullata, Palestinian Art 45. Boullata makes the point that the Arabization of the icon is important because it indicated the deteriorating relationship between Arab adherents of the Orthodox Church and the Greek Patriarchs. This change in icon painting happened at the same time as national awareness was spreading in provinces previously belonging to the Ottoman Empire. The Arabized icon suggested a yearning for independence from the Greek Church. This continues to be a problem in Palestine where Greek Patriarchs continue to refuse to relinquish their control of the church. 50 and with increased frequency.113 This swift influx of diverse visual culture into the Holy

Land would prove integral to the development of pre-1948 painting in Palestine.

The work of Russian Orthodox painters was particularly influential, shaping the iconographic history of Palestinian art. This is most obvious in the case of artists Jiryes

Jawhariyyeh, Khalil Halabi and Nicola Saig. Of these, Nicola Saig holds the most significant legacy, having been credited as being responsible for the ‘secularisation of the icon’.114 This ‘secularisation’ process is evidenced by Saig himself who was, like several other Palestinian artists of his generation, trained and working as an icon painter. However, he appears to be the first painter to have also used his training to paint landscapes and narrative scenes based on historical events. Described by some as a Palestinian art ‘legend’, Saig’s greatest contribution to Palestinian art was the establishment of his studio at the turn of the twentieth century, a place that would, in time, become a meeting and teaching space for future Palestinian artists.115

One of these young artists was Daoud Zalatimo who, having visited Saig’s studio as a young boy, became enamoured with art. Though Zalatimo held artistic aspirations, coming from a Muslim family meant that it would be difficult for him to even imagine forging a career from art.116 However, despite the tumultuousness that marked the time of the end of World War One and the beginning of the British Mandate period, the political and social change of this era offered Zalatimo the opportunity to have a career in art. Despite the fact that less than five per cent of the British budget was allocated to education, by the age of nineteen Zalatimo was able to secure work as an art teacher, first in Jerusalem and later in Lydda. Though his income justified his passion

113 Boullata, Palestinian Art 46. 114 Boullata, Palestinian Art 52‐53. 115 ‘Building a Legacy of Art in Palestine’, This Week in Palestine, 106, August 2011. 10 March 2012. < http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=3475&ed=197&edid=197>; Boullata, Palestinian Art 54. 116 Kamal Boullata, “Daoud Zalatimo and Jerusalem Painting During the Early Mandate,” Jerusalem Quarterly 44 (2010): 71. 51 for art, Zalatimo was still open to charges of blasphemy from elders in the community.117

This hindrance from Muslim elders was not the only obstacle faced by the

Zalatimo. The artist aspired to rouse the interest in art for his students by appealing to their growing nationalist aspirations. To do this he painted metaphorical scenes from

Islamic history that both appealed to his students but also eased the concerns of the surrounding Arab community. Drawing on these historical scenes also meant that

Zalatimo could evade any suspicions of sedition from his British employers.118 Though his art was not available for general viewership at the time except through Christian mission exhibitions or in schools, Zalatimo’s work is now considered crucial to the establishment of Palestinian art of the early Mandate period. Also of particular significance is that Zalatimo mentored Ismail Shammout, one of Palestine’s most important painters whose work would grow to become visually synonymous with the

Palestinian struggle for liberation.

Zalatimo was not the only one of his generation to produce allegorical paintings.

Artists Mubarak Sa’ed and Zulfa Al Sa’adi are also noteworthy for having done so during the Mandate period. Sa’ed was the first of his generation to study abroad and, like Zalatimo, was influenced by the studio of Nicola Saig. The important distinction is that Sa’ed never trained as an icon painter; his renaissance technique was inherited from

Franciscan tutelage in Jerusalem and his studies in Italy.119 Though the artist’s landscape paintings, portraits and religious paintings clearly illustrate his formal training, Sa’ed’s allegorical paintings of Arab history are what associate him with Zalatimo and indicate the growing nationalist sentiments of the Arab population at this time.

117 Boullata,”‘Daoud Zalatimo and Jerusalem Painting During the Early Mandate,” 72. 118 Boullata, “Daoud Zalatimo and Jerusalem Painting During the Early Mandate,” 73. 119 Boullata, Palestinian Art 60. 52

Zulfa Al Sa’adi was another particularly important artist working in the later years of the British Mandate period. Similarly to Daoud Zalatimo, she owed much of her artistic skill and eventual influence to Nicola Saig. Born to an illustrious Jerusalem family, Al Sa’adi is the first woman known to have taken art classes at the Saig studio.120 Crucially, Zulfa Al Sa’adi was the first Palestinian artist to have work displayed in a formal exhibition. This exhibition was in the 1933 Palestinian Pavilion at the Arab exhibition in Jerusalem. The exhibition was the first solo show by a

Palestinian painter, and so marked a pivotal turning point where, for the first time, art was appreciated as a vehicle for conveying a Palestinian national culture.121

Al Sa’adi’s work received a very warm reception at the exhibition where invited guests included mayor Nashashibi and the President of the Supreme Muslim Council.

The works on display portrayed contemporary civic leaders alongside paintings of Arab heroes. Gannit Ankori makes the important observation that Al Sa’adi’s choice of subject matter is suggestive of an underlying political agenda. The Arab heroes the artist placed alongside contemporary figures included a portrait of Sharif Hussein bin Ali, who was an anti-colonialist and leader of an Arab revolt against the Turks (Figure 1).122

Later double-crossed by the British, bin Ali was a symbol of Arab nationalism and anti- colonial sentiment and thus his inclusion by al Sa’di could be interpreted as an acutely political statement. Boullata argues that the artist’s allegorical paintings follow from

Zalatimo, but with a more ‘wholistic vision’ employed to convey a political message.

The wholistic vision Boullata describes refers to the artist’s decision to place Arabic text below her portraits, something that draws a line of connection between her work

120 Boullata, Palestinian Art 68. 121 Boullata, Palestinian Art 69. 122 Sand, The Invention of the Land of Israel 169; Ankori, Palestinian Art 39 53 and that of Palestinian iconographic painters. According to Boullata, this indicates a transition to a new type of Palestinian secular and political iconography.123

Figure 1: Zulfa al-Sa’di Hashemite Leader of the Arab Revolt Sharif Hussein Ibn Ali, 1930 Oil on Canvas, 70x 50cm

The other especially significant fact about this turning point in Palestinian art is that it came in the form of an exhibition by a female Palestinian artist. This not only defies assumptions about the role of women in Palestinian society, but also represents a pattern set to be followed in future Palestinian art and film, where major innovations and points of transition were spearheaded by female practitioners.124 That having been said, the appreciation of the work of females is not the only indication of how quickly the artistic landscape of Palestinian art was evolving in this late Mandate period. It was at this time that avant-garde modernism also entered Palestine through the work of artist

Jamal Badran.

123 Boullata, Palestinian Art 69. 124 Ankori, Palestinian Art 41‐43. Another significant female artist from this period is Nahil Bishara, who was the first Arab student to study at Bezalel. Following the occupation of 1948, Bishara continued to study art, traveling to both Perugia and Chicago to train in sculpture and interior design. One of Bishara’s great legacies in the Palestinian arts was her foundation of glass blowing factories in Hebron and she was also instrumental in the preservation of fellahi embroidery. 54

Jamal Badran was born into a Christian family in Haifa and was trained in traditional Islamic crafts in Cairo. Returning to Jerusalem in 1927, Badran restored the mosaics in Al-Aqsa mosque and taught art and crafts. The artist’s studies in Cairo were not the most impressive of his studies abroad. Badran left Jerusalem, setting off for

Cambridge to study art. His education in Cambridge is vital in that when he returned to

Jerusalem in 1937 he began to produce work influenced by the avant-garde modernist movements of Futurism and Fauvism (Figure 2).125 Badran was very active in the growing art scene in Jerusalem, bringing to it a keen sense of the cutting edge trends of

Western art discovered while studying abroad.

Figure 2: Jabra Ibrahim Jabra Untitled, 1947 Acrylic on Glass

The rapidly changing artistic landscape of Jerusalem emerged largely because of the immense social and political transformations evident in Palestine during the late

Mandate period. As is now clear, the years shortly preceding the Nakba saw a radical evolution in Palestinian culture and cultural output. This transformed cultural landscape embraced avant-garde practice while sustaining an emphasis on the importance of maintaining traditional art and craft. This was particularly the case in Jerusalem where,

125 Ankori, Palestinian Art 28. 55 as Boullata notes, the Palestine Archaeological Museum and the Islamic Museum had been opened to the public and concerts, theatre productions, public lectures and art exhibitions were becoming commonplace occurrences. This was also reflected in the rest of the country and thus might be argued to signal the beginnings of a Palestinian cultural renaissance.126

Importantly, the scale of this cultural renaissance was not reflected in cinematic output from Palestine. The scale of the presence of Palestinian cinema in the years prior to 1948 pales in comparison to other artistic mediums such as visual arts, theatre, music, craft and literature. The reasons for this are many and varied and are worthy of their own in-depth research and analysis. However, in essence it is the very invisibility of early Palestinian film that is ironically its most important characteristic. Literature concerned with this early stage of national cinema does exist but is scant and primarily in Arabic, with much owed to the work of writers Nurith Gertz, an Israeli, and George

Khleifi, a Palestinian. Their 2008 book Palestinian Cinema: Trauma, Landscape and

Memory informs almost all recent scholarship on the subject of Palestinian cinema.

The ground breaking research of Gertz and Khleifi analyses Palestinian cinema in accordance with four distinct chronological periods, a distinction to which most other film writers also subscribe. The authors’ distinctions are as follows. The first period of

Palestinian cinema (1935–1948) is described as ‘the beginning’, the second (1948–

1967) is called ‘the epoch of silence’, the third (1968–1982) is ‘cinema in exile’ and the fourth and final period (1980 to today) is described as ‘the return home’. The epochs defined by Gertz and Khleifi correspond to major political and social changes facing

Palestinians in the last six decades.

126 Boullata, Palestinian Art 92‐93. 56

It is the first period defined by Gertz and Khleifi, in the years prior to the occupation of historical Palestine, that remains particularly ambiguous and elusive. As a result, Gertz and Khleifi, though authorities on the subject through having conducted considerable primary research of their own, rely on the work of Adnan Mdanat and

Moshe Tzimerman to forge a discussion of cinematic output in these early years.127

Despite this, all authors draw the same important conclusion that the surviving cinematic content relating to Palestinians at this time renders the population of historical

Palestine voiceless. The only known surviving film of Palestinians from the years prior to the Catastrophe are either in newsreels or Christian documentary films from the period, including the work of the Lumiere brothers all over the Holy Land (Figure 3).

With their work entirely absent from the historical archive, the only known films made by Palestinians at the time are recorded through the oral history of filmmakers and the speculation of authors on the subject.128

Figure 3:. Lumiere Brothers Jerusalem Film Still, 1896

127 Nurith Gertz and George Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema: Landscape Trauma and Memory (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008) 12‐19; Adnan Mdanat, History of the Speaking Arab Film, (Cairo: United Arab Artists/Cairo Film festival, 1993); Moshe Tzimmerman, Signs of Cinema: The History of the Israeli Film Between 1896 and 1948 (Tel Aviv: Dyonon/Tel Aviv University, 2001) Gertz and Khleifi list Adnan Mdanat’s History of the Speaking Arab Film, Moshe Tzimerman’s Signs of Cinema as their primary references for early cinema in historical Palestine.

57

It is startling to observe the progress recent scholarship on Palestinian film has made with respect to these early years of cinema. The work of scholars in the field would not have been possible were it not for the efforts of Iraqi director Kassam Hawal and, in particular, his 1978 book The Palestinian Cinema. Up until the publication of

Hawal’s text, scholars worked on the assumption that Palestinian cinema found its origins in the films created and sponsored by the PLO in the years following 1968.129

Though based on personal oral testimony, the most important revelation to come from

Hawal’s work relates to his encounter with a Palestinian refugee named Ibrahim Hassan

Sirhan from the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut.

Sirhan filmed and edited his own works, with films dating back to 1935 when he created a film documenting King Saud’s of Saudi Arabia’s tour of Palestine. The film used Jamal al-Asphar as its cinematographer. This partnership is responsible for Gertz and Khleifi’s claim that al-Asphar and Sirhan are ‘considered the founders of the pre-

1948 Palestinian cinema’.130 In this pre-Nakba period, Ibrahim Hassan Sirhan made several films and by 1945 he had collaborated with Ahmad Hilmi al-Kilani and together they established a production studio called the Arab Film Company.131

The germinating cinema of Palestine and the work of Sirhan, al-Asphar and al-

Kilani were to become lost beneath the weight of historical events Palestinians could not have foreseen. This early Palestinian cinema and the growing arts scene and industry of the region were to be proven short-lived as the shadow of tragedy loomed over Palestine. Despite the increased violence from Jewish and Arab armed groups,

Palestinians were not prepared for the impending Catastrophe. The black cloud of what would come to be known as the Nakba, would shatter every aspect of Palestinian life

129 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 13. 130 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 13. 131 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 13. 58 and experience, destroying with it the cultural renaissance that had emerged within the late Mandate period.

The Nakba changed the face of the Palestinian arts forever. Many of the works created before 1948 were looted, destroyed or lost, creating a historical vacuum for

Palestinian visual culture. This vacuum has only in very recent years begun to be filled through the dedication of scholars such as Boullata, Gertz, Khleifi and Ankori whose work has been crucial to repainting an accurate image of the cultural landscape of historical Palestine. In the case of Palestinian art, the Nakba signalled a clear termination of the growing art scene of the region, with many of the artists from this period being forced into exile. Much of their work, like their homes, was lost to the

Zionist occupiers.

Film suffered a fate worse still than that of the studio arts. Amidst the escalating violence in early 1948, filmmaker Ibrahim Hassan Sirhan was forced to flee Jaffa, leaving his films behind. As a result, his work has been lost and only remains through his testimony to Kassam Hawal. It is believed that films from the period were possibly handed over to an anonymous clerk during the violence of the Nakba and they might remain somewhere—unknown and untouched, a consideration that only adds to their enigma and potency as symbols of national loss.132 In addition, Khliefi and Gertz suggest the logical assumption is that al-Asphar, Sirhan and al-Kilani’s attempts were undoubtedly not isolated efforts and perhaps other films that have never surfaced were also created in this period.133

The destruction and/or loss of films from this period encapsulates the historical climate and also serves to create a potent symbolism whereby the loss of a country also signalled the destruction of the historical visualisation of itself. This is also amplified by

132 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 14. 133 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 13. 59 the fact that the only moving images that remain from before 1948 are either newsreels or tourist imagery, such as the Lumiere brother films that relegate Palestinians to being mere features of the landscape. They remain voiceless in these images, only serving to reinforce the historical projection of Palestinians employed historically by Zionist forces, that is, that they were mere local Arab inhabitants. Ironically, the view of

Palestinians as local peasants was a mythology also perpetuated by the art of

Palestinians that fled in 1948.

This mythology would take a central role in the formulation of the new

Palestinian nationalism that would emerge after the Nakba. Although Kamal Boullata has argued strongly that a Palestinian national consciousness was evidenced in art well before 1948 and authors such as Haim Gerber and Rashid Khalidi reinforce this stance, we cannot disregard the fact that Palestinian national identity was irrevocably altered with the foundation of Israel. The consequences of the Nakba on Palestinian art and film cannot be appreciated, or indeed understood, unless there is an acknowledgment of the

Palestinian cultural output that preceded 1948. The reclamation of the artistic work from this period in contemporary art historical scholarship is symptomatic of a revisionist history increasingly employed in regards to the pre-1948 period. This revisionist history is entangled in the contemporary conflict and this manifests as a contestation over who has the right to narrate Palestinian history. This is most clear in the Boullata-–Ankori dispute over plagiarism. However, irrespective of this contestation the scholarly analysis of the work of Palestinian practitioners prior to 1948 has laid the important groundwork for discussion of cultural output, the importance of which ran the risk of being neglected under the weight of history.

Armed with an understanding of the cultural output that preceded 1948, one can appreciate the enormity of the event of the Nakba and its effects on Palestinian culture.

60

The Nakba was the second, and undoubtedly most important, junction in Palestinian history. As a critical junction of Palestinian history, the Nakba was responsible for the creation of a new Palestinian art predicated on the experience of exile. The centrality of the theme of exile is not limited only to Palestinian art but, more vitally, also to

Palestinian national identity. Although a national consciousness might be argued to have existed prior to 1948, it was the Nakba that crystallised the sense of

‘Palestinianess’.

The creation of the state of Israel was responsible for the exile of an estimated one million Palestinians.134 The reasons given for the mass Palestinian flight out of historical Palestine between 1947 and 1949 vary enormously in their claims and evaluations. Analyses vary between the notion that Palestinians fled under orders from their political leaders and the claim that there was a program of psychological warfare employed by Zionist forces, designed to incite terror among the Arab population and encourage their exodus.135 The consideration here is not limited to a strictly historical analysis of the Arab–Israeli conflict and the events of 1948. Concern rests with the way that history and narrative are expressed in Palestinian contemporary art and film, therefore it is more pertinent to focus the investigation on the Palestinian collective historical memory of the Nakba. The Nakba is seen as the beginning of the Palestinian story, and absolutely crucial to this narrative is the story of the village of Deir Yassin.

134 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 141; Dan Smith, The State of the Middle East: An Atlas of Conflict and Resolution (London: Earthscan, 2006) 40‐41. These one million refugees were expelled to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan and only approximately 160,000 somehow managed to stay on their land. Today, Palestinians are the largest refugee group in the world with more than 4 million officially registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency as refugees. The number of Palestinian refugees grows at a rate of 3% every year and of the total amount of refugees approximately one third live in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza and the West Bank. 135 Nur‐eldeen Masalha, “On Recent Hebrew and Israeli Sources for the Palestinian Exodus, 1947‐1949,” Journal of Palestine Studies 18.1 (1988): 121; Steven Glazer, “The Palestinian Exodus in 1948,” Journal of Palestine Studies 9.4 (1980): 101. 61

CHAPTER TWO

Al‐Nakba and the Birth of ‘Palestinianism’: Art and Film 1948‐1967

‘A man [shot] a bullet into the neck of my sister Salhiyeh who was nine months pregnant. Then he cut her stomach open with a butcher's knife’. 136 Testimony of Ms. Haleem Eid, 30: Survivor of the Deir Yassin massacre.

‘Nations, like narratives, lose their origins in the myths of time and only fully realize their horizons in the mind’s eye’. 137 Homi Bhabha, Nation and Narration.

The story of Deir Yassin, a village destroyed by Zionist forces in 1948, is at the centre of collective memory of the Catastrophe.138 Over the last six decades it has been invested in as a symbol of the Palestinian experience of the Zionist occupation and it is often cited by Palestinians as the event that instigated the mass exodus of 1948. 139 Deir

Yassin can therefore be interpreted as a collective memory lens into the events of the

136 Haleem Eid quoted in “Survivor’s Accounts,” Deir Yassin Remembered, 20 January 2011. . 137 Homi K Bhabha, Nation and Narration (London and New York: Routledge, 1990) 1. 138 Marc H. Ellis and Daniel McGowan eds., Introduction, Remembering Deir Yassin: The Future of Israel and Palestine (New York: Olive Branch Press, 1998) vii. In the preface to Remembering Deir Yassin, Ellis and McGowan describe Deir Yassin as representative of The Nakba. This analysis implies that Deir Yassin is the most remembered event of the Nakba, and its recording and archival remembrance is the first step to acknowledging the Palestinian experience of 1948. 139 Nur‐eldeen Masalha, “On Recent Hebrew and Israeli Sources for the Palestinian Exodus, 1948‐1949,” Journal of Palestine Studies 18.1 (1998): 122. Masalha documents the various Hebrew and Israeli sources which acknowledge that Deir Yassin had the effect, ‘if not intention, of precipitating exodus’. In the article Masalha outlines at considerable length, the events of the Deir Yassin massacre and its role in the exodus of 1948. 62

Nakba. Though contemporary audiences have arguably become more familiar with the term ‘Nakba’, the story of Deir Yassin, an event so crucial to the understanding of the

Catastrophe, has yet to enter the popular vocabulary of those who are neither Arab nor

Israeli.140

Fixation on the historical events of Deir Yassin by both Palestinians and Israelis signifies the fact that the village itself has become bait in the ideological and propaganda campaign of both peoples.141 In 1948, both Zionist and Arab sides exaggerated the events of the Deir Yassin massacre for their own propagandistic purposes. For the Zionists, the massacre and capture of Deir Yassin signified the strength of their military and was publicised throughout the Palestinian population to incite an exodus and fear of Zionist forces. Their exaggerations were also mirrored by the Palestinians, who at the time numbered the dead at anywhere between 200 and 350 inhabitants to encourage international sympathy for their plight.142

140 Peter Kosminsky, dir. The Promise, Channel 4, 2011; Hal Wooten, “Much too Promised Land,” Inside Story, 16 February 2012. 17 June 2012. . Although the familiarity with Deir Yassin is quite limited outside the Arab world, there are indications that this may change. An example of this possible shift is the television series The Promise by director Peter Kosminsky. The four‐part series focused on the events of the Nakba and in particular the events at Deir Yassin. The program spurred criticism from groups around the world who contested the historical accuracy of the show. Notable in this regard was the Executive Council of Australian Jewry who condemned The Promise by comparing it to Nazi propaganda film. This condemnation fueled further debate around the program in Australia, most notably from QC and Emeritus Professor of Law Hal Wooten who defended the program and its historical accuracy. 141 Majid Al‐Haj, “National Ethos, Multicultural Education and the New History Textbooks in Israel,” Curriculum Inquiry 5.1 (2005): 64. Al‐Haj’s study of history textbooks in Israeli schools, serves to highlight the way that the Deir Yassin massacre is perceived and constructed in the Israeli education system. Al‐Haj documents the ways Israeli history textbooks differ from the Palestinian narrative of the event. His study reveals the way that the Israeli education system describes the Deir Yassin massacre as ‘an attack’, thus disavowing the magnitude of the event in Palestinian collective memory and its role in precipitating exodus. 142 Meir Pa’il quoted in Ellis and McGowan, Remembering Deir Yassin 38. In interview with Daniel McGowan, Israeli military historian and retired member of the Israeli Defence Force, Colonial Meir Pa’il, discusses his involvement with the Hagana at the massacre of Deir Yassin. Pa’il maintained his silence over the events of Deir Yassin and upon retirement from the defence force, revealed his knowledge of the massacre. His interview brings tremendous insight into the military tactics employed by the Irgun and the Stern Gang and the exaggerated claims of both Palestinians and Jews at the time. 63

Deir Yassin was not an isolated event or attack, but is merely the most notorious and well documented of the 1948 massacres of Palestinians conducted by Zionist forces. Deir Yassin was a consequence of Plan Dalet, a military blueprint co-ordinated by the Hagana (the Zionist military that eventually became the Israeli Defence Force), in anticipation of clashes with Arab forces in Palestine both before and after the foundation of Israel. The motivations for Plan Dalet were twofold. Firstly, the plan was a result of the Jewish leadership’s need to be more systematic in order to sway international favour and support and was designed to replace the military and civilian presence of the British in Palestine. The second motivation was to orchestrate an ethnic cleansing of the local Arab population. The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians would be achieved by the Hagana’s several brigades, all of which were designated a list of villages to destroy. Plan Dalet was realised between April and May 1948 and Deir

Yassin was one of the first villages to be destroyed under the new military plan.143

News of the massacre and of the occupation of Deir Yassin spread throughout

Arab communities in Palestine like wildfire. Menachim Begin, former Israeli Prime

Minister and leader of the Irgun forces who lead the attack on Deir Yassin writes that:

Arabs throughout the country, induced to believe wild tales of ‘Irgun butchery’ were seized with limitless panic and started to flee for their lives. This mass flight soon developed into a maddened, uncontrollable stampede.144

The stories of ‘Irgun butchery’ cited by Menachin Begin located their focal point on Zionist attacks against women. Frances Hasso writes about the effects of gender politics in the 1948 Zionist victory, by citing Ted Swedenberg’s analysis that honour was for Palestinians intimately related to both the possession of land and the

143 Ilan Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 128‐130; Masalha, “On recent Hebrew and Israeli Sources for the Palestinian Exodus,” 124. 144 Menachim Begin quoted in Ellis, McGowan eds., Remembering Deir Yassin 3. 64 maintenance of kin women’s virginity or exclusive sexual availability.145 The exaggerated reports of Deir Yassin focused on the brutality toward pregnant women, often claiming that they had been sliced open, disembowelled and thrown into wells.146

The sexual and physical attacks are argued by Hasso to have been acts of deliberate psychological warfare by the Zionist forces, as they were aware that such attacks on women would spread fear amongst the local population. Hasso explains that stories of

Zionist attacks against women held particular pertinence to Muslim Palestinians, who viewed women’s bodies as particularly vulnerable. The Muslim population considered sexual and physical attacks against women as prohibited even in warfare.147

The stories of brutality that occurred in Deir Yassin were disseminated through oral history. Even so, the village massacre at Deir Yassin was exceptional in that only 4 of its 144 houses were destroyed in 1948. The village itself is still largely intact and is now located in the Har Nof district of West Jerusalem and has been converted into an

Israeli mental hospital. Therefore, Deir Yassin has however problematically, been able to achieve a place in archival history (Figure 4). A covering up of the massacre was impossible, as written reports of the killings surfaced immediately.148 As such, the village is an exception amongst settlements depopulated in 1948, who in contrast to

145 Frances Hasso, “Modernity and Gender in Arab Accounts of the 1948 and 1967 Defeats,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 32 (2000): 495. 146Frances Hasso, “Modernity and Gender in Arab Accounts of the 1948 and 1967 Defeats,” 495. 147 Frances Hasso, “Modernity and Gender in Arab Accounts of the 1948 and 1967 Defeats,” 495. The focus on the female body in the exodus of 1948, also extended to the nationalist movement in the early years following the Nakba. Historical Palestine was in these years often symbolised using the female figure. Importantly, as the loss of honour was seen as the instigator of the Palestinian exodus of 1948, the nationalist movement in the 1970s employed the new catchcry of ‘land before honour’, in order to counter weigh the effect of warfare tactics which would compromise honour. 148 Samera Esmeir, “Memories of Conquest: Witnessing Death in Tantura,” Nakba: Palestine and the Claims of Memory 243. 65

Deir Yassin, rely almost exclusively on oral history to record the events and experiences of the Nakba.149

Figure 4: Associated Press Photograph, Deir Yassin, 1948. Prickly pears from Deir Yassin pierced with bullet holes from the massacre.

In contrast to the archived history of Deir Yassin, one might look to the village of Tantura, which has in recent years become the centre of historical debate in Israel. In

March 1998, Theodor Katz, a master’s student at Haifa University, completed a history thesis on the massacre of the Arab inhabitants of Tantura in 1948. Katz’s thesis was

149 Ariella Azoulay, From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947 – 1950 Charles S. Kamen trans., (London: Pluto Press 2009) Ariella Azoulay’s 2009 book From Palestine to Israel utilizes photographs from Israeli state and Zionist archives to chronicle a photographic history of the Nakba. Several of the photographs from Azoulay’s important text document the destruction and depopulation of Deir Yassin. The most haunting photograph of Deir Yassin included in the book is one of prickly pears in the village pierced by Haganah bullets (Figure 4). 66 based primarily on oral testimony of survivors of the massacre and generated public debate at the time of its publication among the media, the courts and Israel’s academia.150 Even though Katz’s thesis was accepted by academia it went on to be challenged in Israeli courts whose systems discredit the admission of hearsay evidence.

As a consequence, Katz’s thesis was revoked and he was obliged to write a public apology. The case against Theodor Katz is an example of the privileging of archival history over oral history within the Israel–Palestine conflict and its narration. As Samara

Esmeir suggests, hearsay evidence or oral history is devalued by the Israeli legal structure who disregard hearsay evidence and privilege written documents despite their hearsay characteristics.151

The Katz case continues to arouse substantial publicity, particularly since the publication of Ilan Pappe’s 2010 book Out of the Frame: The Struggle for Academic

Freedom in Israel that discusses the case in great detail. 152 The publicity surrounding the Theodor Katz case is indicative of how the case remains an excellent example of the incessant institutional denial of the Palestinian experience of 1948 by the Israeli legal system, and by implication, the state’s political system. Having been recorded through oral history, accounts of the events of 1948 are prone to the deficiencies of memory.

150 Samera Esmeir, “Memories of Conquest,” 229 – 253. The thesis accused the Alexandroni Brigade of killing between 200 and 250 of the inhabitants of Tantura in May 1948 even after its inhabitants had surrendered. Following the immense public debate on Katz’ thesis, the Alexandroni brigade sued the graduate for US $250, 000 for libel. Although Katz had renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappe and several Tantura survivors as witnesses in his defence team, he eventually settled out of court, his thesis was revoked and he committed to writing a public apology in two Israeli newspapers. Had Katz pursued the case, his legal strategy of bringing in survivor’s testimony would have effectively transformed the courtroom into a public dramatization and trial of the Palestinian experience of the Nakba. Nonetheless, as hearsay evidence is not admissible according to the Israeli rules of defence, many of the survivor’s testimonies would have been legally discredited on the grounds that they themselves were not witness to the killings at Tantura. 151 Samera Esmeir, “Memories of Conquest,” 235. Esmeir’s statement supports the notion that archival evidence is just as selective and omissive as oral history or hearsay evidence. This sentiment echoes the ‘history wars’ in Australia between Keith Windshuttle and Henry Reynolds where oral testimony is set up against the historical archive in a battle for legitimacy and historical accuracy. 152 Ilan Pappe, Out of the Frame: The Struggle for Academic Freedom in Israel (London: Pluto Press, 2010) 67

The legitimisation of memory and oral testimony are at the core of the pre-occupation amongst Said and revisionist Israeli historians to dismantle the institutionalised narrative of Israeli history.

During the exodus of 1948 Palestinians often defended their exile by saying,

‘Remember Deir Yassin!’ Now, well beyond six decades after the massacre, remembering Deir Yassin is as important for Palestinians today as it was more than sixty years ago. The site of the village is a mere mile from Yad Vashem, the Israeli

Holocaust memorial. The proximity of both the site of the Palestinian Deir Yassin massacre, and the Yad Vashem memorial, creates a binary between, what are for both cultures, the most significant events of their collective historical trauma. Importantly however, this collective memory binary is an uneven one. Though the Jewish end of it has a fixed presence and place, the Palestinian still settles in the landscape of memory.

Recently there has been a movement to institutionalise the archives and memories of

Deir Yassin in a museum at the site. Even so, the memory’s intensity is still not allowed a concrete manifestation, and a Palestinian memorial is yet to be built on the site of Deir

Yassin.153

Homi Bhabha observes the nationalist trend of looking to the distant past of a land in order to create a nation and more importantly perhaps, a cohesive sense of a national identity and collective memory. Bhabha points out that nationalism, or nation building, is created in the mind’s eye. That is to say, national identity is largely a creation of our own imagination, a sentiment echoed by Benedict Anderson.154 If we are

153 Ellis and McGowan eds., Remembering Deir Yassin v‐ix; Deir Yassin Remembered, 27 July 2011. . An organisation calling itself Deir Yassin Remembered composed of Israelis, Jews, Muslims and Christians has been campaigning since the 1990s to build a memorial at Deir Yassin. The organisation has an active website that requests donations for the building of a Deir Yassin memorial. The organisation’s goal is seen as a way to create a future that will accommodate the history of both Jews and Palestinians. 154 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1991) 68 to accept Bhabha’s proposition that nationalism is built in the mind’s eye, we can assume that this mind’s eye is built on symbols or icons that retreat to a distant past, one that is most often an idyllic one. The distant past they reference exposes a nostalgia within any particular nationalism for a time, place or way of living that a group of people, or indeed nation, feel is lost and worthy of retrieval.

In the case of Palestine, nationhood has yet to be achieved and consequently the symbols and icons of nationalism are invested with considerable significance. The iconography of Palestinian nationalism is bound to collective memory and is manipulated, defined and based on the ‘Other’ collective memories that challenge its legitimacy.155 Pappe explains that the ‘destruction of collective memory of the Other…is a central element in the foundation of national identities’.156 As an ideological and physical war over the land, the collective memories of both Palestinians and Israelis are bound to the landscape. Consequently, there is constant antagonism between both their collective memories of and about the land. The omissive and destructive qualities of

Jewish collective memory of the land over its Other (that is to say the Palestinian collective memory) have been widely written about by Carol Bardenstein. Her studies focus on the landscape of Israel and the way that it has been systematically manipulated by both the Israelis and Palestinians as a repository of both their collective memories.

The Zionist ethos, ‘a land without people for a people without land’, has been projected onto the landscape of historical Palestine by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in a clear attempt to expunge the presence of the Other. The JNF is responsible for the plantation of several hundred million trees in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian

Anderson’s most celebrated text, Imagined Communities, locates its focus on the ways that ‘imagined communities’ come to perceive themselves as nationalities. 155 Ilan Gur‐Ze’ev and Ilan Pappe, “Beyond the Destruction of the Other’s Collective Memory: Blueprints for a Palestinian/Israeli Dialogue,” Theory, Culture & Society 20.1 (2003): 93; Alon Confino, “Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method,” The American Historical Review 102.5 (1997): 1388. 156 Gur‐Ze’ev and Pappe, “Beyond the Destruction of the Other’s Collective Memory,” 93. 69

Territories.157 These JNF forests are a symbol of return for the Jewish people to their promised land of Israel and the transformation of the landscape is an assertion of their presence and return after generations in exile. The planting of trees in Israel is also largely sponsored by Jews living abroad. Their sponsorship is intended to honour and commemorate significant events such as weddings, births or the death of a Jewish loved one who died away from Israel and so is perceived as still living in exile.

As sites of cultural commemoration and memory, forests are transformed into an ideological battleground between Israelis and Palestinians over presence and remembrance in Israel.158 As a result of its tree planting activities over the sites of villages destroyed by the Zionist forces between 1947 and 1948 the JNF is a facilitator of a historical cover-up. The fund’s widespread planting is an act that attempts to erase

Palestinian collective memory of the landscape.159 These forests have become ideological and memorial battlegrounds, and the counter fixation on the historical landscape by Palestinians should therefore come as no surprise and is symptomatic of a process of memory theorised by Pierre Nora. He supposes that collective memories have what he describes as a lieux de memoire or, sites of memory, which emphasise the

157 Carol Bardenstein, “Trees Forests and the Shaping of Palestinian and Israeli Collective Memory,” Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present Mieke Bal, Jonathan Crewe, Leo Spitzer, eds., (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1999) 158. The mass plantation is primarily of non‐fruit trees, the bulk of which are pine. This is an indicator that the trees planted by the fund, are not intended to fulfil any food/fruit production and as such are, as Bardenstein suggests, symbolically and ideologically motivated. As memorial forests, absent of food/fruit crops, the JNF forests stand as fixed memorials. The Jewish imposition on the landscape with pine trees is aiming toward the creation of a monument. As forests that are not logged, these signifiers of Jewish presence and memory achieve permanence. In contrast, the Palestinian signifiers of presence are all food crops and are seasonal. 158 Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory (New York: Knopf, 1995) cited in Bardenstein, “Trees Forests and the Shaping of Palestinian and Israeli Collective Memory,” 163; Larry Abramson, “What Does Landscape Want? A Walk in W.J.T Mitchell’s Holy Landscape,” Culture, Theory and Critique 50:2‐3 (2009): 275‐288. The symbolic tree planting process serves to create a sentiment amongst diasporic Jews where trees a perceived to serve as ‘proxy immigrants’. Beyond the commemoration of individuals from abroad the forests in Israel are often named in honour of national historical heroes or events. The earliest such forest, is the Herzl Memorial Forest founded in 1906. 159 Bardenstein, “Trees Forests and the Shaping of Palestinian and Israeli Collective Memory,” 164. 70

‘illumination of discontinuity’.160 Lieux de memoire signify the point where an individual or group assigns a break from the past.

Carol Bardenstein’s suggestion that the bonds between trees, land and people were conceived by Palestinians on their ‘way “out”of Palestine, and that they are most conspicuously activated in Israeli collective memory on the way “in” to Israel’, resonates with Nora’s theory of lieux de memoire.161 The suggestion that the bond between trees, land and people was forged by Palestinians on their way ‘out’ of

Palestine, that is at the time of dispossession, is to propose that this bond was forged at a time where Palestinians became physically disassociated from the landscape. To suggest

Palestinian bonds were created at the time of dispossession is to implicate memory.

Indeed, memory goes so far as to be the only point of reference for Palestinians of the sites and villages they previously inhabited.162 During the early years of dispossession, a pronounced sense of nostalgia entered artistic representations of the landscape. The

160 Pierre Nora, “Between History and Memory: Les lieux de memoire,” Representations 26 (1989): 7‐25. 161 Bardenstein, “Trees, Forests and the Shaping of Palestinian and Israeli Collective Memory,” 157. 162 Rochelle Davis, “Mapping the Past, Re‐creating the Homeland: Memories of village places in pre‐1948 Palestine,” Nakba: Palestine and the Claims of Memory 53 – 76; Rakefet Sela‐Sheffy, “What Makes One An Israeli? Negotiating Identities in Everyday Representations of ‘Israeliness’,” Nations and Nationalism 10.4 (2004): 486. Since the Nakba there have been active attempts by Palestinians to produce local publications described as ‘village memorial books’. These books are based on the oral testimonies and memories of inhabitants of villages destroyed in 1948. Rochelle Davis notes that geographical specifics of villages, particularly trees, often are the only way many Palestinians are able to navigate and recreate in their mind’s eye the destroyed villages that existed prior to Al‐Nakba. The memory of the geographic specificities of the sites of destroyed villages is a testament to the Palestinian presence on the land. The prickly pear cactus in particular is often viewed by Palestinians as a symbol of their historical presence in Palestine. As the cactus continues to appear in the sites of villages destroyed since 1948, it is employed as a symbol of their relationship to the landscape. Interestingly, the prickly pear cactus is also utilized by the Israelis as a symbol of their bond to the land. The Hebrew name for the prickly pear is tzabar, and from its name is derived the Hebrew slang word Sabra. The term Sabra, has come to represent an Israeli born Jew whose celebrated qualities include devotion, courage and an intimate bond to the land. The prickly pear cactus thus mutually functions as a symbol of a bond to the landscape for both groups. The Israeli utilization of the prickly pear cactus symbol to connote an intimate relationship to the land can be interpreted as an attempt to manipulate a competing collective cultural signifier as their own. As Bardenstein suggests, the prickly pear was bestowed with meaning by Palestinians on their way “out” of Palestine, and for Jews on their way “in”. 71 appearance of nostalgia in cultural output from this period is significant because this was a time of growing Palestinian nationalism.

Nostalgia is a powerful feature of nationalism and its yearning for the idyllic past to which it is assigned creates a perception of a particular time as one having little conflict and little sorrow. This nostalgic perception of history has immense political and propagandistic benefits, in that it encourages a nationalist movement to aim for the impossible, for a romanticised and idealised past. For some theorists, the selective and romantic aspect of nostalgia is seen as a ‘betrayal of history’ and for writers like

Christopher Lasch, nostalgists are ‘incurable sentimentalists’ who are both ‘afraid of the future’ and ‘afraid to face the truth of the past’.163 Exile and memory are inextricable, and one must understand that when an individual finds themselves dispossessed and separated from all that is familiar, the inclination toward nostalgia is not at all surprising. For it is nostalgia’s ability to allow an individual to escape their present that is argued to be its greatest virtue.164 Like all forms of nostalgia, early post-Nakba images appear as recordings of memory with the pain removed, and as a consequence, form an essentialised iconography.

In his article Bourgeois Nostalgia and the Abandoned City, Palestinian historical sociologist Salim Tamari considers the role of nostalgia in the cultural output of

Palestinian artists who personally experienced the Nakba. Locating generational differences and experiences as responsible for varying representations of exile and the events of the Nakba, Tamari explains that ‘among the earlier generation of exiles there is a dominant tendency to “freeze” the homeland into frames of pastoral, idyllic,

163 Christopher Lasch, “The Politics of Nostalgia: Losing History in the Midst of Ideology,” Harper’s, 269.1614 (1984): 65. 164 Maurice Halbwachs cited in Leon Spitzer, “Back Through the Future: Nostalgic Memory and Critical Memory in a Refuge from Nazism,” Acts of Memory, Bal Crewe and Spitzer, eds., 91‐92. 72 paradise lost’.165 Those familiar with the art of the generation of the Nakba will immediately recognise the accuracy of Tamari’s claim.

The subtext to Tamari’s observation is that the idealised images of the

Palestinian past could not be further away from the experience of exile faced by all

Palestinians after 1948. Importantly, the paintings of the Palestinian artists of the first generation grew to become dominant images in the visual vocabulary of the Nakba.

Indeed, without Boullata’s pioneering research and publication into pre-1948 art these images stand as the beginning of the story of Palestinian art.

The intrinsic problem with these paintings being seen as the beginning of

Palestinian art is that they are essentially reductionist, presenting a utopian vision of historical Palestine, one that is free of conflict, complexity and social difference.

Needless to say, this utopian vision of the past is not only fanciful and misleading, but more problematically, it suggests that Palestinians did not have a complex society, history or culture. This diminishes the intricacy of pre-1948 Palestinian society, removing all signs of social and political difference that are fundamental to any society.

Reflecting on the work of these early Palestinian artists, Tamari explains that the idealised landscapes of this era are tied to the concept of Return to Palestine, something that was literally linked to the vision of the land.166 He explains that

‘this dream/vision was personified in paintings…focusing on the image of paradise lost and idyllic peasant landscapes…all internal conflicts in Palestinian society were obliterated and a pastoral picture based on a collective memory of Palestinians in Arab host countries was produced’.167

165 Salim Tamari, “Bourgeois Nostalgia and the Abandoned City,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 23.1/2, (2003): 179. 166 Tamari, “Bourgeois Nostalgia and the Abandoned City,” 174. 167 Tamari, “Bourgeois Nostalgia and the Abandoned City,” 174. 73

The neighbouring host countries in which Palestinians found themselves following the Nakba also competed for which of them would ‘represent’ Palestinians.

This was particularly true of Jordan which had annexed the largest part of Palestine that had not been incorporated into Israel.168 King Abdullah of Jordan was not the only leader to take control of land previously belonging to Mandate Palestine, the same was also done by Egypt, which took control of the Gaza strip. The ‘representation’ of

Palestinians offered by Jordan and Egypt did not extend to political activity by

Palestinians themselves. In Jordan, almost every Palestinian organisation was viewed as a threat to the unity of the Kingdom and in Egypt, the military authorities only allowed limited Palestinian activity for fear of destabilising the country’s armistice with Israel.169

The future of Palestinian politics, identity and indeed art, would be shaped by these policies toward refugees. Following the Catastrophe only 160,000 Palestinians were able to stay on their own land. Almost one million were made refugees, expelled to the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. The majority of these refugees were farmers and their exile from their land meant they were reduced to depending on

United Nations hand outs for survival.170 Even the Palestinians who managed to stay in the newly formed state of Israel were subject to a continuing legislative campaign that provided, as Ilan Pappe notes, a constitutional basis for the depopulation of Palestinian villages in the early years following the Nakba.171

The Palestinians exiled to neighbouring countries faced varying forms of social, political and economic restriction. The most favourable hosts for Palestinian refugees were the states in the Persian Gulf but they were rarely reached by refugees. In Syria,

168 Rashid Khalidi, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006) 135. 169 Khalidi, The Iron Cage 136. 170 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 141. 171 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 145. 74

Palestinians were permitted to participate in free enterprise but were subject to harsh employment conditions. Jordan was, by comparison, much more welcoming in that it granted citizenship to most Palestinian refugees. In contrast, Lebanon maintained an uncompromising policy of oppression toward Palestinians. Refugees in Lebanon were treated as foreigners and few were ever granted with citizenship. The Lebanese government’s deliberate ethnic policy also meant that at least forty occupational categories were closed to refugees and public schooling was not offered to children.172

Of the approximately 800,000 people displaced to countries outside Palestine by the Nakba, over 100,000 found themselves in Lebanon. From the beginning their legal and economic marginality in Lebanon made them incredibly sensitive to Lebanon’s fragile and turbulent political environment.173 Most of these 100,000 refugees were from northern coastal cities Haifa and Akka or were self-sufficient farmers from the

Galilee.174 Approximately half of these expellees were moved to refugee camps run by the United National Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) following their initial stay in transit facilities. These camps were near the cities of Tyre, Sidon, Nabatiyya, Beirut,

Ba’lbak and Tripoli.175 Although these camps offered minimal services including health care, education, water, garbage collection and rent-free housing, they also made it possible for authorities to control refugees. Rosemary Sayigh explains that Palestinians increasingly began to see these camps as ‘part of the machinery of dismemberment and dispersion’.176 As cogs in the machinery of exile, they grew to resemble small towns with markets, shops and coffee houses and as they developed, UNRWA tents became

172 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 144; “Exiled and Suffering: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon,” Amnesty International Annual Report 2012, June 8 2012. . 173 Rex Brynan, “The Politics of Exile: The Palestinians in Lebanon,” Journal of Refugee Studies 3 (1990): 205. 174 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 144. 175 Brynan, “The Politics of Exile,” 206. 176 Rosemary Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries (London: Zed Press, 1979) 109. 75 replaced by small permanent structures. However, the development of the camps did not change the fact that housing was severely overcrowded and the dwellings within the camps were some of the poorest in the Arab world.177

In contrast to the misery of the refugee camps, the Lebanese capital of Beirut steadily grew from 1952 to become ‘the metropolis of Arab Modernity’.178 The economic advancement, cultural change and growing cosmopolitanism of Beirut in the early 1950’s can be evidenced by the establishment of literary journals, the founding of a contemporary art museum (the Nicolas Sursock Museum) and musical and cultural events that all sprang up in the city at the time. Significantly, the early 1950s saw an influx of art into Beirut from the Arab world, Europe and the United States through newly developed art galleries.179 Kamal Boullata points out that Beirut stood apart from

Cairo, which was for decades seen as the cultural capital of the Arab world, because unlike Cairo, Beirut was open to the West. The Lebanese government’s relaxed attitude to censorship meant that the city became a meeting place for political and cultural dissidents from the Arab world, creating a particular breed of cosmopolitanism that embraced Arab nationalism while also being open to culture from the West.180 For this reason, Beirut became the nexus of a diverse and pluralist Arab culture. Importantly, as

Boullata notes, this also meant that ‘Beirut served as a lightning rod for all the political movements erupting in the Arab world since Palestine’s fall’.181

This was of course particularly true of all political movements that pertained specifically to Palestine and Palestinians. Though Beirut enjoyed its position of cosmopolitan cultural capital of the Arab world, this was obviously not reflected in

177 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 147. 178 Kamal Boullata, Palestinian Art: From 1850 to the Present (London, Saqi, 2009) 124. 179 Boullata, Palestinian Art 124. 180 Boullata, Palestinian Art 125. 181 Boullata, Palestinian Art 125. 76 political or economic terms for refugees living in camps. Through time this would encourage participation by Palestinians in what would come to be the struggle for the liberation of Palestine. Beirut, together with other large cities in the Arab world, was increasingly becoming the centre of Palestinian political activity. More simply,

Palestinian political activity largely took place outside Palestine rather than inside it.182

As a result, the growing Palestinian political activity of the 1950s and 1960s was taken up by a new group of Palestinian exiled political actors who formed a new social stratum that eclipsed the leadership and political classes that were in place in Palestine prior to 1948.

While Israel had by 1951 completed the ‘memoricide’ of Palestine by actively erasing the Arab presence on the land through the renaming of places, mountains, valleys, springs and roads in the country with Hebrew names, Palestinians in exile maintained their connection to the homeland through social and cultural bonds reinforced in their host countries.183 Although Israel transposed a Jewish identity over the land attempting to erase the Arab Palestinian presence, the collective trauma of 1948 only served to strengthen Palestinian identity. For Rashid Khalidi, the exile of the

Nakba meant that Palestinians were ‘faced with an existential test of whether they would be able to remain together as a people’.184 Clearly, Palestinians were able to succeed in this existential test through the shared experience of the Catastrophe, developing a pronounced collective identity as a consequence. This, as Khalidi points out, rendered pre-1948 social divisions irrelevant, creating a tabula rasa for the re- establishment of Palestinian identity.185

182 Khalidi, The Iron Cage 136; Brynan, “The Politics of Exile,” 204‐205. 183 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 146. 184 Khalidi, The Iron Cage 135. 185 Khalidi, The Iron Cage 135. 77

The tabula rasa described by Rashid Khalidi required an imprint of visual expression, or a visual language, for the narration of the Palestinian identity that emerged following 1948. The centre for this visual narration was Lebanon, where a new generation of Palestinian artists began recording their experiences, capturing a new and emerging Palestinian national identity through art. Beirut became the hub of this new

Palestinian art, as artists from both within and outside refugee camps began to produce works. Again, the work of Kamal Boullata provides significant insight into the

Palestinian art of this period. This is because Boullata himself was a young artist in

Lebanon at the time. His contribution to the art scene of this formative period of

Palestinian has been bolstered by his scholarly analysis of his direct experience of the time.

Boullata’s experience and contribution is best evidenced in his text Artists

Remember Palestine in Beirut. In the text, Boullata outlines what he describes as a

Palestinian cultural renaissance, or Al-Nahda, in Beirut in the years following the

Catastrophe up until the time of the Lebanese Civil War. 186 The term Al-Nahda is the antonym to Al-Nakba and means the rebirth of the renaissance. It is typically associated with the rebirth of Arab culture during the period of Pan-Arabism and the attempt by the

Arab world to define itself in opposition to the Western Other. An important distinction must be made between the Nahda of Beirut and that of the rest of the Arab world. The renaissance of Beirut was thoroughly unique because, though it embraced much of the ethos of Pan-Arabism, it was also, as previously mentioned, open to the West.

Framing his writing around the cultural, economic and political transformations that saw Beirut become the cosmopolitan centre of the Middle East, Boullata points out that Beirut was seen as a new surrogate home for the first generation of Palestinian

186 Kamal Boullata, “Artists Re‐member Palestine in Beirut,” Journal of Palestine Studies 32.4 (2003): 24. 78 exiled artists. This sizeable group of refugee artists established new roots in Lebanon.

The historical context and ethnic policy of Lebanon influenced the enormous diversity of experience, training and socio-economic background of refugee Palestinian artists.

Despite the diversity of their experience and training, Boullata maintains that Beirut Al-

Nahda artists can be separated simply into two groups: the refugee artists who worked in and remained primarily in refugee camps and those who were able to obtain working visas and made up what is called the Ras Beirut group.

As Lebanon has always maintained an uncompromising policy of oppression toward Palestinian refugees and did not allow most refugees access to working visas, camp artists could not sell their works in galleries and indeed, none of them ever found their way to the scores of galleries that had sprung up in Beirut at the time of Al-

Nahda.187 The artists that did make it to Beirut’s galleries and by implication into international museums, festivals and galleries, were the Ras Beirut group. Ras Beirut, or

‘the head of Beirut’, is a peninsula in West Beirut that during the Lebanese Al-Nahda became a centre for the city’s galleries, arts, and intelligentsia. The Palestinian artists that showed in the galleries of the cosmopolitan area of Ras Beirut came mostly from major cities in historical Palestine and were largely members of the middle and upper classes. It is their socio-economic backgrounds that are the reason the majority of these artists were granted working visas and could be exhibited in Ras Beirut.188

Ras Beirut was not only the artistic and cultural centre of the ‘Paris of the

Middle East’ but was also an area of Beirut were the intelligentsia of both genders came together with individuals from a multitude of religious sects. The Palestinian artists who exhibited here did not necessarily live in this part of the city but did find an audience and a place for their art in the area. The most significant of these Ras Beirut artists

187 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 144. 188 Boullata, Palestinian Art 145. 79 include Kamal Boullata, Vladimir Tamari, Rita Daoud and Maliha Afnan, all of whom lived in Beirut intermittently, and Juliana Seraphim, Jumana al-Husseini and Paul

Guiragossian who resided permanently in Beirut.189

These non-camp artists enjoyed social and economic privileges not shared by refugee artists in Lebanon. Whereas most camp artists did not receive formal artistic training and had hardly stepped inside a gallery of an art museum, the artists of Ras

Beirut had formal training and their work was exhibited widely, often even in the

Nicolas Sursock Museum of Contemporary Art. The formal training of these artists, and their exposure to cutting edge artistic trends in Ras Beirut, and elsewhere overseas, meant that they were well versed in the trends of modern art capitals of Europe and the

United States. Though their work was obviously influenced by these international trends, their geographic location meant they were working and exhibiting in one of the peripheries of the art world. As is typical of art from the ‘periphery’ that emulates trends from the international centres of art, the largely abstract and surrealist work of Ras

Beirut artists, when viewed through a contemporary Western art historical gaze, might be interpreted as a second class form of European and American modernism.

Beneath the visual reference to high modernism, the work of these Ras Beirut artists did reveal the influence of their Palestinian identity and their experience of dispossession. This influence is often not immediately obvious, for as Kamal Boullata points out, two of the well known artists from Ras Beirut, Juliana Seraphim and Paul

Guiragossian, opted to be publically exhibited as Lebanese artists, preferring to keep their Palestinian identity in the shadows.190 Jumana al-Husseini was exceptional in this group for openly identifying with camp artists and for clearly drawing reference to her lament over the lost homeland of Palestine in her works. In spite of the artistic merits

189 Boullata, Palestinian Art 146. 190 Boullata, Palestinian Art 146. 80 and international recognition of the work of these Ras Beirut artists, the work the refugee camp artists remains the most recognisable form of Palestinian art from the first generation of exiles artists.

The artists of Beirut’s refugee camps were self-taught and their work was primarily figurative, concerning itself with the representations of the Palestinian homeland and the experience of dispossession. These works operated with a language and set of symbols that consisted primarily of the popular citrus fruit metaphor for the peasant and the figure of the woman as an embodiment of the ancestral land of

Palestine. Of the refugee camp artists, the two best known are Ismail Shammout and

Naji al-Ali whose work would in subsequent years become synonymous with the

Palestinian struggle.191

Ismail Shammout was one of only two refugee camp artists to receive formal training, the other being Mustafa al-Hallaj. Both artists briefly resided in Gaza refugee camps under the control of Egypt and were fortunate to have been able to obtain scholarships to study art in Cairo.192 Although Shammout’s work shared the common language and set of symbols used by other refugee artists, his paintings were also allegorical. The use of allegory in Shammout’s painting is something he inherited from

Palestinian artist Daoud Zalatimo.

Ismail Shammout was born in the town of Lydda and was a student of Zalatimo during his school years. Many years later, Daoud Zalatimo would refer to Shammout as a favourite student.193 Perhaps the favouritism Zalatimo displayed toward the artist can be attributed to the fact that Shammout’s work carried the legacy of Zalatimo’s

191 Boullata, Palestinian Art 128. Boullata lists the other refugee camp artists that had migrated to Beirut camps as being Yusif Arman, Ibrahim Ghannam, Michel Nahhar, Jamal Gharibeh, George Fakhoury, Tawfiq ‘Abd al‐‘Al, Muhammad al‐ Sha’ir, Mustafa al‐Hallaj, Tamam al‐Akhal, ‘Abd al‐Hai Musallam, Husni Radwan and ‘Imad ‘Abd al‐ Wahab. 192 Boullata, “Artists Re‐member Palestine in Beirut,” 26. 193 Boullata, Palestinian Art 130. 81 allegorical painting style. Like Daoud Zalatimo, who had utilised allegory to relay his historical surroundings and encourage a national identity in his students, Shammout used allegory to record and communicate the dramatic events he had experienced as a result of the Nakba. Shammout’s mentorship by Zalatimo and his experience of the turbulent events of the Nakba were crucial to his painting but were not the only experiences that shaped his art.

Ismail Shammout was also influenced by his time as a student in Cairo that was, as Kamal Boullata points out, the centre of anti-colonialism in the Arab world at the time. In 1954, at the age of twenty-four and while still a student in Cairo, Shammout held his first exhibition. The exhibition was a widly publicised event, so much so that a list of attendees included Egyptian president Gamal Abd al Nasser, Haj Amn al-

Husseini and, most importantly, a young Yasser Arafat who was the leader of the Union of Palestinian Students at the time.194 While still in Cairo, the artist worked as an illustrator for a commercial arts agency before moving to Rome to study Fine Arts.

Upon moving to Beirut in 1958, Shammout took up work as an illustrator for the advertising department at UNRWA while continuing to work on painting in his spare time.195

Ismail Shammout’s figurative paintings from the early 1950’s until the mid

1960s were characterised by their depiction of the collective exodus from Palestine.

These early paintings drew on Shammout’s own experience of exile, while utilising familiar symbols and motifs. The figures in these paintings conveyed the anguish of destitution and exile and the mourning of the lost homeland. Drawing from the collective experience of dispossession, Shammout created paintings that conveyed a

‘Palestinianess’ that had emerged as a response to the Nakba. As a visual narration of

194 Boullata, Palestinian Art 130. 195 Boullata, Palestinian Art 131. 82 the collective experience of exile, the artist’s works reflected ‘Palestinianess’ by poignantly capturing the devastation that touched each and every Palestinian following

1948.

The most well known of these images is the 1953 work Whereto?, which depicts an elderly man walking through a desolate landscape. He is accompanied by three young children, with a townscape in the distance behind them (Figure 5). The painting crops the subject’s feet from the image, which suggests a permanency to the subject’s place in this terrain.196 The suggestion of permanence within this desolate landscape, coupled with the painting’s title, Whereto?, makes clear reference to the collective

Palestinian experience of exile and dispossession. As Gannit Ankori suggests,

Shammout ‘transformed a painful—almost unbearable—reality into a potent symbolic icon that became instrumental in the Palestinian nation-building process’.197 As images that captured a new sense of ‘Palestinianess’ and collective identity, Shammout’s paintings are found, to use Bhabha’s analogy, in the Palestinian mind’s eye.

Figure 5: Ismail Shammout Whereto?, 1953 Oil on Canvas

196 Despite the suggestion of permanency in the work, at the time Shammout created the painting in 1953 exiles in refugee camps still held considerable faith in their eventual homecoming and exile did not seem as permanent as it does today. 197 Gannit Ankori, Palestinian Art (London: Reaktion Books, 2006) 49. 83

The visualisation of Palestinianess was crucial to the construction of a shared sense of identity. The representation of Palestinianess in the work of refugee artists of this early period was characterised by the use of particular motifs that drew clear nostalgic reference to the land of historical Palestine. This was particularly true of

Ismail Shammout, but also of most other self-taught refugee artists. Following from this, the focus of the Palestinian mind’s eye on the iconography of the land, particularly the figure of the peasant and the orange or olive groves, exposes its reliance on a nostalgic look to the irretrievable past that existed before al-Nakba. The emphasis on the citrus and olive groves is a counter-collective memory to those manufactured through the process of ‘memoricide’ by the newly formed state of Israel. The citrus fruit, the olive, the prickly pear and the peasant were, and continue to be, symbols of the

Palestinian counter-narrative and are emblems of sumud (doggedness) or steadfastness in the face of adversity. As emblems of sumud, the representation of these symbols suggests the steadfastness of Palestinian memory.

The sense of sumud and the connection to the land of Palestine was essential to the creation of Palestinian national identity, following 1948. The Nakba can now be seen as the beginning of the narrative of the Palestinian struggle. Although, as discussed previously, there is lengthy historical and contemporary debate around the birth of

Palestinian national identity. Although not without its merits, the contestation circles around substantiating or denying Palestinian cultural, social and national identity prior to the Zionist encounter in the holy land. Importantly, this debate often neglects the overall historical context of the Zionist–Palestinian encounter of the early 1900s. As

Eric Hobsbawm observes ‘Israeli and Palestinian nationalism or nations must be novel…since the very concept of territorial states of the currently standard type in their

84 region was barely thought of a century ago’.198 Forgoing the influence of modern nationalism, the significance of the debate rests in the continual denial of Palestinian collective existence prior to Zionist occupation in 1948.

It is important to remember that all national movements are shaped and imagined in opposition to places, people and forces that are seen as threatening or outside the scope of their shared identity. In line with this framework, Palestinian nationalism was shaped and increasingly defined in opposition to the growing Zionist movement. Though the term ‘Zionism’ is increasingly contested, discussed and analysed, it is more fruitful to examine Palestinianess against Zionism in its broadest sense, that is, as a Jewish political and national movement built on the quest to establish a homeland for the Jewish people.199 Within this definition, it can be argued that our contemporary understanding of Palestinianess was established with the Nakba, as the event responsible for creating a shared Palestinian experience.

Images of Palestinian refugees pushed into the abyss of exile, as a consequence of the Nakba, continue to visually haunt and inform Palestinian history. These images continue to feature in books, films, conference papers and screens internationally because they are seen to carry the scale of Palestinian despair and destitution, following the Nakba, which is a predicament that many find themselves in to this day. By capturing Palestinians at their most dehumanised and humiliating historical point, these images paved the way for Palestinianess to be defined by a refugee identity. Despite their undeniable historical significance, these images present a double-edged sword: the proliferation of the Palestinian refugee image invokes both compassion and encumbrance, depending on the context of the viewer. This identity was repeatedly

198 Eric Hobsbawm cited in Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism (London: Routledge, 1998) 120. 199 Gadi Taub, The Settlers: And the Struggle Over the Meaning of Zionism (London: Yale University Press, 2010) 85 referred to, politically, as ‘the refugee problem’, which stripped a people of their dignity, pride and rich cultural history.

Although the refugee camp art from Lebanon did poignantly capture the weight of despair brought as a consequence of dispossession, it did little to blunt the double- edged sword of being represented as refugees. By focusing on the experience of being a refugee, these early works visually reinforced the dehumanising and humiliating point in Palestinian history and as icons of the experience of the Catastrophe, these works bolstered the characterisation of Palestinians as refugees. Framed by the experience of exile, this characterisation served to forge a shared identity that differentiated

Palestinians from the inhabitants of their new countries of habitation.

As Palestinian refugees were forced to reside in neighbouring Arab countries that shared the same language and also held similar cultural and religious practices, it was their status and characterisation as refugees that determined the parameters of separation between Palestinians and their host nations. This important social distinction was responsible for the development of Palestinian thought and action as something separate and distinct to that of their host countries. Yezid Sayigh explains that ‘the experience of al-Nakba made for distinct Palestinianess, but not necessarily for

Palestinianism’.200 The potency of Yezid Sayigh’s distinction extends beyond semantics and suggests that though the Catastrophe may have created Palestinianess in the sense that it was responsible for the quality and state of the Palestinian experience, it cannot necessarily be credited with creating a distinct ideology and political framework pertaining to them.

The articulation of Palestinianess was distinctly evidenced in the refugee camp art of the first generation of Palestinian exiles. While art grew and evolved quickly,

200 Yezid Sayigh, “Armed Struggle and State Formation,” Journal of Palestine Studies 26.4 (1997): 18. 86 representing this sense of Palestinianess on most of its canvases, the same is not true of film during this time. This is because film required far greater resources than the studio arts and lacked any sense of medium history due to all pre-1948 Palestinian films being destroyed with the Nakba. The films that remained were tourist films and newsreels that relegated Palestinians to voiceless peasants, who formed part of the historical landscape but did not mediate its representation. In contrast, paintings from refugee artists conveyed a nostalgic examination of pre-1948 life and a personal Palestinian connection to the land that could be represented through popular metaphors.

The absence of pre-1948 cinematic self-representation was magnified in the first two decades of Palestinian exile (1948–1967), which is described by film scholars

Nurith Gertz and George Khleifi as ‘the epoch of silence’ in Palestinian cinema. It is expected, given the political and social cataclysmic events of 1948, that there remains an almost complete absence of Palestinian film production in these two decades.

Geographically, logistically and financially, it would have been near impossible for filmmakers to create work in such a climate. This, coupled with the deficiencies and lack of Palestinian leadership at the time, meant that films dealing with Palestine were left to filmmakers of neighbouring Arab countries.

Under the rule of Israel, Jordan and Egypt at the time, the germinating

Palestinian cinema of pre-1948 was increasingly becoming overshadowed by the work of other Arab filmmakers. Despite the work of authors like Gertz and Khleifi, Mdanat and Hawal, some contemporary scholars continue to describe these Arab filmmakers as the first to create films centring on Palestine and the Palestinians. One such author is

Helga Tawil, who writes that ‘given the political centrality of Egypt and Syria during the 1950s and 1960s, it should be no surprise that they were the first Arab countries to

87 produce films about Palestine and the Palestinians’.201 According to Tawil’s analysis, the Egyptian film Land of Peace, in 1957, was the first film made by an Arab in the

Occupied Territories.202

Despite the deficiencies of Tawil’s analysis, her work does draw the important conclusion that films created by neighbouring Arab countries were a symptom of the pan-Arab movement of the time. As she explains, ‘although films focused on

Palestinian issues, they were more socio-political commentaries on the commitment and responsibility to a pan-Arab unity.’203 Scratching the surface of this analysis draws one to conclude that films of this period were marked by the same predicament that

Palestinians faced politically, that is, their representation was under the control of their neighbours and used for the purpose of forging Arab unity rather than Palestinian self- determination.

The pan-Arab movement sprung from the embers of various Arab liberation movements and, within this post-liberation climate, most Arab nations (with the exception of Egypt) were seizing the opportunity to develop cinema for the first time— an opportunity that was closed off to them while under occupation. Indeed, it was only post-liberation that most of the Arab world took to cinema making. As Viola Shafik notes, ‘the various national resistance movements were among the first to recognize the latent possibilities of the medium to support and express national self-assertion and liberation’.204 It is in keeping with this trend that Palestinian filmmaking came into its own and developed alongside the armed struggle and liberation movement that was, for the first time, led by Palestinians.

201 Helga Tawil, “Coming Into Being and Flowing Into Exile: History and Trends in Palestinian Film‐ Making,” Nebula 2:2 (2005): 114. 202 Tawil, “Coming Into Being and Flowing Into Exile,” 114. 203 Tawil, “Coming Into Being and Flowing Into Exile,” 115. 204 Viola Shafik, Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity (Cairo: The American University Cairo Press, 2007) 18. 88

The events of the years between 1965 and 1968 spurred the birth of the jeel al- tharwa, or the generation of the revolution, that were responsible for the transformation of Palestinian film and Palestinian art. This new generation transformed ‘Palestinianess into what might be described as Palestinianism. This new ‘ism’ was characterised by a new theorisation of what constituted Palestinian identity. This transformation shifted the focus of Palestinian art and film away from merely representing the condition of exile, instead promoting the arts as a tool in the struggle for Palestinian liberation. Though it is difficult to pinpoint the birth of the Palestinian revolution, and in turn Palestinianism and the jeel al-thawra, researchers generally agree that the revolution was born in the years between 1965 and 1968.

In order to understand the historical drive behind the Palestinian revolutionary movement, it is vital to understand the revolution in a global context, where resistance movements flourished against the residue of colonialism and where the struggle for self- determination and governance prospered. In the geographically and culturally specific context of the Palestinian revolution, these three years encompassed a string of events, all significant and each contributory to the eventual battle at the village of Karameh in

Jordan in 1968. Albeit a short period, these years served to separate and define the differences between the generation that experienced the Catastrophe as adults (jeel al-

Nakba) and those whose formative years were spent in exile from the homeland of

Palestine and whose collective experience was divorced from understanding the comforts that come alongside living in a homeland of one’s origins.

The generational divide was, and continues to be, one plagued with the historical consequences of exodus. For the generation of children raised in exile, their parents were often seen as deserting their homeland, prioritising their personal or familial honour over resistance and defence of the land. For the generation of the Nakba, this has

89 meant that they live in a veritably intolerable position: damned by following generations for fleeing historical Palestine, and for the minority that stayed, damned by their children for enduring the humiliation of occupation. One of the prime consequences of this chasm for the generation raised in exile was the thirst for self-representation and a desire to resist both Israeli occupation and the social and economic oppression of their host nations. This desire for resistance spurred this generation to lead both a national and social revolution, as they were determined to never repeat the mistakes seen as responsible for the Catastrophe. It is this shift in generational mindsets that led to what is known as the Palestinian Resistance Movement or, alternatively, the National

Liberation Struggle.

Influenced by the significant activist work of George Habash and the Arab

Nationalist Movement, Fatah is thought to have been the trigger for the Palestinian revolution.205 Established by members of the Palestinian diaspora who lived in the Gulf states, Fatah was founded in 1954 and shaped by the members of the General Union of

Palestinian Students, one of the most notable members being Yasser Arafat. Drawing inspiration from the Arab Revolts against Zionist forces in Palestine between 1936 and

1939, Fatah adopted an ethos of national struggle that encompassed the spectrum of politics, military pursuit and social and cultural change. Mass celebrations continue to mark Fatah’s anniversary on 1 January each year—the date that corresponds with the first military action declared and carried out by Fatah inside Israel in 1965. The operation was carried out by the al-Asifa (or Storm) military wing of Fatah and saw the infiltration of commandos into Israel via the West Bank to destroy a water diversion canal in the village of Beit Netopha. There remains contention over both the success of the operation and the date it was attempted; however, despite this, the significance of

205 David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East (New York: Nation Books, 2004) 403. 90 the event remains.206 Al-Asifa’s bold operation triggered the Palestinian appetite for resistance and, as anthropologist Rosemary Sayigh explains, ‘crystallization of the

Palestinians’ sense of struggle-identity would not have been possible without the spark lit by Fatah in 1965’.207

The revolution that was set in motion by the events of 1965 was not revolutionary in the conventional sense of the word; that is, they did not topple a government, regime or political structure. Nonetheless, the weight of the shift in

Palestinian consciousness was vast and wide-ranging. The consequences of these events would become pronounced with the June War of 1967.

The origins of the June War rest in the growing popularity and fervour of the pan-Arab movement. The growing vision of pan-Arabism can be seen as being personified in Gamal Abdel Nasser. Undoubtedly one of the most significant figures in recent Arab history, Nasser is most notable for his Arab unity campaigns, including the nationalising of the Suez Canal, which undeniably weakened colonial powers and spurred the process of decolonisation in the years following 1956. The years between

1956 and 1967 can retrospectively be seen as the zenith of the pan-Arab movement, with confidence in Nasser and his allies rising rapidly throughout the region.208 For many Palestinians, Nasser represented Arab unity as a necessary strength to combat

Israeli occupation. Emphasising this is a popular catch phrase from the period that proclaimed ‘unity is the road to the liberation of Palestine’.209 The unity of the Arab world was seen by its advocates to transcend race, religion and family ties in order to

206 Said K. Aburish, Arafat: From Defender to Dictator (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1998) 61. Aburish challenges the date of the Al‐Asifa operation and suggests it was actually carried out on 3 December. In addition, the author also claims that the dynamite placed within the diversion canals never exploded, suggesting that the operation failed. 207 Rosemary Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries 147. 208 Geoffrey Blainey, A Short History of the 20th Century (London: Penguin Books, 2005) 359. 209 Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch 400. 91 reinforce a single Arab identity. 210 In addition, Abdel Nasser, specifically in his speeches in late 1958, would argue for a secular Arabism devoid of any religious radicalism.211 Despite the grand claims of Nasserists, the pan-Arab movement appeared to some Palestinians as suspicious.

The Arab League summit conference of 1964 decreed the establishment of the

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which, under the toothless auspices of Nasser and the Arab League, held the aim of allowing Palestinian people to liberate their homeland and to determine their destiny.212 Sceptical about the pragmatism and tenor of pan-Arabism and Nasser in the face of Israeli occupation, Palestinians who doubted

Nasser were accused of regionalism for placing their interests above those of the Arab

League. Under this configuration, Fatah held little trust in Arab governments and their willingness to support the kind of war for liberation for which they were preparing, preferring instead, as David Hirst explains, ‘to draw the Arab peoples, rather than their governments, into a kind of popular liberation war that they could win’.213 This would prove a wise strategy for Fatah in the years following the defeat of 1967.

The impetus behind and the consequences of the June War depend on which historical perspective one chooses to subscribe themselves to. Indeed, some go so far as to suggest that the war was one that neither Arab states nor Israel wanted.214 The events that led up to the war essentially began in May 1967, following several Palestinian attacks and Israeli retributions across Jordan. With a high level of tension between Syria and Israel, the Soviet Union informed Egypt that the Israelis were preparing a major strike against Syria. Responding to Soviet information, Nasser ordered the removal of

210 Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East (New York: Ballantine Books, 2002) 337. 211 Blainey, A Short History of the 20th Century 359. 212 Gregory Harms and Todd M Ferry, The Palestine‐Israel Conflict: A Basic Introduction (London: Pluto Press, 2008) 108; Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 167. 213 David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch 408. 214 Alan Dowty, Israel/Palestine (Massachusetts: Polity Press, 2005) 105. 92

United Nations (UN) forces from the Gaza strip (where they had been stationed since the 1956 Suez War) and moved Egyptian forces into Sinai. Occupying again the Sharm el Sheikh, Nasser blocked the passage of the Gulf of Aqaba to the Red Sea for Israeli military passage.215 Accordingly, tensions rose and diplomacy failed. Despite escalating rhetoric, including Nasser’s claim that his army’s ‘basic objective is to destroy Israel’,

Egypt agreed not to attack Israel and instead it was Israel who on 5 June launched a shock attack.216 In a single day they destroyed 17 Egyptian airfields and then continued on an offensive, reaching the Suez Canal four days later. As a result of the fierce onslaught, the Israelis took control of the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem and attacked Syria in the Golan Heights. Ending on 11 June, the war resulted in the loss of three state’s territories, 600,000 Palestinians living under military control in the West

Bank and 200,000 Palestinian refugees crossing into the River Jordan.217

The war represented a turning point in the Arab–Israel conflict and remains hotly contested today. As Faoud Ajami enquires, ‘four decades later, is it still too early to tell what the legacy of the Six-Day War is?’218 The strength of the war’s legacy can be witnessed in the language surrounding its description. For the Arabs, the term ‘June

War’ signifies an Arab view that the war did not happen in Israeli self-defence but merely plays a role in the long series of Jewish attempts at controlling all of Palestine.

For the Israeli’s, the term ‘Six-Day War’ continues to promote their military strength in the face of what they deem to be Arab threats to peace.219 Regardless of which viewpoint is chosen, it can be said that the war changed the face of the conflict in the region irrevocably.

215 Smith, The State of the Middle East: An Atlas of Conflict and Resolution 52. 216 Blainey, A Short History of the 20th Century, 360. 217 Smith, The State of the Middle East 52. 218 Faoud Ajami cited in Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War 337. 219 Dowty, Israel/Palestine 110. 93

From a global perspective, the war led to the passing of UN Resolution 242 on

22 November 1967—a resolution that today continues to form the framework and basis of peace talks. Still highly controversial for its broad phrasing, the words ‘Palestine’ or

‘Palestinian’ do not appear once in the document, with Palestinians referred to as ‘the refugee problem’.220 The outcome of the war and UN Resolution 242 caused the

Palestinians to bitterly accept that they would no longer ride the wave of aspiration carried by pan-Arabism. As Avner Yaniv poignantly explains, the result of the war of

1967 was to ‘salvage from oblivion the twin ghosts of Jewish maximalism and

Palestinian particularism’. 221 Influenced by the liberation struggles of Algeria and

Vietnam, Fatah was engaging in this particularism by preparing its own guerilla war, one that would make all future negotiations in conflict impossible without a Palestinian voice. The time had come for the Palestinian revolutionary moment, the battle of al-

Karameh.

220 “Security Council Resolutions – 1967,” The United Nations. 12 July 2012. . 221 Yaniv Avner, “Israel National Security in the 1980’s: The Crisis of Overload,” Gregory S.Mahler ed., Israel after Begin (New York: SUNY Press, 1990) 105. 94

CHAPTER THREE

Karameh and the Emergence of Palestinianism: 1968–1982

‘A film’s success is measured by the same criteria used to measure the success of a military operation’ 222

Palestinian Delegation to the Afro-Asian Film Conference of 1973

A reader not versed in Arabic might be forgiven for not encountering the battle of al-

Karameh in more recent historical texts that focus on the Israel–Palestine conflict. A case in point, the battle is either not mentioned at all or briefly discussed in historical texts of the last decade, such as Alan Dowty’s Israel/Palestine or Ilan Pappe’s A

History of Modern Palestine: One Land Two Peoples.223 When examining the overall schema of military engagements and the facts and figures of conflict casualties over the decades, it can be argued that the Karameh battle on the 21 March 1968 appears as a relatively small incident. Largely overshadowed by the scale and spectacle of the June

1967 War and the defeat of pan-Arabism, Karameh’s significance is too often ignored.224 A closer inspection of the battle of al-Karameh reveals that the engagement reinforced a bourgeoning Palestinian identity: one focused on the growth of Palestinian

222 Nurith Gertz and George Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema: Landscape, Trauma, and Memory (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008) 23. 223 Alan Dowty, Israel/Palestine (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005; Ilan Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land Two Peoples (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 191. 224 Described as the June War by Arabs, the conflict is often described by Israelis and many other historians as the Six Day War. 95 self-determination and the erasure of the stigma of refugee identity; in short, a reclamation of Palestinian humanity.225

The defeat of 1967 not only destroyed the vision of pan-Arabism but also, as

Malcolm Kerr notes, signalled the triumph over a ‘nice cross-section’ of Arab political regimes, including the PLO, whose leader Ahmad Shaquayri was disgraced and dismissed following the war.226 Thwarting the mythology of Arab unity and the dependence of many Palestinians on this mythology for the liberation of Palestine, the victors of the June War were, at first glance, undoubtedly the Israelis. However, examining this closely, it is evident that the war also signalled a victory for Fatah because, as Said Aburish notes, ‘in a pure sense, because he (Arafat) triumphed over the

Pan-Arabists, defeatists and Islamists. His victory was greater than the Israeli one’.227

Having secured logistical support and military training from Syria and Algeria since

1966, Fatah’s fedayeen had carried out approximately 200 raids between 1965 and the

June War.228 These raids, in combination with the disillusionment of Arab unity, served to promulgate the legend of the fedayeen. Though the activities of the fedayeen were limited in both scope and success, they did serve to promote tensions between Israel and their neighbouring Arab states and to raise the profile of Fatah and, consequently, the profile of Yasser Arafat. 229

Following the June War, with his authority continuing to grow, Arafat who still subscribed to Maoist thought, began to travel the countryside of the West Bank and

225 Rosemary Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries (London: Zed Press, 1979) 145. 226 Malcolm Kerr cited in W. Andrew Terrill, “The Political Mythology of the Battle of Karameh,” Middle East Journal 55.1 (2001): 91‐94. 227 Said K. Aburish, Arafat: From Defender to Dictator (London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 1998) 70. 228 Taking as its origin the Arabic word fida'i, which in the singular means one who risks their life voluntarily, the Palestinian fedayeen were the militants and guerillas who, with a nationalist ethos, fought for the liberation of Palestine. Historically deemed freedom fighters by Palestinians, they were referred to as terrorists by Israel and its allies. 229 Abu Iyad, My home, My Land: A narrative of the Palestinian struggle, ed. Eric Rouleau, trans. Linda Butler Koseoglu (New York: Times Books, 1981) 49. 96

Gaza, looking to construct a rural base for a guerilla revolt within the Occupied

Territories.230 After a few months, it became increasingly apparent to Arafat that such a model would not work and so he looked across the river to Jordan, seeing it as a North

Vietnam for Israel. 231 In Jordan, King Hussein had released Palestinian political prisoners and turned a blind eye to guerilla bases being set up along the Jordan River. It was along the river that the headquarters of the fedayeen resistance were built, near the strategically hilly village of Karameh, six kilometres from the river. From this position, repeated attempts were made to infiltrate the West Bank, infuriating the Israelis.

Eventually, the irritation of the raids conducted by the fedayeen caused Israel to prepare a decisive attack on Fatah’s bases and on the village of Karameh. The attack was intended to encourage King Hussein to clamp down on guerilla activity.232 In early

March 1968, Arafat and Abu Iyad (a principal founder of Fatah) received a message from the Jordanian Intelligence Office stating that Israel was preparing a large-scale attack against their bases along the river. The Jordanian officers insisted that Arafat and

Abu Iyad withdraw, making the seemingly rational observation that engaging in battle would mean certain suicide. Indeed, Israel anticipated the Palestinians would turn and run.233 The Jordanians were not the only ones to disapprove of military engagement. On the Palestinian end, Marxist factions, such as the People’s Front for the Liberation of

Palestine, chose to withdraw prior to the attack, believing that participation in a battle they would surely lose would not fit into their Maoist guerilla framework.234 In spite of all this, Fatah decided to engage the Israelis with the support of limited Jordanian and

Iraqi forces who were still in the region following the June War.

230 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 191. 231 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 191. 232 Nira Yuval‐Davis, Uri Davis and Andrew Mack, eds., Israel and the Arabs (London: Ithaca Press, 1975) 125. 233 Abu Iyad, My home, My Land 57. 234 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 191. 97

In the meantime, the Israelis were amassing a substantial arsenal designed to ensure the death or capture of guerillas. The preparations for what the Israelis called

‘Operation Inferno’ included infantry, airborne and engineering battalions, as well as five artillery battalions, significantly outnumbering the men and weaponry they would meet in Karameh. At the break of dawn on 21 March, the Israelis crossed the river into

Karameh and a fierce battle ensued, virtually destroying the village. When fighting ceased, the Palestinians and Jordanians suffered far more causalities than the Israelis.

Despite this, it was the Israelis who were forced to withdraw at twilight, suffering more casualties than they had anticipated. The Israeli withdrawal validated the strength of the fedayeen. The Palestinian resistance army were poorly trained, ill-equipped and primarily using rocket-propelled grenades that had to be thrown point-blank; however, survivors claimed that the army showed remarkable heroism, extending as far as suicide explosions.235

The Israeli withdrawal from the battle was heralded as a victory throughout the

Arab world, and stories of the fedayeen’s heroism spread like wildfire. The Palestinian transition from peasant to revolutionary had now come into being against remarkable odds. For Abu Iyad, the battle justified Fatah’s seemingly irrational decision to stay in

Karameh. Shedding light on Fatah’s decision to stay, he explained: ‘our duty was to set an example, to prove that the Arabs are capable of courage and dignity…we would explode the myth of the Jewish army’s invincibility’.236 Following the events of the

June War, the victory at Karameh shifted the Palestinian role ‘from potential politization into political action’.237

235 Abu Iyad, My home, My Land 243. 236 Abu Iyad, My home, My Land 58. 237 Yezid Sayigh, “Armed Struggle and State Formation,” Journal of Palestine Studies 26.4 (1997): 20. 98

The emergence of the Palestinian political actor would arguably not have been achieved as swiftly and effectively were it not for the rich symbolism of the battle of al-

Karameh. A series of largely coincidental factors would come into play at al-Karameh, establishing its place within the mythology of Palestinian nationalism.238 The primary factor was the name Karameh itself, which translates from Arabic to mean ‘dignity’. In addition to the symbolism of its name, the tremendous display of dignity by Palestinians during the battle would, quite by accident, echo the legendary historical ancient battle at

Thermopylae—a battle that continues to be synonymous with selfless and dignified engagement in struggle. Though assisted by other Arab fighters, the number of

Palestinians at Karameh is counted by most historians and survivors as 300. This figure resonates with the story of Leonidas and his 300 Spartans, which now comes to epitomise the symbol of courageous fighting against overwhelming odds. The combination of these symbolic factors and the reality of Israeli withdrawal draws a new configuration of popular Palestinian political action.

The lure of political action and resistance for Palestinians, particularly those living in camps, was, as Rosemary Sayigh explains, ‘the first authentic answer to their crisis…a way out of the limbo of the camps, a restoration of their humanity’.239 This reconstruction of collective identity was established in opposition to both Israeli and

Arab oppression. For decades, Palestinians had been subject to tremendous economic exploitation and social oppression by Arab states, which was achieved through the imposition of a refugee identity on Palestinians. The revolutionary movement allowed

Palestinians to climb out of this identity, and to reject a refugee identity that was indicative of what Levi Strauss described as ‘status forcing; an imposition of identity

238 Terill, “The Political Mythology of the Battle of Karameh,” 91‐94. 239 Rosemary Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries (London: Zed Press, 1979) 145. 99 upon subordinate or marginal groups’.240 This subordination denied Palestinians the ability to identify themselves as revolutionaries or freedom fighters, lowering them to a position of helplessness that was open to exploitation.

The success of Karameh was to build a new national identity that recovered the mythology and narrative of resistance, inclusive of the Arab revolts from before al-

Nakba.241 Consequently, Palestinians began to see themselves as people who have always struggled against occupation and oppression and, as a result, Palestinians of all social orders began to take part in national politics and resistance.242 This is mirrored in the phenomenal increase in readiness of Palestinians to fight as fedayeen. Indeed, according to Abu Iyad, 5,000 volunteers attempted to enlist in Fatah within 48 hours of

Karameh, much more than could be absorbed at the time. In the end, the numbers of new recruits rose from 52 in 1968 to 199 in 1969 and 279 in the first eight months of

1970. With renewed faith in the power of military struggle, these fedayeen began systematically attacking Israel, placing bombs within civilian areas, engaging in skirmishes along ceasefire lines and attacking army barracks.243

The assault of the fedayeen and the growing association with violent resistance meant that the gun became a symbol of Palestinian identity, in that ‘the gun was both a means for creating ‘one mass for the return’’, and also a symbol of their regained identity ‘as strugglers and Palestinians’.244 Further establishing their distinctiveness in contrast with others in the Arab world, the revolutionary movement also took leaps and

240 Levi Strauss cited in Rosemary Sayigh, ‘”Sources of Palestinian Nationalism: A Study of a Palestinian Camp in Lebanon,” Journal of Palestine Studies 6.4 (1977): 21. 241 Adnan Abu‐Ghazaleh, “Arab Cultural Nationalism in Palestine During the British Mandate,” Journal of Palestine Studies 1.3 (1972): 37‐63. 242 Dina Matar, What it Means to be Palestinian: Stories of Palestinian Peoplehood (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) 111. 243 Abu Iyad, My home, My Land, 60. 244 Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries, 154. 100 bounds towards liberation of the role of women, who also took part in the movement.245

This phenomenon has been widely written about, most notably by anthropologist and feminist scholar Rosemary Sayigh.246 The liberation of women within the struggle was part of what Khalil al Wazir (the commander of al-Asifa) saw as the depth and breadth of the armed struggle. The liberation struggle was, as Wazir explains, ‘a central, comprehensive and multidimensional process…an integrated process involving three dimensions: organization, production, and combat’. 247 The question of production within the configuration of revolutionary struggle can be witnessed to extend beyond military struggle and is at the core of the new emphasis on cultural production, both in film and art, following Karameh. Palestinian leadership harnessed the arts’ ability to disseminate the Palestinian story, to invite political action and to create a visual archive for the revolution. This new emphasis in cultural production would influence

Palestinian art and film in ways still resonating today.

The battle of al-Karameh refigured the perception of Palestinians away from that of refugees and into the realm of the revolutionary. As such, the battle plays a vital role in the history of the visual representation of the Palestine–Israel conflict, one that has often relegated the depiction of Palestinians to either destitute exiled victims or heroic figures of resistance. In the recent years following the first intifada, this has been most keenly associated with images of youths hurling stones at tanks. Though these images of resistance resonate most strongly within our contemporary consciousness, the evaluation of Palestinian cultural output suggests that, in fact, these are but contemporary manifestations of the deliberate construction of a collective identity realigned to centre on both resistance and revolution. Though the construction of a

245 Abu Iyad, My home, My Land 60. 246 Sayigh, “Armed Struggle and State Formation,” 20. 247 Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement 1949‐ 1993 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) 688. 101

Palestinian identity that is anchored on resistance is something that can be traced back to the battle of al-Karameh, it also was undoubtedly a product of the conscious efforts of the PLO to nurture a new identity, using the vehicles of both art and film.

The battle of al-Karameh created an ideal political mythology for the Palestinian

Liberation movement. Following the defeat of 1967 and the subsequent Palestinian takeover of the PLO, art, like film, began to take clear ideological shape. Invested with the fervour of Palestinianism of the late 1960s and 1970s, art captured a national identity that increasingly rejected the dehumanising imagery of refugeedom, expulsion and exile. Gannit Ankori observes this change, explaining that many Palestinian artists of this period were directly affiliated with the PLO and their paintings ‘replaced figures of helpless refugees with youthful and robust fighters’.248

From its very outset, the PLO appears to have appreciated the political and indeed propagandistic potential of art. Testament to this was the fact that the PLO established its art department as early as 1965. Ismail Shammout, who had by this time achieved considerable artistic recognition, was chosen to lead the department.

Shammout was well placed to take the position of figurehead for the arts in the PLO because, aside from his personal experience with the Nakba, he was one of the few artists of his generation to have received formal training and to have gained experience in marketing during his time designing film posters in Egypt. Under his stewardship as the head of the PLO art department, Palestinian cultural output underwent a distinct change in aesthetic. This change carried substantial political weight following the June

War of 1967 and the battle at Karamah in 1968.

The Israeli withdrawal at Karameh not only signalled a defining moment in the emergence of the Palestinian revolutionary identity but also galvanised the legitimacy of

248 Gannit Ankori, Palestinian Art (London: Reaktion Books, 2006) 51. 102

Palestinian control of the PLO. With an ethos that was also used in its approach to film, the PLO swiftly engaged art in the promulgation of a revolutionary collective identity for Palestinians. In an immediate sense, this can be understood as at attempt to rapidly facilitate political propaganda. However, it must also be seen as a crucial attempt to reframe Palestinian collective identity into a national identity anchored not only on the shared experience of dispossession but also on the strive towards liberation of the homeland. Integral to art’s role within this process was Ismail Shammout, whose work, both in terms of his own painting and his work within the PLO, clearly illustrates this transformation in the articulation of Palestinian identity.

Under Shammout’s guidance, Palestinian artists began to hold meetings congregating around the PLO in as early as 1969 and several art exhibitions were held in Jordan where the PLO was based until the events of Black September in 1970.249

Once the PLO was forced to relocate to Lebanon, it rapidly expanded its emphasis on the production and dissemination of the Palestinian arts. Without doubt, this transformation was influenced by the Beirut’s own cultural climate at the time, which stood as the cosmopolitan and cultural centre of the Arab world.250 After relocating to

Lebanon, the PLO continued the work of its art department but also established an arts and heritage department, led by Shammout’s wife Tammam al-Akhal, as well as the support of the Union of Palestinian Artists (UPA), which was led by Shammout. The

PLO’s willingness to provide resources to these incentives suggests an understanding of the political power of art and highlights the growing ideological aspirations of

Palestinian artists.

249 Joseph Massad, “Permission to Paint: Palestinian Art and the Colonial Encounter,” Art Journal 66:3 (2007) 250 For more information on Beirut’s role as the cosmopolitan cultural capital of the Arab world refer to Chapter 3. 103

As the head of the PLO’s art department, Ismail Shammout both designed and supervised the production of PLO publications, pamphlets and posters. Working from the PLO’s Beirut offices, Shammout’s paintings, which were reproduced as colour posters, not only became items that adorned the walls of PLO offices but also became fixed on the walls of most Palestinian homes.251 For this reason, many Palestinians continue to have a familiarity with Shammout’s work, even if they do not recognise his name or are not familiar with the rest of his oeuvre. Indeed, Shammout’s political posters have become collector’s items around the world and make up a considerable part of The Palestine Poster Project Archives.252

The Palestine Poster Project Archives is an excellent online repository of the immense history of Palestinian political posters from around the globe. The project’s

Ismail Shammout collection clearly illustrates the chronological development of the artist’s practice. Shammout’s early posters, including For the Sake of Palestinians from

1965 (Figure 6) and Thousands of Arms from 1968 (Figure 7), indicate a clear agitprop influence, while subsequent posters align the Palestinian struggle to that of other political liberation movements, such as in Vietnam. The nationalist trait of his work is further demonstrated by the fact that it was completed almost exclusively in the style of

Social Realism, which obviously resonated with other nationalist movements internationally. The use of Social Realist aesthetics by Palestinian artists tied their work to oppressed groups around the world that had used the style since the 1930s. Social

Realism was the common language of struggle against oppression and occupation and was often used with a hint of Surrealism to mobilise metaphors of identity, history and connection to the land. From 1969 onwards the posters of Shammout are dominated by

251 Kamal Boullata, Palestinian Art: From 1850 to the Present (London, Saqi, 2009) 131. 252 “Ismail Shammout,” The Palestine Poster Project, 20 May 2012. . 104 the representation of Palestinian fedayeen and the image of the gun in the shape of

Palestine. These popular symbols became central to the artistic vocabulary of the liberation movement and are still visible in the work of Palestinian amateur artists around the world.

Figure 6. Figure 7. Ismail Shammout, Ismail Shammout, For the Sake of the Palestinians, Thousands of Arms, 1968, 1965, Poster, 46x61 cm Poster, 46x61 cm

In the mid-1970s, Shammout’s political posters also adopted the illustration of

Palestinian women. The representation of women was not only a central feature of

Shammout’s poster works but also of his own paintings. A dominant theme in

Shammout’s works, even during his very early years of painting in the 1950s, the representation of women in the artist’s paintings reflect changing social and political

105 roles of Palestinian women. Although Gannit Ankori claims that women were almost absent from Palestinian paintings before the 1960s, Shammout’s early work is an indication that this was not the case. As early as 1951, Shammout was depicting

Palestinian women in works like Feeding Her Baby Brother, an ink drawing illustrating a young Palestinian refugee woman feeding her younger brother with a bottle. Another early painting that depicts women is Shammout’s A Sip of Water from 1953 (Figure 8), where a woman sits amidst the panic of the fleeing masses of 1948 and is given water from a young exiled boy. These early depictions of women in the artist’s work convey the weight of despair following the Nakba and are marked by their deep melancholy.

These images stand in contrast to the artist’s paintings of female nudes from this period, such as She and the Wolves from 1956 and Loneliness from 1957 (Figure 9), which do capture a sense of melancholy but do so without direct reference to the experience of

Palestinian women.

Figure 8. Figure 9.

Ismail Shammout, Ismail Shammout, A Sip of Water, 1953, Loneliness, 1957, Oil on canvas, 48x86 cm Oil on canvas, 60x80 cm 106

When observing Shammout’s early representations of women, it becomes obvious that Gannit Ankori’s suggestion that the representation of women was absent from Palestinian art before the mid-1960s is clearly not accurate. That said, Ankori’s comment does tap into an important point: although representations of Palestinian women existed before the mid-1960s, their representational forms, significance and symbolism was radically transformed from the late 1960s onwards. Shammout’s work is emblematic of this shift, as his melancholic Palestinian women of the 1950s and early

1960s took on distinct new forms in subsequent years. From the late 1960s onwards,

Shammout’s women became increasingly characterised by depictions that clearly suggested a sense of pride, steadfastness and strength. Indeed, women came to literally embody the homeland, becoming a symbol of the connection to the nurturing land of the now lost Palestine. These new Palestinian women, so central to Shammout’s paintings, were captured as nurturers, freedom fighters and the homeland, as the land was often depicted as a gymnomorphic one.

The evolution of Shammout’s depiction of women mirrors the wider chronological changes evident in the artist’s paintings. In the 1950s, Shammout’s work was marked by the illustration of the experience of the Nakba, but his experimentation with painting styles and many portraits of Egyptian subjects meant that his work was also marked by his time abroad. After his recruitment by the PLO in the mid-1960s, the artist’s work became increasingly preoccupied with the Palestinian experience and struggle. Though this was no doubt a result of his employment by the PLO, it was arguably also a reflection of the changing political climate, including the pan-Arab movement and the June War of 1967. The liberation movement became a pronounced aspect of Shammout’s own painting in the 1970s, and the increased use of revolutionary motifs and popular Palestinian symbols during this time created Shammout’s legacy.

107

The undeniable influence carried by Shammout’s 1970s works, created in Lebanon, extended not only to painting and design but also to film, as he also produced several films based on his paintings during this time. These included Youth Camp (1972),

Stubborn Call (1973), The Road to Palestine (1974) and, most notably, Memories and

Fire (1973).

Shammout’s paintings and films were but one aspect of his vital role in the

Palestinian art of the revolutionary era. Elected as the head of the UPA in 1969,

Shammout arranged several exhibitions of his own work, as well as that of other

Palestinian artists. Beyond the organisation of exhibitions, the UPA also facilitated major debates around the role of art and aesthetics in the liberation movement. UPA’s emphasis on the role of art in liberation went so far as to have seen the union organise a symposium in Lebanon in 1979 to discuss these concerns, drawing Palestinian artists from around the world. These debates around the role of art in Palestinian liberation created the impetus behind the Dar al-Karameh, a gallery established in Beirut by the

UPA in 1980.

The Dar al-Karameh was a meeting place for artists and hosted several exhibitions of young artists whose works had emerged from refugee camps.253 The name chosen for the gallery, Dar al-Karameh, is of particular importance because it directly references the battle of al-Karameh that had taken place only ten years prior to the gallery’s foundation. As the Karameh battle might be interpreted as the beginning of the Palestinian revolutionary identity, it is fitting that its name was adopted for the gallery that would represent the Palestinianism that emerged in the work of refugee camp artists belonging to the jeel al-thawra.

253 Boullata, Palestinian Art 131. 108

The efforts of the UPA during the 1970s and 1980s, under the PLO, were echoed by artists working in the Occupied West Bank, where the League of Artists was set up in 1973.254 The League organised a number of art exhibitions during the 1970s and 1980s, despite being denied a licence to operate by the Israeli military governor until 1980.255 Impressively, the League operated in spite of tremendous Israeli military pressure that criminalised the representation of the Palestinian flag and even the use of its four colours, as well as randomly closing down galleries and confiscating and destroying art.256 Instrumental to the organisation of a number of the League’s activities was artist Sliman Mansour, who became active in the League after 1975. His organisation of exhibitions in makeshift venues included displays of books, archaeological artefacts, embroidery and paintings, and these exhibitions were events that were crucial to the development of an art scene under occupation.257

In ways not dissimilar to Ismail Shammout, Mansour’s work drew on popular motifs and symbols, often drawing on the representation of women as a symbol of

Palestine. Further, Mansour’s paintings were often characterised by the same melancholia that was evident in Shammout’s work and also became images central to the history of Palestinian art. His work Camel of Hardships from 1973 (Figure 10) has been reproduced widely and continues to be one of the most recognisable images in the history of Palestinian art. Depicting an old man dressed in traditional garb, carrying on his back a sack in the shape of an eye filled with the city of Jerusalem, the painting suggests not only the heavy burden of exile but also the importance of memory.

Although Mansour’s images do build on the significance of remembering the lost homeland, they, as well as the works of other artist’s from the League, carry an

254 Samia Halaby, Liberation Art of Palestine: Palestinian Painting and Drawing of the Second Half of the 20th Century (New York, H.T.T.B Publications, 2001) 26. 255 Joseph Massad, “Permission to Paint,”. 256 Joseph Massad, “Permission to Paint,”. 257 Gannit Ankori, Palestinian Art (London: Reaktion Books, 2006) 68. 109 important distinction: they were created on Palestinian land. In a sense, this draws these artists apart from the Palestinian artists working in Beirut and elsewhere, who faced a different set of obstacles and endured a different experience of exile.

Figure 10. Sliman Mansour, Camel of Hardships, 1973, Oil on canvas 70x105 cm

Perhaps the most poignant work that illustrates the difference between paintings produced in the West Bank and those made in exile in Lebanon are those of refugee camp artist Ibrahim Ghannam. Originally from a coastal village near Haifa, Ghannam was confined to a wheelchair one year after having arrived in the Tal al-Zaatar camp in

Beirut when he was struck by polio. Supplied with art materials from an UNRWA nurse, the self-taught Ghannam painted idyllic images of the village life of his youth.

Kamal Boullata points out that these idealised images could not have been further from the reality that Ghannam faced in the camp, where his room overlooked open sewers and where people searched for menial work while living off rations.258 Ghannam’s paintings, such as The Harvest from 1979 (Figure 11), capture, with a certain childlike

258 Boullata, Palestinian Art 139. 110 naivety, a life in the lost homeland that only existed in the recesses of the artist’s memory. In such a way, Ghannam’s work is symptomatic of Palestinian refugee camp work, which focused not only on the depiction of the despair of exile and the liberation movement but also on the idealised recording of Palestinian life prior to 1948.

Figure 11. Ibrahim Ghannam, The Harvest, 1979, Oil on canvas, 90x75 cm

One of the most important exceptions within the work of Palestinian refugee camp artists is the work of artist Naji al-Ali, who would become one of the most recognisable Palestinian artists around the world. While the work of other refugee camp artists in Lebanon was characterised by didactic symbolism and political metaphors, often relying on a Social Realism aesthetic, al-Ali preferred to work with unconventional materials, such as broken mirrors and the thick petroleum product zift.259 What differentiated him from other camp artists was his disassociation from overt nationalistic and nostalgic iconography. While he resided in the camps, al-Ali

259 There is a danger that when looking at Social Realist art with nationalist intentions, we, as the contemporary viewer, can be dismissive of the work as simply nostalgic and essentialising because of its nationalist inclinations. Importantly, we must remember that nostalgia is a complicated beast. Although nostalgic and nationalist images are at their core fundamentally essentialising, we must consider the possibility that it is own nostalgia for the idealised naivety of Social Realism that may be at play when we look at the art of refugee camp artists. 111 preferred to create works that implicate individuals. One such work is described by

Kamal Boullata as a mirror where the audience would read across their own faces the words ‘wanted: dead or alive’. This work indicates an obvious departure from the somewhat uncomplicated depictions of the collective Palestinian experience found frequently in refugee camp work and indicates a shift away from the conception of

Palestinian identity being bound to the mythic and idealised past of Palestine. A focus away from the land and onto the experience of exile rendered his work more pertinent to the post-1948 generations, whose majority had little direct experience of the Palestinian landscape.

Boullata explains that al-Ali refused to expose his personal inner turmoil or to retreat to popular political iconography in his work. Elucidating on the artist’s attitude towards his audience, Boullata writes that al-Ali ‘sought to shake them from the passive stance of mere observer and force them to confront their own predicament vis-à-vis the

Palestinian experience’.260 Al-Ali’s early works are not as well known as his future work as a political cartoonist, something that took him all over the world and into Arab homes everywhere. In spite of this, his work as a young man in Lebanon marked an artistic emphasis of self-criticism and a call to question and evaluate collective

Palestinian consciousness.

Al-Ali was born in the Galilee and exiled to the South Lebanon refugee camp

Ain al-Hilweh near Sidon at age 11. His artistic skill was evident from a young age when he embellished the walls of his refugee camp with art. Emboldened by the praise and appreciation of his work in the camp, al-Ali enrolled himself in the Lebanese Art

Institute in 1960 but was unable to continue his studies there because of a lack of

260 Boullata, Palestinian Art 137. 112 funds.261 After publishing his drawings for the first time in the Al Hurriya newspaper in

September 1961, al-Ali moved to Kuwait in the hope of saving money to study art in

Europe. It was while working as an editor, cartoonist and designer for the Arab nationalist newspaper Al-Tali’a in Kuwait that the artist created his most recognisable character, Handala. A young boy with his back to the viewer, Handala continues to be a popular symbol of the Palestinian struggle and can today be found on political merchandise, including t-shirts and jewellery, but is also a permanent feature of the walls of Palestinian refugee camps everywhere.

Standing with his hands behind his back, the figure of Handala is seen as a symbol of the witnessing of the Palestinian experience of suffering. As such, Handala was created as a moral compass for the artist. Living in Kuwait during its boom time and living a life of relative luxury, Handala was created as a character that would embody the poorest and most powerless Palestinian. In al-Ali’s own words, Handala

‘represented the honest Palestinian who will always be on people’s minds’ and on a personal level would be a moral entity ‘that stands to watch me from slipping’.262

Movingly, Handala is depicted as a young boy of ten years—the same age as al-Ali was when he was exiled to Lebanon. As a result, Handala is an embodiment of al-Ali himself, who, as a young boy, witnessed the turmoil of the historical events that surrounded him. Mirroring the artist’s own political beliefs and experiences, Handala stood as a silent witness to events of the 1970s, and his depiction in cartoons, such as

Peace Built on Surrender in March 1976 (Figure 12), clearly suggests al-Ali’s revolutionary mindset.263 Throughout the 1970s, al-Ali’s cartoons lent him a sense of political purpose and, as he explains, ‘I stood facing it all with my pen every day. I

261 Joe Sacco, introduction, A Child in Palestine: The Cartoons of Naji Al‐Ali (London: Verso, 2009) viii. 262 Sacco, A Child in Palestine viii. 263 It was only after the events of 1982 that Handala would change, refusing at times to stand as a silent witness. 113 never felt fear, failure or despair, I didn’t surrender…My work in Beirut made me again close to the refugees in camps, the poor and the harassed’.264

Figure 12. Naji al-Ali, Peace Built on Surrender, Cartoon, March 1976.

Obviously, a sense of political purpose was as clearly evident in al-Ali’s work as it was in the work of all Palestinian refugee camp artists. Although al-Ali’s work (prior to his cartoons) did not share the didactic political and ideological representation evident in the work of his refugee camp peers, his work in Lebanon illustrated a keen sense of what might be understood as a ‘revolutionary aesthetic’. This revolutionary aesthetic was visible not only in the works themselves but also in his writings and commentary from the time.

The first text written in English dedicated to Palestinian art was a chapter by

Kamal Boullata in the book The Palestinian Resistance to Israeli Occupation.265

Published in 1970, Boullata’s text, entitled Towards a Revolutionary Arab Art, includes a justification by Boullata as to his motivations for both art-making and art-writing. He elaborates on his motives writing that:

As a Palestinian who has chosen the hard way to respond to the call of history, I shall—within the limits of my vocabulary—attempt the difficult task of

264 Sacco, A Child in Palestine ix. 265 Naseer Hasan Aruri ed., The Palestinian Resistance to Israeli Occupation (Willmette: Medina University Press International, 1970) 114

stating what I see, not as a witness to history should, but as a committed Palestinian must.266

Boullata’s comments in Towards a Revolutionary Arab Art clearly indicate a sense that all Palestinians were committed to participate in the revolution and the struggle towards liberation. This perception of a collective revolutionary consciousness meant that artists were perceived as obliged to represent the Palestinian experience

‘according to the limits of their vocabulary’.267 In this sense, Kamal Boullata, despite being a Ras Beirut artist, saw his artistic ethos as being in line with that of refugee camp artists. This is a critical observation because arguably the refugee camp artists who received recognition did so because their work was invested with political significance within the Palestinian cause. In part, this was a direct consequence of the PLO’s involvement in educating artists from the camps and exhibiting their work. As a result, the recognised refugee camp artists of this period of Palestinian art history were, in a financial and pragmatic sense, bound to the nationalist cause as a result of their limitations on employment.

The limitations imposed on refugee camp artists were much more severe than those faced by Ras Beirut artists, who were patronised and exhibited by local and international collectors. Although many Ras Beirut artists did not openly identify with the artists of revolutionary themes emerging from Beirut’s refugee camps, their work, as

Boullata makes clear, did not cease to reveal the varying facets of Palestinian experience and identity.268

Despite formal, social and economic differences between the two, the art of both the refugee camp and Ras Beirut artists can today be seen as a phenomenon of art history: indicative of a new cultural and artistic movement that manifested itself in the

266 Kamal Boullata cited in Ankori, Palestinian Art 16. 267 Kamal Boullata cited in Ankori, Palestinian Art 16. 268 Boullata, Palestinian Art 146. 115

Arab cultural capital of Beirut. Sadly, the al-Nahda of Beirut did not last. For the

Palestinian artists working in Beirut, the Lebanese civil war was to destroy the economic and political structures that allowed for their creation and success. The political exile of the PLO to Tunis and the attacks on Palestinian refugees by Lebanese

Phalangist forces made living and working near impossible for Palestinian artists, with the events of 1982 sounding the death knell of the al-Nahda of Palestinian cultural output in Beirut.

The Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982 was absolutely catastrophic to the city and ultimately signalled the demise of Beirut as the centre of modern art culture, a position it had enjoyed for three decades. The scale of violence (with 100,000–150,000 fatalities during the civil war) meant that the Arab intelligentsia that had settled in Beirut almost all fled. For Palestinians, the civil war and the events of 1982 meant that they could no longer continue fostering their new, albeit haphazard and socially stratified, collective identity and culture in one central location. For Palestinian artists, 1982 forced their dispersal from their surrogate homeland, with Ras Beirut artists Paul Guiragossian and

Juliana Seraphim being the only artists to stay in Beirut.269

The refugee camp artists of Beirut were all displaced following 1982. Ismail

Shammout sought refuge in Kuwait, where he would again be forced to leave with thousands of other Palestinians in the 1991 Gulf War. From the end of the 1982 invasion until his death in 2006, Shammout’s work continued to use symbols of

Palestinian identity but did so without obvious allusion to a revolutionary aesthetic.

Ibrahim Ghannam fled Tal al-Zaatar camp in 1976 to the Mar Elias camp outside Beirut when his camp was attacked and obliterated, destroying most of his works in the process. Two years after the invasion of 1982, Ghannam suffered a heart attack and the

269 Boullata, Palestinian Art 158. 116 only works of his to survive today are those saved by friends who fled during the war.270 After being briefly detained in Lebanon in 1982, Naji al-Ali went to pursue his career as a cartoonist in exile with a relentless pen that spared no one including Iranian leader Khomeini, Yasser Arafat, the PLO bureaucracy, Israel and others, who were all savagely and repeatedly critiqued by the artist.271 After moving to Kuwait in 1983, al-

Ali’s Handala took a different form; refusing to be a silent witness, he was occasionally depicted throwing stones and even covering the dead from the Sabra and Shatila massacre. After working for the Al Qabas newspaper in Kuwait, the cartoonist moved to

London to work for the same newspaper in 1985. There he continued to work until he was tragically murdered. Shot in the face and mortally wounded by an unknown assailant, al-Ali paid the ultimate price for the personal and collective criticism that characterised his work.

The tragic events of the Lebanese civil war and the Israeli invasion of 1982 undeniably held direct consequences not only for Palestinian art but also for practitioners themselves. The same can be said for Palestinian films and for filmmakers from this era, whose work was also characterised by a militant or revolutionary aesthetic until 1982. Art and film during this revolutionary era had a symbiotic relationship that articulated a growing sense of Palestinianism. Like art, film was seen as a vehicle within the Palestinian revolution, both in terms of its propagandistic potential and for its ability to harness a collective identity and to build a nationalist movement.

In the case of film, an investigation of what theorists have come to describe as the Palestinian ‘militant cinema’ in the years between 1968 and 1982 reveals the crucial

270 Boullata, Palestinian Art 143. 271 Orayb Arref Najjar, “Cartoons as a Site for the Construction of Palestinian Refugee Identity: An Exploratory Study of Cartoonist Naji al‐Ali,” The Journal of Communication Inquiry 31 (2007): 258. 117 role cinema played in the facilitation of a new collective identity. The militant film of this age can arguably be credited with reinforcing a Palestinian identity that moved away from association with refugees, becoming associated instead with the idea of

Palestinian as synonymous with revolutionary. In order to gauge the depth and weight of the responsibility of al-Karameh in this reconfiguration of both identity and cinema, one must look not only to the films created following 1968 but also those created prior

272 to that.

If one is to accept the idea that the ultimate victors of the June War were in fact the Palestinians, then a look to cinema might support this position.273 The surprising and swift defeat by Israel in 1967 rocked the foundations of pan-Arabism and, in the process, allowed Palestinians to forge their own self-representation, chiefly by taking control of the PLO. Having legitimised the struggle and potential of the resistance movement and the fedayeen with the victory of Karameh, the new Palestinian leadership (spearheaded by Fatah) recognised the need to create a visual record of their movement.

Looking back on this period, the role of cinema in the articulation and propagandistic support of this movement becomes acutely apparent. Despite the

272 The presence of Palestinian cinema in the years prior to 1968 pales in comparison to other artistic mediums such as literature, visual art and theatre. The reasons for this are many and varied, worthy of their own in depth research and analysis. In essence however, it is the very invisibility of early Palestinian film that is ironically its most important characteristic. Literature concerned with this early stage of national cinema, although scant and primarily in Arabic, does exist but much is owed to the work of Israeli writer Nurith Gertz and Palestinian George Khleifi. It is their 2008 book Palestinian Cinema: Landscape, Trauma and Memory that not only informs the analysis here but also almost all recent scholarly work on the subject. Their groundbreaking research of Gertz and Khleifi analyses Palestinian cinema in accordance to four distinct chronological periods, a distinction to which most film writers also subscribe. The authors distinctions are as follows, the first period of Palestinian cinema is described as ‘the beginning’ 1935‐1948, the second is called ‘the epoch of silence’ 1948‐1967, the third is ‘cinema in exile’ 1968‐1982 and the final period is described as ‘the return home’ 1980 to today. The epochs defined Gertz and Khleifi correspond to major political and social changes facing Palestinians in the last six decades. The two periods prior to 1968, are defined and separated by the major events of the time, the Nakba of 1948 and the June War of 1967. It is fitting then that birth of Palestinian revolutionary cinema followed the event that can ultimately be understood as the instigator to the Palestinian revolution; the battle of Al‐Karameh. 273 Aburish, Arafat: From Defender to Dictator 70. 118 retrospective understanding of the importance of cinema for the reframing of Palestinian identity, the importance of photography was initially low on the scale of priorities within the Palestinian struggle, until the battle of al-Karameh. The Palestinian leadership was drawn to photography and film as a result of three Palestinians of formidable self-initiative, who laid the foundations of funding, interest and importance of film prior to the battle. The most important of these three was Sulafa Jadallah Mirsal, a Palestinian who had studied photography in Cairo and, in 1967, founded a small photography unit working from her kitchen. Working later in an Amman apartment,

Sulafa was joined by two other Palestinians, Mutafa Abu Ali and Hani Johariya, who both studied cinema and lived in Jordan.274 Working together, the trio established what came to be known as the Department of Photography (established in 1968) to document demonstrations and political and cultural events pertinent to the Palestinian struggle.275

The work of the three pioneers is now becoming more widely recognised and esteemed, even becoming the subject of a 2009 bio-epical film called Bleeding Memories by filmmaker Mohanad Yaqubi.276

Despite the cinematic training of Abu Ali and Johariya, the work of the three was, for some time, confined largely to still photography, relying on Mirsal’s own equipment. Indeed, it was only after the battle of al-Karameh that their work became esteemed and received further funding and supplies. The event that shifted both the perceived value of their work and Fatah’s perspective of photography and film was an exhibition at the al-Wahdat refugee camp, showing photographs of the battle of al-

Karameh. The exhibition impressed Fatah members to such an extent that they agreed to

274 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 21. 275 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 21. 276 “Film Bleeding Memories,” Film Crew Pro, 14 February 2011. . 119 supply the group with modern equipment (albeit only for still photography), allowing them to officially establish Fatah’s Department of Photography.

It is testament to the commitment, ingenuity and training of Mirsal, Abu Ali and

Johariya that the three continued to shoot films using equipment borrowed from

Jordanian television, as cinema did not yet figure into Fatah’s priorities within the resistance struggle. As Khleifi and Gertz explain, ‘Fatah’s leaders were doubtful of the need to extend the department’s activities into the field of cinema. One of them decided on the department’s objectives: documentary events, justifying Palestinian causes and supplying resources to the press’.277 Despite Fatah’s initial reluctance to embrace film, it is of particular importance that they chose to pour money and resources into the

Department of Photography only after the battle of al-Karameh. One comes to realise the understanding both Arafat and Abu Iyad had for creating a mythology around the battle. As the first Palestinian victory over the Israelis, Fatah’s leadership understood that the battle of al-Karameh had the potential to harness a new revolutionary movement and to spur support for Fatah in particular.

As the first decisive and substantial military engagement of Fatah following the

June War, Karameh ultimately placed Fatah in an undeniably strong position within the

PLO. Yet despite their victory, Fatah and other political factions within the PLO were all struggling to define their ideological positions, often renegotiating or adopting new political ideologies. The factional divide also affected each faction’s view of the role of film, resulting in a plethora of film production units, each funded, shaped and effectively controlled by various factions. The division of factions and, consequently, film production units came after the events of Black September (1970), where King

Hussein of Jordan declared military rule in Jordan, in response to the fedayeen’s attempt

277 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 20. 120 to launch a coup d’etat to seize the kingdom. By this stage, Fatah’s Department of

Photography had created its first twenty-minute film, Say No to the Peaceful Solution, but was forced to leave Jordan for Lebanon following the death and expulsion of thousands of Palestinians from the Jordanian kingdom.

It would seem that in the years following Karameh and Black September all political factions began to understand the significance of film. Importantly, all

Palestinians and their representative political figures had experienced the Nakba personally. As Haim Bresheeth explains, ‘a whole generation of Palestinians had to grow up with hardly any cinematic representations of the great catastrophe of 1948 as well as the acts of resistance that were part of their history’.278 It would seem that all factions became determined to make their experience cinematically and photographically visible, thereby denying the possibility of their experience being yet again sublimated within the visual archive.

The production of films came from all factions, both large and small, each setting up their own film departments. These included The Democratic Front for the

Liberation of Palestine who founded the Art Committee and the Popular Front who developed the Artistic Committee.279 An initial interpretation of the films from all factions would suggest, as Mohamad Abdel-Fattah notes, that all films ‘highlighted the historical and contemporary dimensions of the Palestinian–Zionist struggle and the

Arab–Zionist struggle’.280 Although all political factions produced films relating to this broad definition, considering this retrospectively, we must acknowledge how

278 Haim Bresheeth, “The Continuity of Trauma and Struggle: Recent Cinematic Representations of the Nakba,” Nakba: Palestine, 1948 and the Claims of Memory, Lila Abu‐Lughod and Ahmad H. Sa’di eds., (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007) 163. 279 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 20‐22. 280 Mohamed Abdel Fattah, “Arab Memory in the Palestinian Cinema,” IslamOnline, 1 June 2000. 2 June 2011 . 121 tremendous a feat this was at the time, fraught with ideological, theoretical and aesthetic problems and differences.

It is near impossible to imagine the chasm that would have been experienced by a generation with no cinematic legacy, having only images of newsreels and tourist film as forms of cinematic representation. Without a cinematic trajectory from which to draw, Palestinian filmmakers would have, quite literally, had to cinematically imagine and create themselves for the first time. Though it may be efficient to suggest, as Khleifi and Gertz do, that film production was shaped by the Marxist–Leninist ideology of the

PLO at the time, it is also important to understand the complete lack of cinematic material filmmakers had to draw from. Without a Palestinian historical cinematic point of connection, the production of films from this militant period was shaped by other global resistance movements of the time.

Palestinian militant cinema was itself located chronologically and geographically in the post-colonial moment. In so keeping, the cinema of this period was very much in dialogue with international liberation movements spreading throughout the world. This was particularly marked in the Arab world were recently liberated nations began the attempt to articulate new national identities, recovering from the ideological weight of their colonisers. Similarly, for those countries still falling under colonial rule, ‘the struggle for independence became inseparable from the quest for national consciousness’.281 This was a plight that, in essence, had germinated since the turn of the century, where, despite its divergences, a common denominator was witnessed in the Arab world: the emergence of the notion of the homeland or nation, the watan. As Sabrey Hafez explains, without the development of the concept of watan,

281 Sabrey Hafez, “The Quest for/Obsession with the National in Arabic Cinema,” Theorsing National Cinema, Valentina Vitali and Paul Willeman eds., (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) 227. 122

Arab nations would not have been able to transcend religious differences to forge a collective identity.282

The exploration of watan in cinema was largely impossible for most Arab nations until independence; that is, most countries had no opportunity to express themselves prior to liberation. Film scholar Viola Shafik explains that independence represented a catalyst for national film production in the Arab world, using the examples of Syria, Algeria, Iraq and Lebanon, who each produced one or two feature films a year in the first ten years after their liberation.283 This was made possible because, throughout the Arab world, the post-liberation period encouraged a new interest by the state in film, as ‘on the socialist model, production and distribution were entrusted to a state enterprise’.284 This is not to suggest that all film initiatives came from the top down; in some nations, including Syria and Tunisia, filmmakers demanded state intervention and funding for films.285 The processes of funding, production and distribution of Palestinian cinema mirrored this phenomenon of state involvement in the construction of a national cinema.

Understanding this, it can be seen that Palestinian militant cinema carries all the markers characteristic of the now problematic term ‘Third World Cinema’. Though

Third World theory did concern itself with colonised, decolonised and minority groups of the world, it did assume, as Helga Tawil notes, that ‘Third World intellectuals could only express local concerns’. 286 This conjecture about subaltern film production ultimately places cinema from the Third World beneath the shadow of European film convention and analysis. Having treated cinema from colonised nations and minority

282 Hafez, “The Quest for/Obsession with the National in Arabic Cinema,” 229. 283 Viola Shafik, Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press) 20. 284 Shafik, Arab Cinema 20. 285 Shafik, Arab Cinema 20. 286 Helga Tawil, “Coming Into Being and Flowing Into Exile: History and Trends in Palestinian Film‐ Making,” Nebula 2.2 (2005): 123. 123 groups with condescension, Third World theorists masked national and cultural contradictions, disregarding differences and, in effect, reducing Third World nationalism to only an echo of European nationalism, ignoring, as Ella Shohat and

Robert Stam note, ‘the international realpolitik that obliged the colonized to adopt a discourse and a practice of nation-state precisely in order to end colonialism’.287 The most serious deficiency of the Third World theory is perhaps its denial of the innovative practice and production visible in cinema of the post-colonial era; therefore, repudiating a myriad of cinematic innovations that also transformed avant-garde cinema in Europe, most notably in the case of new wave cinema.

The inherent problems with the conception of Third World Cinema theory are made clear when looking at the aesthetics and practices of Third Cinema, which sprung from the Latin-American cinema of liberation. Hamid Naficy explains that Third

Cinema drew on the Cuban revolution of 1959, Italian Neorealist film and Marxist analysis and Griersonian social documentary style.288 It was Argentinian filmmaker

Fernando Solanas and the Spaniard Octavio Getino who popularised the term with the publication of their manifesto Towards a Third Cinema. In keeping with modernist traits, many groups of liberation cinema of this period followed suit from Solanas and

Getino, releasing manifestos explicating the role of cinema. However, for Third

Cinema, it was the manifesto called The Hour of Furnaces that elucidated their political impetus and ideological approach to cinema.

The Hour of Furnaces lays out three distinct social, political and cultural categories for cinema. The first of these is described as First Cinema, which refers to that of Hollywood, and the second is described as Second Cinema, which corresponds

287 Ella Shohat and Robert Stam cited in Tawil, “Coming Into Being and Flowing Into Exile” 123. 288 Hamid Naficy, An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) 30. 124 to auteuristic films for the petite bourgeoisie. The final category, Third Cinema, was conceived as an opposition to First and Second Cinema, characterised by not being polished, professional or perfect. 289 As such, Third Cinema strove towards an immediate and direct political intervention via film: a militant cinema. As Meriano

Mestman explains, ‘the principal hypothesis of ‘militant cinema’ [was] the necessary involvement and integration of the cinema group with specific political organisations.

Conversely, it was the instrumentalisation of film in the process of liberation’.290 The experimental technique and theoretical approach behind Third Cinema made it revolutionary both in content and in production, repositioning the attitudes that global resistance groups held towards cinema.

The resonance of the ethos of Third Cinema clearly carries itself into Palestinian militant cinema. This can be seen when looking at the statement submitted by the

Palestinian delegation to the Round Table of the Afro-Asian Film Conference of 1973, where the following was said:

The people’s war is what granted the revolutionary Palestinian cinema its characteristics and its mode of operation…A film’s success is measured by the same criteria used to measure the success of a military operation…the revolutionary film is dedicated to the tactical objectives of the revolution and to its strategic objectives as well. A militant film, therefore, must become an essential commodity for the masses, just like a loaf of bread.291

The Palestinian submission to the Afro-Asian Film Conference makes clear that cinema was viewed as a tool integral to liberation and, as such, Palestinian militant cinema followed the objectives of Third Cinema, where films could be made by anyone, anywhere, ‘as long as they are opposition and liberationist’.292

289 Naficy, An Accented Cinema 30. 290 Meriano Mestman, “Third Cinema/Militant Cinema: At the origins of the Argentinian Experience (1869‐1971),” Third Text 25.1 (2011): 29 291 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 23. 292 Teshome H. Gabriel cited in Naficy, An Accented Cinema 30. 125

The revolutionary approach heralded and harnessed in Palestinian militant cinema attracted the interest of French new wave cinema, in particular the exalted filmmaker Jean Luc Godard. Though Palestinian militant cinema was only germinating at this stage, Godard visited Jordan in 1968, touring bases and filming material with the group from the Department of Photography.293 The result of his time in Jordan was the film Ici et Ailleurs (released in 1976), which John Drabinski describes as ‘a peculiar film’. Drabinski explains that ‘at first glance it appears to be nothing more than a fragmented documentary about the Palestinian uprising…mediated via a typically

Godardian commentary on televisual transmission, and a short mediation on the meaning of filmmaking’.294 However, it is more the actual act of Godard visiting camps and working with fedayeen that is of interest here. Ici et Allieurs is testament to the fact that international directors from Europe and elsewhere drew interest in the militant cinema of this period and, as Gertz and Khleifi suggest, they ‘influenced the Palestinian discourse and encouraged a dialogue concerning the essence of Palestinian cinema’.295

Following this, one would assume that the audience for Palestinian cinema became widespread and even international. However, this was not the case because, although European audiences were becoming acquainted with Godard’s reflections of the Palestinian Liberation movement, the films of the PLO and its factions were largely confined and limited in their scope. This was a consequence of the politically and financially unfavourable conditions of the time. In part a result of the lack of funding, the films relied too heavily on individual initiatives, limiting their viewership.296 As

Helga Tawil explains, ‘the films of the Palestinian fedayeen did little to influence world opinion. These films seldom made it into the territories or outside the boundaries of the

293 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 23. 294 John Drabinski, “Separation, Difference and Time in Godard’s Ici et Alliuers,” SubStance 37.1 (2008): 150. 295 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 23. 296 Tawil, “Coming Into Being and Flowing Into Exile,” 115. 126 nation-state they were produced in, and had little viewership’.297 In spite of the limitations in distribution, Palestinian militant cinema did reach refugee camps and several film festivals, warranting its continuation into the early 1980s. This meant that militant cinema continued to draw factional funding, leading even to the establishment of Palestinian film archives.

The various Palestinian political factions had their own film departments and, consequently, established their own separate film archives. However, the most substantial film archive was the PLO’s Film Foundation/Palestine Film Unit, which grew to become a vital resource for all Palestinian filmmakers until 1982. The enigma of the film archive has continued to draw attention from artists, filmmakers and academics. Having conducted the most considerable research of Palestinian film to date,

George Khleifi and Nurith Gertz have undertaken the most primary research into the archive’s establishment, processes and history and, as a result, discussion of the archive inevitably draws discussion from their work. Much of their insight was garnered by personal interviews conducted with the manager of the archive, Khadija Abu Ali (wife of filmmaker Mustafa Abu Ali), who, alongside other staff, had the enormous task of sorting thousands of metres of celluloid film in the Beirut archive.

Established in 1975, the archive was housed in the hall of the Film Institute, the same building in West Beirut where the PLO’s United Propaganda Department was located. The film archive contained raw footage from before 1948, purchased from foreign news agencies, as well as copies of all films produced by the Film Institute.298

More importantly, as Khleifi and Gertz note, the archive offered unremitting documentation of battles, bombings, political and cultural events and interviews with

297 Tawil, “Coming Into Being and Flowing Into Exile,” 116. 298 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 28–29. 127 politicians, military leaders and notables from intellectual circles of the time.299 As a result, the footage housed in the archive allowed filmmakers to construct films centring on the liberation movement. For the first time, the archive allowed an organised and systematic repository for Palestinian cinema. Although the practical benefits of the archive’s establishment are not to be underestimated, its symbolic weight was also crucial. For the Palestinian people, the archive represented the political and cultural promise of visual self-representation, something that had come to be seen as paramount within the liberation struggle.

Figure 13. Mustafa Abu Ali, They Did Not Exist, Film still, 1974

During this period of Palestinian revolutionary identity, the acts and processes involved in the recording of the Palestinian story were crucial within the construction of collective identity. Emerging from the crippling weight of both Jewish and Arab history, Palestinian cultural output was revolutionary, not only in terms of its struggle towards liberation but also for its sweeping attempt to record the specificities of

Palestinian history and culture. In such a way, one could suggest that the revolutionary identity saw the recording of Palestine as a cultural characteristic where visual representation and narration was an act of Palestinianess. The documentary compulsion

299 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 28–29. 128 was a marker of a kind of Palestinianism, which saw the nation’s narration as integral to its political framework. At this time, the reconfiguration of identity around narratives of revolutionary struggle was politically and socially contingent on the PLO having established its base in Beirut, making Beirut a surrogate homeland for Palestinians. This was of course to be short-lived, and the political consequences were to weigh heavily on all Palestinians.

The escalating violence of the Lebanese civil war came to a climax for

Palestinians in 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon and the PLO was forced to leave the country. All cultural organisations established by Palestinians, particularly in Beirut, suffered tremendously, most of them destroyed or dismantled. The film archive suffered the same fate. With escalating violence between 1980 and 1981, attacks on PLO offices in West Beirut became frequent, and, consequently, the film archive was moved to the distant Sadat neighbourhood, in the hope that it could be saved from the destruction.

Reproducing multiple copies of the archive’s rare films was out of the question given the stretched financial resources of the PLO at the time, but Yasser Arafat, Abu Jihad and Abu Iyad all sought to keep the archive safe, understanding its political and cultural gravitas.300

The archive’s manager, Khadija Abu Ali, personally approached Abu Jihad about the safety of the archive and he organised rent payments in the French embassy’s basement, where it was kept under guard by the archive’s staff. 301 As violence escalated, the archive was moved to the Red Crescent’s Akka hospital and from there its location is unknown.302 Considerable speculation continues to exist around the fate of

300 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 29. The cost for reproducing the PLO’s films was quoted at half a million US dollars at the time. 301 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 29. 302 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 29. 129 the archive, but it has almost certainly been destroyed after years of being kept in poor conditions or is languishing somewhere unrevealed.303

The loss of the film archive signified a double erasure of Palestinian cinematic presence. Like the films of 1948, the films of the militant cinema period now exist primarily in the domain of memory. Paradoxically, the Palestinian revolutionary period was more popularly captured in the films of European filmmaker Godard, whose film

Ici et Alliuers has since become a cult classic. Comparable to their silence within pre-

1948 films, Palestinians were again lowered to the European cinematic lens. The valiant attempts to record the Palestinian story and liberation movement in film were rescinded with the Lebanon civil war—a war that created a double exile for Palestinians, leaving their surrogate only three decades after the exile of 1948. The Lebanon civil war and the destruction of the archive enforced a new understanding of national narration for

Palestinian filmmakers. Though the enigma of the archive continues to rouse interest, its destruction prompted a new wave of Palestinian filmmakers to re-imagine the narration of Palestine and, in turn, the conception of Palestinian national cinema.

The impulse towards national narration in militant cinema, though experimental in its production, still carried the documentary as its primary form. The documentary was arguably the ideal genre for Palestinians until 1982 because its corresponding linear and didactic characteristics paralleled the need to construct a coherent national

303 Sheyma Buali, “A Militant Cinema: Mohanad Yaqubi in Conversation with Sheyma Bouali,” Ibraaz, 2 May 2012. 5 June 2012. < http://www.ibraaz.org/interviews/16>. Palestinian filmmaker Mohanad Yaqubi in 2011 discovered footage from the Palestinian Film Unit languishing in Italy. This remarkable discovery of films from the Lebanese Civil war will go someway into shedding further light on cinema that was believed lost or destroyed. Yaqubi’s is currently in the process of making a film entitled Off Frame that looks at Palestinian militant cinema and the rediscovery of these missing films. Although Yaqubi’s discovery might initially appear to take away from the potency and significance of the lost film archive it is vital to note that that it has been more than 30 years since these films first went missing. Accordingly, Palestinian cinema developed in the absence of the militant cinema archive for decades and although some of these films have been rediscovered it arguably does not change the fact that Palestinians experienced a ‘double erasure’ of their cinematic presence with the Lebanese civil war. 130 narrative, one without space for testing the incongruities and deficiencies of national identity. For a people long denied their historical place and story, the documentary was seen as a necessary tool for constructing a nationalist discourse. Homi K. Bhabha reflects on this in Nation and Narration when he explains that ‘nationalist discourses persistently produce the idea of the nation as a continuous narrative of national progress’.304 Following Bhabha’s analysis, the militant and revolutionary attributes of

Palestinian cinema at this time were a reflection on the profound move to create a cohesive Palestinian nationalist discourse anchored on the idea of resistance.

Consumed with the quest to record and document the Palestinian story, the documentary was the chief genre employed until 1982. With very few feature films made before the Lebanon civil war, Palestinian filmmakers near entirely neglected the outcomes and impetus towards other cinematic genres. Looking at the documentary as revolutionary in and of itself, it was not until the mid-1980s that Palestinian film took a critical stance toward nationalist discourse. It was the destruction of Beirut as a

Palestinian proxy capital and the loss of the PLO’s film archive that called into question the Palestinian nationalist narrative of national progress. Ironically, it was perhaps the devastation brought from the events of the civil war that opened the space for a new investigation of Palestinianess and Palestinianism—one that for the first time moved beyond the parameters of didactic and documentary cinematic representation.

Following the tragedy of 1982 and the direct consequences it had on Palestinians of all social orders, Beirut could no longer be seen as a surrogate political and cultural homeland. The destruction of Beirut as a proxy Palestinian cultural and political capital would open up a new space for the representation of Palestinian identity and experience.

Paradoxically, it was precisely the destruction of Beirut that allowed for new

304 Homi K Bhabha ed., Nation and Narration (London: Routledge, 1990) 1. 131 geographical and decentralised spaces for this artistic production and a new aesthetic window for relaying the Palestinian story in less didactic, militaristic and revolutionary forms. For Palestinians, the destruction that befell Beirut created a situation where the relationship to a homeland had yet again been severed. Creating a double exile for this generation of Palestinian refugees, it would be this experience of the ‘exile2’ that would again become the tie that bound Palestinians everywhere.

132

CHAPTER FOUR

Exile2 — A Return to the Abyss: 1982–1993

‘What I, as the daughter of someone who lived through the Nakba learned…was that for Palestinians, both memory and Postmemory have a special valence because the past is not yet passed.’ 305

Lila Abu-Lughod

The generation that came of age during the events of the Lebanese civil war and the destruction of the surrogate Palestinian capital of Beirut experienced first-hand what might be described as a form of double exile. This experience sustained the trauma of exile that the generation had previously experienced during the Nakba, leading this generation to understand, as Lila Abu-Lughod notes, ‘that the past is not yet passed’.306

Paradoxically, however, it was the destruction of Beirut as a surrogate capital that opened a new window for Palestinian filmmakers and artists to explore the representation of Palestinian identity and experience. For the first time in decades,

Palestinian cultural production became geographically and politically decentralised.

Although the emphasis on the experience of exile remained, practitioners were more able than ever before to relay the Palestinian story, in both its collective and personal form, in less didactic, militaristic and revolutionary forms.

This shift in art and film is best evidenced through the case studies of artist

Mona Hatoum and filmmaker Michel Khleifi, who remain the two most well-known

305 Lila Abu‐Lughod, “Return to Half Ruins: Memory, Postmemory, and Living history in Palestine,” Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory 79. 306 Abu‐Lughod, “Return to Half Ruins,” 79. 133

Palestinian figures to produce art and film in the period between 1982 and the mid-

1990s. In the work of both Hatoum and Khleifi, a new self-critical approach to

Palestinian cultural production is witnessed that often collapses the division between the personal and collective experience of the trauma of exile. In contrast to the militant aesthetic that defined the art and film of the jeel al-thawra, Hatoum and Khleifi’s use of the symbols of national identity and collective experience exhibits a clear refusal of essentialist nationalist narration.

Mona Hatoum’s work signals a clear understanding that, as a language comprised of images, Palestinian visual art is a crucial vehicle for the transmission of

Palestinian experience and is also a verification of it. The emphasis on memory in

Hatoum’s work resonates with Edward Said’s assertion that images associated with memory and aspiration are, for Palestinians, often the only symbolic substitute for their citizenship or relationship to place.307 Images are, thus, invested in as tools of historical, political and cultural confirmation. Memory and the oral tradition are often the most relied on conduits of Palestinian history, as their archival history has been placed in a subordinate position to that of the Jewish experience and its documentation appears scant in comparison to the monolith of Jewish history. 308 Therefore, memory and the oral tradition remained a potent force in the facilitation of Palestinian art practice, as evidenced by the refugee camp art of the years following al-Nakba. Following the

Ccatastrophe, the Nakba was not directly experienced by new generations, yet the after effects of the event continue to shape their everyday existence and, as a result, the events often manifest themselves in contemporary Palestinian art.

307 Edward W. Said, “Emily Jacir – ‘Where We Come From,” Emily Jacir – Belongings, eds. Christian Kravagna, John Menick, Stella Rollig and Edward Said eds., (Vienna: O.K Books, 2003) 47‐48; Edward W. Said, “Slow Death: Punishment by Detail,” From Oslo to Iraq and the Roadmap (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005) 94. 308 Alon Confino, “Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method,” The American Historical Review 102.5 (1997): 1397. 134

The events of the Nakba play a paramount role in the collective memory of

Palestinians and remain a reoccurring theme in the work of Hatoum. As a theoretical and analytical framework, ‘collective memory’, with its associations to nationalism and its frequent affiliation and manipulation as a tool of propaganda, is not a sufficient term or framework to describe the nuances and potency of memory in the work of Hatoum or in Palestinian discourse more broadly. It is precisely the essentialising character of collective memory that renders it unable to suitably describe the Palestinian association to memory. Collective memory in Palestinian art requires a more refined framework, one that includes not only the collective and often essentialising experience but also personal memory. It is the notion of Postmemory that accommodates the personal association to collective recollection and is, thus, a more refined concept, one that is more suitable to the diversity of Palestinian experience and understanding of memory.

The concept of Postmemory is founded on Kaja Silverman’s notion of heteropathic recollection. Silverman’s theory is based on the concept that one is able to carry surrogate memories of another through a process of heteropathic identification, creating a method and relationship where an individual takes on the memories of another.309 Marianne Hirsch has elaborated on the concept of heteropathic recollection with the ensuing model of Postmemory. Hirsch describes this model of memory as being a departure from preconceived ideas of memory and history as a result of its basis in generational distance and deep personal connection.310 She elaborates by explaining that ‘Postmemory characterizes the experience of those who grow up dominated by narratives that preceded their birth, whose belated stories are evocated by the stories of

309 Kaja Silverman cited in Marianne Hirsch, Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1997) 22. 310To suggest that memory can be passed on through generations in a personal way, is to imply that with time and its consequent variables, the effects and affects of a particular memory will be different. 135 the previous generation shaped by traumatic events that can be neither understood nor recreated’.311

In Return to Half Ruins, Lila Abu-Lughod, celebrated anthropologist and daughter of the prolific Palestinian intellectual Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, writes that

Postmemory takes on a different character for Palestinians: for them, the past has not yet passed. Abu-Lughod’s statement suggests that Hirsch’s Postmemory model is one that relies heavily on the idea of a disparity between the traumatic experience of

Holocaust survivors and that of their children. Strictly speaking, Hirsch’s model cannot adhere to the contemporary Palestinian experience, as post-Nakba Palestinian offspring are subject to the ongoing trauma that has arisen as a result of the Catastrophe.

Consequently, Postmemory in the Palestinian experience is not only grounded in the surrogate memories of the catastrophe but also carried over into the contemporary experience of exile and dispossession. Memory, in effect, transcends generational and historical divides and makes its way into the present as a living history.312 In spite of this, the children of the Nakba survivors are argued to experience an everyday reality that is overshadowed by the memory of a significant past lived by their parents, comparable to the children of Holocaust survivors.313

The presence of Postmemory in the work of Mona Hatoum, particularly in artworks with reference to the repercussions and memories of the Nakba, can be argued to exemplify traumatic memory. Traumatic memory breaks the ongoing narrative and,

311 Hirsch, Family Frames 22. 312 Karl Mannheim cited in Ruben Rumbaut, “Ages, Life Stages and Generational Cohorts: Decomposing the Immigrant First and Second Generations in the United States,” International Migration Review 38.3 (2004): 1162; Rosemary Sayigh, “Palestinian Camp Women as Tellers of History,” Journal of Palestine Studies 27.2 (1998): 45. 313 Abu‐Lughod, “Return to Half Ruins,” 79. 136 therefore, severs connections between the past, the present and the future.314 Trauma theory argues widely that the clear linear narration of one’s traumatic memories is a significant step in the process of recovery. This process of transformation from traumatic to linear memory is reliant on an audience. An audience is crucial to the facilitation of recovery by acknowledging the trauma inflicted on others. This supports the popular assertion that violence and suffering will not cease for Palestinians until there has been an acknowledgment of their suffering.315

Understanding this, one can come to understand that the modes of memory recounting the Nakba and the process of exile used by Mona Hatoum as defined by traumatic memory.316 Hatoum’s emphasis on memory is more broadly mirrored by

Palestinian discourse. The memory and Postmemory of the Nakba is paramount within the discourse because of both its traumatic consequences and the lack of archival history on the event.317 The deliberate destruction of the Palestinian presence in historical

Palestine and the Zionist ethos that disavowed their existence entirely, only serves to

314 Susan J. Brison, “Trauma Narratives and the Remaking of the Self,” Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present, Eds. Mieke Bal, Jonathan Crewe, Leo Spitzer (London: University Press of New England, 1999) 40. Susan J. Brison notes that ‘memories of traumatic events can themselves be traumatic: un‐controllable, intrusive, and frequently somatic.’ 315 Pappe, Introduction. A History of Modern Palestine xx; Tony Judt, Foreward, From Oslo to Iraq and the Roadmap xviii; McGowan and Ellis, Remembering Deir Yassin ix. Traumatic memory’s lack of a coherent sequential order is reminiscent of Edward Said’s anxiety concerning the Palestinian story’s lack of a coherent, beginning, middle and end. As an oral history, where the primary reference is traumatic memory, Palestinian history has an analogous configuration to traumatic memory, in that it is absent of chronological succession. Many historians and writers including Pappe, McGowan and Ellis have made the observation that without an appreciation of the trauma inflicted upon Palestinians, a long lasting peace is unobtainable in the region. 316Brison, “Trauma Narratives and the Remaking of the Self,” 40. In contrast to traumatic memory, narrative memory is characterised by an individual’s control over their memory and the recounting of their experience. In other words, as Susan Brison notes, it ‘is not passively endured; rather it is an act on the part of the narrator, a speech act that defuses traumatic memory, giving shape and temporal order to the events recalled…’ 317 For further discussion on the Deir Yassin massacre and the significance of oral history in the narration of the event refer to Chapter 2. 137 further the reliance on memory and Postmemory as validation of the Palestinian presence and experience.318

It is essential to understand that oral history shares the importance of narrative and archival history and both are equally plagued with historical inaccuracy. Beyond existing in a dialectical relationship, constantly competing for historical legitimacy, oral and archival history are also heavily reliant on one another. Susan Slymovics states that history ‘need not be opposed to witness memories; rather, memory is a source for, indeed it propels, history by instigating the inquiry’.319 The characterisation of memory as a tool that instigates the inquiry into Palestinian history is witnessed in Hatoum’s work, despite the artist’s insistence that her art is not wholly characterised by her

Palestinian identity. In contrast to the generation of artists who employed a militant aesthetic, Hatoum’s work often draws on personal memories (both her own and of her family) to engage with Palestinian history and, for the most part, refrains from emphasis on the Palestinian political struggle. 320

In spite of Hatoum’s refusal to characterise her work as predetermined or defined by her Palestinian background, many of the occurring themes and symbols in her work undeniably come as a result of her being born a Palestinian. The departure from explicit associations to her Palestinianess is cited by Hatoum as being instigated by the completion of her 1988 work Measures of Distance (Figure 14). The work signalled a moment of catharsis for Hatoum, and she claims that she felt a burden being

318 Mahmoud Darwish, “We Walk Towards A Land,” Sand and Other Poems, Trans. Rana Kabbani (New York: Routledge, 1986) 3; Susan Slyomovics, “The Rape of Qula,” Nakba: Palestine, 1948 and the Claims of Memory 32. National poet of Palestine Mahmoud Darwish echoes this sentiment describing Palestine, writing that ‘we are a country of words’. Darwish here states that Palestine and Palestinianess is comprised of words and not the land itself nor text or visual forms. Here Darwish might be said to clearly tell us that historical Palestine exists in the oral tradition. With the lack of archival and institutional presence, it is the oral tradition, a tradition bound to memory, that records, interprets and disseminates history. 319 Susan Slyomovics, “The Rape of Qula,” Nakba: Palestine, 1948 and the Claims of Memory 32. 320 Mona Hatoum quoted in Laura Steward Heon, ed., Mona Hatoum: Domestic Disturbance (North Adams: Storey Books, 2001) 32. 138 lifted after its completion, for she could ‘get on with other kinds of work, where every work did not necessarily have to tell the whole story, where I could just deal with one little aspect of my experience’.321

Figure 14. Mona Hatoum, Measures of Distance, 1988, Video still, fifteen-minute video

Measures of Distance is a touching portrayal of Mona Hatoum and her mother’s experience of exile. The fifteen-minute video work involves scrolling Arabic text superimposed over the naked figure of the artist’s mother. The text consists of letters reflecting the pain of exile from Hatoum’s mother and is read aloud by the artist, creating a fluid connection between the story and narration of both mother and daughter. The video is filled with aesthetic and visual distances between mother, daughter and audience. The viewer never achieves a clear view of Hatoum’s mother, who is captured on grainy fragmented video. Distance is created between Hatoum and her mother by the scrolling fragmented Arabic text of her mother’s letters, and Hatoum, whose body is held from view through the entire video, also does not achieve a clear view of her mother, as it is obscured from view by her letters. The mother’s letters serve

321 Ankori, Palestinian Art 137. 139 to simultaneously distance and bind mother and daughter. Visually, the Arabic text creates a semantic bond between mother and daughter, while remaining a visual measure of distance.

The work includes two overlapping soundtracks: the first a conversation between mother and daughter and the second an English translation and narration of her mother’s letters by the artist. The visual distance between mother and daughter, as well as the disorientating overlapping soundtrack, serves to reinforce an overriding sense of distance, not only between Hatoum and her subject but also with the audience. The

Arabic text, inaccessible to most Western viewers, further distances the audience from the messages of Hatoum’s mother and the text loses some of its potency in translation.

Gannit Ankori explains that the ‘idiomatic Arabic forms an estranged, third foreign language that reinforces the feeling of distance, displacement and alienation.’322

Translating letters from her mother, Hatoum reads:

Can you imagine us having to separate from all our loved ones, leaving everything behind and starting again from scratch, our family scattered all over the world…And now that you and your sisters have left Lebanon, you are again living in another exile and in a culture that is totally different to your own. So, when you talk about a feeling of fragmentation and not knowing where you really belong, well, that has been the painful reality of all our people.323

Hatoum’s narration exposes her experience of Postmemory. Her mother’s experiences and memories of the processes of exile have been articulated to Hatoum throughout her life. Further, as suggested by Lila Abu-Lughod, the exile that was brought about as a consequence of the Nakba is a history not yet passed for the generation of Hatoum. The artist’s experience of a double exile is indicative of Abu-

Lughod’s suggestion that Palestinian offspring not only carry the surrogate Postmemory

322 Mona Hatoum quoted in Ankori, Palestinian Art 123. 323 Mona Hatoum quoted in Michael Archer, Guy Brett and Cathering de Zegher eds., Mona Hatoum (London: Phaidon Press, 1996) 127. 140 recollections of their parents but also experience the consequences of these memories directly in their own reality. Measures of Distance is a representation of the multitudes of distance between mother and daughter, including storytelling and narration, history and the present, writing and reading, Arabic and English and subject and artist. The scrolling Arabic text in the video is also reminiscent of barbed wire separating the bodies of mother and daughter and insinuates a sense of distance created with threat.324

As one views Measures of Distance from the perspective of the camera and, as a consequence, the viewpoint of Hatoum, the audience is implicated in the intimate space captured and created by the work. Thus, one is empathically caught in the intimate space between mother and daughter. The separations between subject and artist, whether semantically, bodily or visually, serve to highlight the notion that it is exile that binds Hatoum and her mother in Measures of Distance.325

The intimacy in Measures of Distance is further facilitated by the naked figure of Hatoum’s mother. The naked body of the older Palestinian woman brings to the work a series of Western conceptions of gender and sexuality ascribed to Middle-Eastern women. The Western essentialising perception of Middle-Eastern women does not allow for the culturally diverse roles and perceptions of women in various Middle-

Eastern cultures. In the case of Palestinian women, this consideration disavows the specific significance of women’s storytelling and the symbol of the female body as a metaphor for the land of Palestine. Further, the mother’s naked figure is literally layered

324 Jill Bennett, Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art (California: Stanford University Press, 2005) 143. This allusion to a corporeal peril created by lines of separative wire is reminiscent of Hatoum’s well known work Homebound where the audience is separated from a domestic environment, albeit a threatening unheimlich one, by threads of wire cables. Jill Bennett explains the breed of installation seen in Homebound ‘facilitates the carryover of an affective response from one piece to another; Hatoum’s incarcerative space engenders a certain bodily response…[where] one is effectively assisted in a process of embodied perception’. The utilisation of traumatic memory and experience and its facilitation in works of art by Hatoum, serve to create an ‘empathic connection’ between artwork and audience. 325 Amal Amireh, “Between Complicity and Subversion: Body Politics in Palestinian National Narrative,” South Atlantic Quarterly 102.4 (2003): 750. 141 with stories of exile and the effects of the Nakba. Thus, the naked figure is used twice as the nexus between Hatoum and the Palestinian homeland. The artist’s mother is her conduit to the experience of the Nakba and historical Palestine, as well as a more universal Palestinian symbol of the lost homeland.

Gannit Ankori notes that Measures of Distance ‘unravel[s] a tale of traumatic rupture and shattered lives; transmitted from mother to daughter, from generation to generation’.326 In effect, the work is a product of Palestinian disorientated narratives.

Considering trauma as a corporeal discourse, Hatoum’s preoccupation with the body and her somatic emphasis can then be explained as a response to the traumatic rupture in her life, as a consequence of exile. The importance of the body is acutely apparent in the artist’s work during her student years and in her performance works throughout the

1980s. With her departure from performance and her move towards installation and sculpture, the role and the importance of the body, though not always explicit, still features prominently. Hatoum explains ‘when I moved into the field of installation I wanted to create works where the viewer is implicated. So that the viewer’s own body is implicated in the work…the work is still about the body. It is present despite its absence’.327 The use of the body as the conduit of meaning and experience is perhaps related to traumatic memory: a breed of memory marked by its dependence on corporeal interaction and experience.

Hatoum’s experience of traumatic Postmemory and its somatic visual expression in her oeuvre is evidenced in her works that refer to Deir Yassin. In the aftermath of the

Sabra and Shatila massacres on Palestinian refugees in 1982 during the Lebanese civil war, Hatoum recounts a dream relating to the Nakba and the massacre of Deir Yassin.

She describes the dream saying;

326Ankori, Palestinian Art 123. 327 Mona Hatoum in The Eye: Mona Hatoum, videorecording, Illuminations, (2001) 142

I went to Beirut looking for my parents and in the wreckage of their home I found two plastic boxes—a pink one and a blue one. I opened the blue box and it was full of tiny toy soldiers that exploded out into the air around me becoming a cloud of flies that took on the shape of a black gravestone—‘We were only obeying orders!’ I heard them say…When I turned back to the pink box, the lid was open disgorging human entrails in an endless stream. I heard my mother’s voice saying, ‘They were disembowelling pregnant women, that’s why we had to leave.328

The blue and pink boxes of Hatoum’s dream are representative of a gendered

Palestinian differentiation of the reasons for the 1948 mass exodus. One might understand the pink box as being symbolic of the female experience. It is significant that Hatoum claims to have had this dream at the time of the Lebanese civil war. Her own experience of violence, oppression and massacre of Palestinians is indicated through this dream to be subconsciously bound to the events of the Nakba. This collapsed connection between the Nakba and contemporary events experienced by the artist is indicative of Postmemory. The trauma of the Nakba passed down through her parents and, in the case of her dream, literally residing with them, is carried over into her own experience. Thus, as Lila Abu-Lughod suggests, as a Palestinian, Hatoum’s cultural past is not yet passed and its trauma carries itself into the present. The

Postmemory trauma of Deir Yassin is one that is frequently evidenced and referenced in

Hatoum’s art. The most obvious of such references are her works The Negotiating Table from 1983 (Figure 15) and Socle du Monde from 1992–1993 (Figure 16).

Hatoum describes the Israeli invasion and the attacks on refugees in camps during the Lebanese civil war as the most shattering experience of her life. It was in response to the events of that war that the artist conceived of and performed her 1983 work The Negotiating Table.329 Performed five times, it consisted of Hatoum lying motionless on a table with empty chairs on either side. The artist’s body was covered in

328 Mona Hatoum quoted in Archer, Brett and Zegher eds., Mona Hatoum 122. 329 Mona Hatoum quoted in Archer, Brett and Zegher eds., Mona Hatoum 127. 143 beef entrails, bloodstained and wrapped in plastic with her head covered in surgical gauze, while talks of peace by Western leaders and reports of the events of the war were playing in the background.

Figure 15. Mona Hatoum, The Negotiating Table, three-hour performance (still), 1983

The juxtaposition between the media reports of the events, the peace discussions by Western leaders and the seemingly brutalised body of Hatoum, highlights the chasm between the physical experiences of war and brutality and those that are reported and discussed. It is here that the artist’s decision to use animal entrails becomes a point of significant importance. Hatoum’s recounting of her dream of Deir Yassin and her mention of entrails were made within the same year that the artist performed The

Negotiating Table. Beyond being an indication of her Postmemory of the Nakba, references to the haunting nightmares of Deir Yassin in The Negotiating Table bring to the surface issues surrounding the controversy between archival and oral accounts of the massacre. The disembowelment of women at Deir Yassin features prominently in the

144 oral history of the massacre but is almost entirely absent in archival accounts of the event.330

The visual references to the massacre of Deir Yassin become less invested with political rhetoric and obvious allusions to Palestinian history in the latter years of

Hatoum’s oeuvre. The departure from overt political reference and rhetoric coincides with Hatoum’s conscious move to do so after the completion of Measures of Distance.

Nonetheless, when one becomes aware of the significance of the imagery of entrails and their reference to Deir Yassin, Hatoum’s recurrent employment of them begins to take on a different significance.331 The entrails motif also finds itself in Hatoum’s work Socle du Monde, a large minimalist cube that references Piero Manzoni’s influential work of the same title from 1961. Socle du Monde translates to ‘pedestal of the world’ and, as such, Manzoni’s 1961 version of the work (a sculpture or pedestal placed outside) is suggestive of the notion that everything in the world—all vegetative, animal and mineral forms—is a work of art.332 The line between what constitutes the work of art and what structures support or influence it becomes bound in Manzoni’s work.

Hatoum’s appropriation of Socle du Monde is covered in iron fillings that are evocative of entrails. Hatoum’s work suggests that her foundation, or pedestal of the world, is literally covered in entrails.

330 Benny Morris, “The Historiography of Deir Yassin,” The Journal of Israeli History 24.1 (2005): 97. 331 One might take the example of the Entrails Carpet, a work from 1995. Despite the abandonment of real entrails, the silicone substitutes in Entrails Mat still provoke the same visceral response in the viewer. This response is promoted by a sense of shock when one looks closer at the mat, or indeed at the title, and the luminous mat is transformed into an object of repulse. Frozen in plastic stillness the entrails in the artist’s mat are transparent and the audience cannot look through them directly to the ground below the mat. Our glimpse of the ground beneath the carpet and the floor beneath us, is veiled by undulating curved entrails. Thus they become the lens with which we see the ground beneath us. To choose a carpet covered in entrails, is to suggest that they literally sit on the surface and the place in which we find our grounding and our foundations; our home. Hatoum’s recounting of her dream involving entrails takes place in her parent’s home in her place of birth, Lebanon. The unheimlich response triggered by a domestic object in Entrails Carpet, may be understood as an allusion to the presence of the story of Deir Yassin in Hatoum’s home. 332 Stefano Cappelli, “Piero Manzoni’s Lines,” Piero Manzoni, 15 April 2012. . 145

Figure 16. Mona Hatoum, Socle du Monde, 1992–1993, Mixed media, 164x200x200 cm

For Mona Hatoum, as has been demonstrated, entrails are a reference to Deir

Yassin and, in her 1982 dream, it is Deir Yassin that is cited to be the instigator of exodus. As exile can be described as the determining state of being in the Palestinian experience and, therefore, their world, it is reasonable that Hatoum chooses the motif of entrails to cover her pedestal to the world. For in doing so, she suggests that her world literally has its foundations in exile. If the analysis that Manzoni’s work binds the work of art to its influences in the world is accepted, then Hatoum’s version takes on a new meaning. Socle du Monde exemplifies Hatoum’s perception of the ‘entire world as foreign land’.333

The historical debate surrounding the massacre of Deir Yassin and the various attempts at creating a memorial museum commemorating the event are indicative of the

Palestinian anxiety towards their absent archival historical presence.334 Hatoum’s work

Self-Erasing Drawing from 1979 (Figure 17) can be interpreted as a reflection of

Edward Said’s anxiety concerning the erasure and exclusion of the Palestinian presence

333 Yuko Hasegawa, De‐Genderism Detruire Dit‐elle/ill cited in Michael Brett, “Itinerary,” Mona Hatoum, eds. Archer, Brett and Zegher, 38. 334 Ellis and McGowan, Preface, Remembering Deir Yassin v– vi. 146 and history. Self-Erasing Drawing was made during Hatoum’s student years and is

Conceptual and minimalist in style. The work is a small 28x28 cm square filled with sand. The kinetic object consists of a small rotating arm that concurrently draws lines in the sand with one side of its arm and then proceeds to erase them with the other. This process of mark-making and consequent erasure results in an anticipation of the sand drawing’s inevitable disappearance. The expression ‘to draw a line in the sand’ is to imply that a particular idea or activity will not be supported or tolerated. To actively erase or refute this idea is to suggest that steadfastness can be overridden and, in the case of Hatoum’s work, literally overwritten. Thus, the kinetic arm’s process of erasure forges ‘a sense of existence accentuated by a fear of disappearance’.335

Figure 17. Mona Hatoum, Self-Erasing Drawing, 1979, Kinetic Sculpture, 9.5 x 28 x 28 cm

The dialectic between absence and presence evident in Self-Erasing Drawing is also articulated in Edward Said’s many remarks about the archival absence of the

Palestinian presence and history, just as it informs Carol Bardenstein’s studies on the

335 Edward W. Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays 186; Yves‐Alain Bois and Rosalind Krauss, “A User’s Guide to Entropy,” October 78 (1996): 39‐40. The latter version of Hatoum’s sand drawing works, the much larger + and – from 1994, is, largely by virtue of its title, more actively connotative of Palestinian history and experience. When one decides to approach + and – under what might be described as a Palestinian lens, the work becomes, as implied by its title, a discussion and representation of absence and presence. 147 systematic Israeli campaign to erase the Palestinian physical and environmental presence.336 When one considers Bardenstein’s studies in relationship to Hatoum’s Self-

Erasing Drawing and the later + and – (1994), the marks made in both of Hatoum’s kinetic works appear as though they are plough lines, ready-made for the plantation of seeds, only to be swiftly erased as soon as they are created.

As discussed in Chapter 2, the Palestinian presence in historical Palestine is actively erased within the Israeli landscape. As an ideological and physical war over the land, the collective memories of both Palestinians and Israelis are bound to the landscape. Consequently, there is constant antagonism between both their collective memories of and about the land. Carol Bardenstein’s studies clearly indicate how the landscape of Israel has been systematically manipulated by both Israelis and

Palestinians as a repository of both their collective memories. As Bardenstein’s studies show, the result of the Jewish National Fund’s planning activities over the sites of villages destroyed by the Zionist forces between 1947 and 1948 are, in essence, an art of historical cover-up.337

The fund’s widespread planting is an act that attempts to erase Palestinian collective memory of the landscape. Though pared back and minimal, Hatoum’s self- erasing sand seems to tap into the history of Palestinian erasure within the landscape and may be interpreted as a loaded minimalist and conceptualist work, operating and discussing, in an astute aesthetic language, the process of erasure of the Palestinian presence. Further, it is as if Hatoum’s kinetic machines concurrently reveal and erase

336 For further discussion around Carol Bardenstein’s study of the systematic Israeli campaign of erasure of the Palestinian physical and environmental presence on the land refer to Chapter 2. 337 Carol Bardenstein, “Trees Forests and the Shaping of Palestinian and Israeli Collective Memory,” Acts of Memory 158. 148

Palestinian sumud. 338 The Palestinian steadfastness in the face of adversity, their metaphorical line in the sand, is repeatedly destroyed and erased only, like the prickly pear, to re-surface over and over again.

Hatoum’s emphasis on memory and the transmission of personal and collective experiences of trauma form the affective charge in her work. In a radical departure from the militant aesthetic that typified Palestinian visual art prior to 1982, Hatoum’s work is less concerned with political struggle, revolutionary themes or a didactic narration of collective Palestinian experience. Though Hatoum insists that interpretations of her work not be predetermined as contingent on her Palestinian identity, the success of her work ultimately signals that a Palestinian artist was capable of exploring themes pertinent to their cultural identity, while operating within a context of high art. The success of Hatoum’s work on the international stage was instrumental in transforming conceptions of Palestinian art as being more than peripheral art, thus, capable of operating as part of the avant-garde within centres of the art world.

Educated in the UK, Hatoum, like Michel Khleifi, belonged to a generation of artists and filmmakers educated and trained in Europe. Ultimately, this context allowed both Hatoum and Khleifi to cultivate a plurality of vision and a self-critical approach in their work. Far away from the political and economic structures that funded and supported Palestinian militant cultural output, both practitioners were free to diversify the representation of Palestinian experience. In the case of Michel Khleifi, this allowed the freedom to engage critically with Palestinian culture and history in ways that

338 The concern over the erasure of the Palestinian presence is also implicated in Hatoum’s 1995 work You Are Still Here. The piece is a portrait sized mirror with the words ‘you are still here’ etched into it. Like an optical illusion one cannot simultaneously look at their reflection and read the text inscribed on the mirror. Our perceptions only allow us to do one or the other. Both activities, reading and viewing, nonetheless strive toward the same affirmation; a verification and assertion of presence. One might imagine Mona Hatoum looking into You Are Still Here and viewing her own reflection. Assuming Hatoum etched the mirror herself, one imagines the artist inscribing the four simple words into the mirror all the while faced with her own reflection. Hatoum’s work takes its cue from Edward Said’s seminal text, and is in itself a reflection on exile. 149 disavowed heroicised visions of the revolutionary struggle nurtured in previous years.

Just as the events of 1982 opened a space for visual art to move away from didactic and propagandistic representation, a new window opened for film to move beyond documentary modes that prevailed during the period of militant cinema.

The space now opened to move beyond documentary modes was most pronounced in the work of Michel Khleifi, who was undoubtedly the most prominent

Palestinian filmmaker of the 1980s. A closer analysis of his cinematic style, approach to filmmaking and the reception of his work from the 1980s and, in particular, his most well-known work Wedding in Galilee (Figure 18), reveals the new direction Palestinian cinema was to take after the devastation of the Lebanon civil war. Seen as the torchbearer of contemporary Palestinian cinema, Khleifi’s work occupies a crucial place within the course of Palestinian film history; that is, his work allowed Palestinian film to be self-critical for the first time, moving beyond its established didactic nationalist role.

Michel Khleifi’s sensibility is arguably informed by the fact that he was born shortly after the Nakba in 1950 in Nazareth and was, thereby, born a Palestinian with

Israeli citizenship. Born within the boundaries of the recently established Israel, Khleifi belongs to the group that often has been burdened with a particularly complex cultural identity: granted the rights of citizenship, while still living in a virtual exile in the land of historical Palestine. For Khleifi, his childhood in Nazareth laid the foundations for the anger and revolt that can be evidenced in his films from the 1980s. His personal, political and cultural experiences of the 1950s and 1960s, as he explains, made Nazareth

‘a place that was a ghetto at the heart of the Galilee under Israeli rule’.339 As a

Palestinian citizen of Israel, Khleifi walked the tightrope of Palestinian insider/outsider,

339 Michel Khleifi, “From Reality to Fiction – From Poverty to Expression,” Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema Ed. Hamid Dabashi (London: Verso, 2006) 45. 150 lending him his ability to be self-critical of both Palestinians and Israelis, avoiding stereotypes on both sides.

It was after the events of 1967 that Khleifi made the conscious decision to leave

Nazareth to enter what he describes as a ‘voluntary exile’.340 Faced with what he saw as three options: ‘to become a militant, to become part of the silent majority, or to leave’,

Khleifi decided to move to Belgium in 1970 to study theatre and film at the Institut

National Superieur des Arts du Spectacle (INSAS), a place where many Arab filmmakers sought training in the 1970s.341 Though, in subsequent years, he ended up teaching at INSAS, Khleifi’s original intention when moving to Brussels was not to pursue cinema but, rather, theatre and television. During the 1970s, Khleifi filmed reports on the West Bank and Lebanon and, by 1980, directed his first feature length documentary Fertile Memories.

Although it was his first feature length work, the film did travel across the film festival circuit, attracting criticism for both its depiction of the Israeli occupation and the citizenship of Khleifi himself. Indeed, some audiences expressed shock at the fact that Khleifi still held onto his Israeli passport, alongside his Belgian one, some 12 years after having left Nazareth.342 For many critics, Fertile Memories was not strong enough in its criticism of the occupation, as critic Khayria al-Bashrawi wrote in 1987, ‘the director made us feel as if the occupation of the Palestinians by the Israelis is a given situation that worries no one’.343 These criticisms, even of Khleifi’s earliest work, still plague many Palestinian filmmakers, who continue to be laden with the responsibility of upholding the national narrative and any deviation from this course is often still greeted with hostility.

340 Phillip Dodd, “Homelands,” Sight and Sound 1.10 (1992): 19. 341 Dodd, “Homelands,” 19. 342 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 38. 343 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 38. 151

This having been said, Fertile Memories managed to evade the full brunt of criticism that Khleifi faced in his later works. This was, perhaps, because Fertile

Memories still had grounding in what was by then the prevailing genre of documentary.

His his film Wedding in Galilee, released in 1987, really exemplifies the spectrum of responsibilities and expectations bestowed on Palestinian cinema, particularly during the 1980s. Interpreted as the first self-critical Palestinian feature film, Wedding in

Galilee did not rely on most of the characteristics of the documentary genre. Though

Fertile Memories ‘waged war on the Israeli story via discursive, not violent means’,

Wedding in Galilee took this discursive approach even further, shifting almost entirely away from the militancy that had come to characterise the Palestinian cinematic approach.344 For Nurith Gertz and George Khleifi (the filmmaker’s brother), Wedding in

Galilee represents a ‘third space’ in the representation of the Palestinian story, something that is made possible by the director being a Palestinian citizen of Israel and because of Khleifi’s ability to traverse Palestinian culture and Western cinematic conventions. As they explain, Khleifi’s work operates ‘within Western culture while subverting it in the name of the Palestinian culture it expresses. At the same time, it operates within Palestinian culture while criticizing it and deviating from it by giving voice to “others” who have previously been excluded from it…’345

The director’s ability to simultaneously employ insider and outsider perspectives allowed him to defy stereotypes in the film; as film theorist Ella Shohat writes,

‘Wedding in Galilee does not reduce the oppression of the Palestinian people to a

Manichean schema of good Palestinians versus evil Israelis’.346 This result is made possible precisely because of Khleifi’s departure from the modes of militant

344 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 79. 345 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 97. 346 Ella Shohat, “Wedding in Galilee,” Middle East Report 154 (1988): 44. 152 documentary towards his privileging of avant-garde aesthetics that do not allow the filmmaker to use his work as a narration of collective history and struggle. Egyptian academic and author May Telmissany reflects that it is Khleifi’s cinematography that

‘subtly calls for a deeper knowledge and an acceptance of the benefits of ambiguity’.347

Despite the merits of the filmmaker’s sensibility, it is precisely his subtlety that is at the core of most criticisms of his work.

Wedding in Galilee was banned in most of the Arab world for many years and, though this may have been as a consequence of the nudity and perceived eroticism of the film, Khleifi saw this as more a reflection of a fear that he depicted a contradictory world view and political perspective. In a 1996 interview with Livia Alexander, he explains the Arab world’s response to his work: ‘for them, Palestine is a question of politics, propaganda and ideology…they might support a few Palestinian films… but certainly not films that challenge society and call for change’.348 Wedding in Galilee’s failure to succumb to straightforward Palestinian nationalist narration warranted a string of criticism from Arab critics, so much so that, when the film premiered at the Cannes

Film Festival, Khleifi was attacked by Egyptian reviewers for not demanding the destruction of Israel.349 Importantly, however, Wedding in Galilee was supported by the

PLO, who having awarded it the Hani Johariya award (the PLO film award), thus, deeming it both legitimate and culturally esteemed. However, this did not stop severe criticisms of the film in Arab audiences; as an example, when the work premiered at the

1988 Carthage Film Festival, a Tunisian youth in the audience attracted considerable attention, calling Khleifi a Zionist. Though, in retrospect, these responses do seem

347 May Telmissany, “Displacement and Memory: Visual Narratives of al‐Shatat in Michel Khleifi’s Films,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 30.1 (2010): 79. 348 Michel Khleifi and Livia Alexander, “On the Right to Dream, Love and be Free: An Interview with Michel Khleifi,” Middle East Report 201 (1996): 33. 349 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 38. 153 extreme, they signify both the political climate of the late 1980s and the audience’s unfamiliarity with Palestinian film that deviated from the course of the militant cinema of the recent past.

Figure 18. Michel Khleifi, Wedding in Galilee, 1987, Commercial Release Video Cover

Wedding in Galilee and its reception typify the ambiguity that comes with changing modes of the representation of collective trauma. Mirroring the Israeli historiography of the Holocaust, as Esther Webman suggests, ‘Palestinian cinema reflected the shift from national to private memory, as well as the masculine to a feminine point of view.’350 This transition is marked in Khleifi’s practice and in

350 Esther Webman, “The Evolution of a Founding Myth: The Nakba and Its Fluctuating Meaning,” Palestinian Collective Memory and National Identity Meir Litvak ed., (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) 38. 154

Wedding in Galilee, in particular. Nurith Gertz and George Khleifi echo this transition, stating that Khleifi is notable for his experimentation with evocations of ‘class, gender, ethnic and other identities that earlier cinema silenced’.351 The director’s focus on the complexity and potency of personal narratives over the collective allowed Wedding in

Galilee to also move beyond the preoccupation with depictions of Palestine before the

Nakba, preferring instead to concern itself with understanding the contemporary moment rather than a reductionist and nostalgic view of the past.352 For Khleifi, the importance of personal expression over national narration is what allows for a decolonisation of cultural action and ideological discourse.353 This process of expressive cultural decolonisation is acutely witnessed throughout the film.

Wedding in Galilee is, in essence, a story about a Palestinian wedding that can only take place with the attendance of the Israeli military governor of the village in

Galilee, where the film takes place. The film centres on the desire of the protagonist

Abu-Adel (Ali M El-Akili), the mukhtar of the village, to hold a large, memorable and traditional wedding for his son, despite the military curfew and the subsequent opposition and humiliation of much of the village’s population, including the mukhtar’s brother. 354 Using his renowned complex poeticism, Khleifi unpacks this basic plot not only to reveal the complicated interaction and relationship between Palestinians and

Israelis but also to be critical of the obstacles created by Palestinian traditional patriarchal society.

Focusing on the events associated with the wedding, which take place over two days, Wedding in Galilee braids together a series of subplots, which include that of

351 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 75. 352 Telmissany, “Displacement and Memory,” 76. 353 Khleifi, “From Reality to Fiction – From Poverty to Expression,” 48. 354 The word mukhtar, translates from Arabic to mean ‘chosen’. This is a title bestowed on the male head of a village or neighbourhood. 155 young men planning to attack the Israelis at the wedding, the illness of a young Israeli female soldier who is comforted and treated by village women, the loss of the mukhtar’s prized mare and the efforts of Sumaya (Sonia Amer), the mukhtar’s daughter, to dissuade her boyfriend and other village youths from attacking the Israelis. These subplots are united in their articulation of the friction and tension inherent in Palestinian

Israeli society and identity. Set in Israel, Khleifi represents the insidious manifestations of occupation on Palestinians living in Israel, something that is markedly different from the overt visibility of the occupation in the West Bank.

Though the film carries a message of collective struggle for liberation, it does this in a way that is careful to demarcate the various incarnations of the occupation for

Palestinians. For some commentators, this signals a problematic treatment of the occupation. One might take Ella Shohat as an example, who suggests that the film might have been called ‘Wedding in Palestine’, as this would have matched the film’s emphasis on a single national identity, linking the destinies and dreams of the various

Palestinian exiles, ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’.355 Yet, if Khleifi were to do this, the film would have lost its potency and would have been limited in both its subtlety and scope, thus, arguably falling into the trap visible in earlier Palestinian films, where the

Palestinian experience of exile is often portrayed as uniform experience.

However, the shared aspects of the traumatic experience of Palestinian exile are still visible in the film, only they lurk beyond the title, dialogue and central plot of the film. Instead, they are represented in the topography and treatment of the landscape within the film’s cinematography. Filmed across five different villages, two in the West

Bank and three in the Galilee, the film presents a unified view of the landscape.356 This created a space that does not actually exist and is, in effect, removed from both place

355 Shohat, “Wedding in Galilee,” 45. 356 Shohat, “Wedding in Galilee,” 46. 156 and time. In doing so, the work constructs a Palestinian connection to the landscape that is forged by the recovering of an invisible realm from within the visible landscape, thus, exposing the traumatic Palestinian consciousness and experience of dispossession.357

The Palestinian right and connection to the land is conveyed most strongly in the scene depicting the loss of the mukhtar’s mare. A symbol of dignity and loyalty, the horse is lost and then trapped in an Israeli minefield. Though the Palestinians from the village work alongside the Israeli army to save the horse, only the mukhtar’s devotion and connection to the animal, even risking his own life, is able to coax is back to safety

(Figure 19). This scene, therefore, carries several potent messages: only with cooperation and dialogue can Israelis and Palestinians navigate their shared political and geographical minefield, the mukhtar is committed at all costs to his own dignity and land and it is the Palestinians that hold the strongest connection to the land itself.

Figure 19. Michel Khleifi, Wedding in Galilee, 1987, Film still depicting the mukhtar and his mare

Though the mukhtar represents the historical connection to place and custom, he also signifies the hindrances of patriarchal society. His attitudes towards his sons and the women of his family encapsulate a reoccurring theme in Khleifi’s films: the role of women and children in Palestinian society and within the conflict. The director’s

357 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 83. 157 treatment of women functions, as Ella Shohat suggests, to show how the ‘national liberation entails transformation where femininity would move from the margins to the center’.358 The women in Wedding in Galilee all play the strongest roles in mediating the conflict and preventing violence on all sides. This comes to a climax with the bride of Adel, Samia (Anna Achdian), who, when faced with her groom’s impotence as a result of the humiliation of the Israeli presence and his anger towards his father, chooses to take her own virginity, asking ‘if this is a women’s dignity, then where is a man’s?’359

Samia and all the female characters in Wedding in Galilee push the boundaries of

Palestinian traditional society and the conflict through their relationship with the camera.

The camera in Wedding in Galilee often features as a meditative force, reflecting on the landscape in a way that demonstrates a longing and traumatic relationship between the Palestinian characters and their surroundings. These lingering and tender depictions of the landscape reinforce a political message that constantly reminds the viewer of the Palestinian historical relationship to the land.360 In the moments where the film does not employ these camera methods, it often uses a circling and enclosing technique. This gives rise to, as Tim Kennedy notes, ‘enclosures, signifying the binding

(and stifling) force of the family, and extends the metaphor to encompass the

Palestinian nation’.361 It is only the women in the film that manage to rupture these cinematic enclosures; this is made most evident in the case of the mukhtar’s daughter,

Sumaya, who often runs out of the field of vision, denoting her attempt to break-away from the restrictions of her family, her society and the conflict that surrounds her.

358 Shohat, “Wedding in Galilee,” 44. 359 In Khleifi’s most recent film, Zindeeq (2009), he self referentially comments on his treatment of women in his works, something that has warranted mixed criticisms from audiences over the years. In a dream‐like scene with his a character referencing his mother in Zindeeq, the mother begs the director to cease using nudity and to stop focusing on the role of women in his films. 360 Shohat, “Wedding in Galilee,” 45. 361 Tim Kennedy, “Wedding in Galilee (Urs al‐Jalil),” Film Quarterly 59.4 (2006): 40. 158

There is no doubt that this treatment of women in the film serves to heighten

Western audience’s appreciation of the work by undermining stereotypes of Arab women by portraying an acutely feminist perspective. Sumaya, in particular, also subverts any prejudice that perceives Arab women as ‘backward’, ‘uncivilised’ or

‘primitive’. This is most clear in the scene where the Palestinian women are taking care of Tali, the female Israeli soldier. When Tali’s absence begins to arouse suspicion in her fellow male soldier, Tali impudently tells him that the Palestinian women will eat her once they are finished with her playfully alluding to the projection of primitivism on

Palestinian women. Attempts, such as this one, to break stereotypes towards

Palestinians is also witnessed in Khleifi’s approach to religion in the film, where

Christian and Muslim customs are merged, creating a united national and cultural

Palestinian cohesion that extends beyond religious difference. 362 The success of

Wedding in Galilee with Western audiences is measured not only by the ongoing prominence of the film in contemporary film scholarship but also by the accolades it was awarded at the time of its release. These include the Best Belgium Film (1988), the

San Sebastian Grand Prize (1987) and the Federation of Film Critics Award at the

Cannes Film Festival in 1987.

This can largely be attributed to the film’s brave departure from the visual conventions that had come to dominate representations of the Palestinians, both the modes of the documentary genre and television journalism. For Khleifi, there is an important stress placed on drawing a schism between cinema and television. For the director, the dominance of television in the representation of Palestinian experience is a sign that ‘we have gone backwards, we are always bound to narrative, to the pollution

362 Shohat, “Wedding in Galilee,” 45. 159 of television’.363 Khleifi explains that it was the Lebanese civil war that prompted a shift in his approach away from television and documentary. This was because, though the

Middle East was saturated with television coverage during the end of the civil war, this was not, to Khleifi’s mind, the only appropriate way to represent the conflict. Speaking of his experience at the time, he explains, ‘as far as I was concerned, the Palestinian cause was a just one, but the way it was being fought was wrong. We have to provide the world with a different way of talking about us’.364

It was with this rationale amidst the devastating atmosphere of the final stage of the civil war that Khleifi began to write the script for Wedding in Galilee.365 The importance of this timing is not to be underestimated. The events of 1981–1982 and the

PLO’s departure from Beirut, alongside the exile of thousands of Palestinians from

Lebanon, was a symbol of the destruction of the ideological and political foundations that had taken root in Lebanon over the years. Though Khleifi was only starting to write the script for the film at the time that the PLO’s film archive was lost, it makes for a tremendously uncanny coincidence. This is because Khleifi is famed for his use of cinema as a tool of remembrance, as the archival site of ‘lieux de memoires’ (repository of memory).366 As Wedding in Galilee is his most famous film for this reason, it then stands to logic that it would inherit a new gravity following the loss of the actual repository of Palestinian film memory: the PLO archive.

In this sense, the loss of the archive and the destruction of the proxy homeland for Palestinians in Beirut opened up a window for Khleifi and others to experiment with new modes of cinematic representation. For the director, the militant cinema of earlier years was always seen as laden with contradictions and problems visible just below the

363 Dodd, “Homelands,” 21. 364 Khleifi, “From Reality to Fiction – From Poverty to Expression,” 48. 365 Khleifi, “From Reality to Fiction – From Poverty to Expression,” 52. 366 Telmissany. “Displacement and Memory,” 75. 160 surface. This is something that Khleifi sought to unearth, even in the documentary

Fertile Memories, for, as he explains, ‘this film turned militant cinema upside-down. It demonstrated that it is more important to show the thinking that leads to a political slogan rather than the expression of this slogan that is political discourse’.367

The ambiguity of Michel Khleifi’s work often comes as a result of his deliberate and successful attempts to blur the boundaries and characteristics of genre. The failure of singular genres in the articulation of a deep and profound depiction of the Palestinian experience is, perhaps, at the heart of the director’s movement between genres. He elucidates on this by saying that it is always important for him to ‘integrate drama, actions, theatre and reportage in single works.’ 368 The premeditated ambiguity of

Khleifi’s practice is anchored on the privileging of freedom of individual expression over political ideology or the presentation of a collective or national narrative. For commentators like May Telmissany, this would suggest that Khleifi’s films fall under the umbrella of Youssef Ishaghpour’s concept of the cinematic trinity, where cinema functions to ‘redeem reality’ by using image, fiction and emotion. 369 As acts of redemption, they do construct a portrait of Palestinian reality but certainly not one that claims to encompass the entirety of Palestinian life, identity and experience.

Wedding in Galilee deconstructs the national traumatic narrative of Palestine, while still being able to forge a representation of the unified Palestinian experience of dispossession and occupation. The overt denial to tell the national story in a straightforward manner sets the film apart from previous cinematic output. Indeed, it is only the character of the mukhtar’s father that recounts any substantive Palestinian national narrative. Yet, ironically, in a way reminiscent of King Lear’s fool, the

367 Khleifi, “From Reality to Fiction – From Poverty to Expression,” 51. 368 Khleifi, “From Reality to Fiction – From Poverty to Expression,” 49. 369 Telmissany. “Displacement and Memory,” 81. 161 grandfather appears senile, confusing the Israeli occupation with that of the Ottomans and the British. The senile grandfather is often dismissed by the rest of the village within the film and, thus, operates on several symbolic levels to simultaneously suggest the impossibility of national narration, the Palestinian history of resistance and the

Palestinian claim to the land. Importantly, the grandfather also subtly conveys the political message that the Israeli occupation, like others before it, is only temporary. As one of the only characters to lend humour to the film, the grandfather, far from being a coherent narrator or embodiment of Palestinian history, serves only to reinforce the complex interplay of generational and experiential difference in the film. The collision of his experience with his sons and his grandchildren subverts any sense of cohesive collective narration. Through this generational conflict, Khleifi creates a world that

‘defies national totally, which was created at the expense of an ignored variety of identities and individual stories’.370

The individual stories represented in the film take the shape of subplots followed throughout the work, serving to intensify the polarities that exist between various generations of Palestinians. The film portrays all generations of Palestinians, spanning from those born under Ottoman rule, to those born before the Nakba, to the generation of the revolution and, finally, with Abu-Adel’s youngest son, Hassan, to the generation of the first intifada. Hassan plays a particularly important role in the film, one that is most pronounced in the repeat dream like sequences between him and his father. In these scenes, Abu-Adel attempts to bestow Hassan with his own dreams, a metaphor for his own experience, beliefs and perspective. Towards the end of the film, Hassan rejects these attempts and refuses to carry his father’s dreams. This so meaningful because

370 Khleifi, “From Reality to Fiction – From Poverty to Expression,” 76. 162

Hassan’s decision delineates the points of difference between his generation and their experience of the occupation with that of his father.

The youngest son’s rejection of the aspirations, values and attitudes of his father signifies the reason why many commentators came to see Wedding in Galilee as a film that anticipated the first intifada.371 Hassan represents a new generation of Palestinian resistance, one that, following the role of youths in the events of the first intifada, would come to reshape the global perspective of the Palestinian struggle. Importantly,

Hassan’s rejection of the mores of his father signals more than a mere generational difference. The tension between Abu-Adel and Hassan was also representative of the shifting attitudes of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship at the time. As a group whose struggle against Israeli occupation has been sublimated beneath the narratives of

Palestinian refugeedom, Palestinians with Israeli citizenship became arguably visible for the first time during the intifada. Following on from this, the character of Hassan is symbolic of a new generation of Palestinians in Israel who engaged in resistance and protest against Israeli occupation.

The first Palestinian intifada (translating literally to ‘shaking off’ or ‘uprising’) was formed by the shifting political landscape of the Middle East, which had formed a series of ideological and economic changes for Palestinians. For those living in the territories, it had become increasingly obvious by the mid-1980s that the Arab world had placed the Palestinian occupation at the very bottom of their political priorities.372

While the PLO was now operating out of exile in Tunisia, the occupation was becoming increasingly restrictive and humiliating for Palestinians, both in Gaza and the West

Bank, with more constraints on movement, increased arrests and frequent beatings.

371 Lina Khatib, Filming in the Middle East: Politics in the Cinemas of Hollywood and the Arab World (London: I.B. Tauris & Co, 2006) 126. 372 Matar, What it Means to be Palestinian 155. 163

With all this Israeli restriction and brutality fraying the fuses of Palestinians in the territories, it is surprising, yet understandable, that the remarkable events of the first intifada were in fact ignited by rumour and speculation.373

The intifada is now burnt into global memory as an event characterised by the

Palestinian youth who bravely protested against the humiliation of their occupation with often little more than stones. Their uprising tapped into a demographic anxiety that had been nurtured and used as political propaganda by both Israelis and Palestinians for many years. Both described the Palestinian youth bulge of the time as a demographic time bomb. However, the Jerusalemite intellectual and political activist Sari Nusseibeh was right in proclaiming, only weeks before the outbreak of the intifada, that ‘the demographic bomb will never explode without a fuse. The fuse will be our demand for equal rights’.374 As the intifada found its origins in Gaza’s camps, where the average age was 27 and one third of camp inhabitants were under the age of 15, it is no surprise that images of Palestinian youth have now become synonymous with this uprising. 375 These young people came to be known as the atfal al-hijara or ‘children of the stones’. As symbols of the resistance movement, these youths did, as Dina Matar notes, pay ‘for the acts of resistance to Israeli occupation practices, paradoxically providing visual proof of the brutal Israeli response’.376

373 On the 8th of December 1987 four Gazan refugee camp labourers from the Jabaliya camp were killed when the two vans they were traveling in collided with an Israeli truck. As rumour spread that the event was no accident but rather a deliberate act of retribution for an Israeli stabbed to death in a Gaza market several days earlier, the inhabitants of the Jabaliya camp became increasingly enraged. By the time of the funeral of the four refugees, thousands has assembled, turning their anger at a nearby Israel army post by pelting it with stones. As the instigator of the intifada, this event carries within it many of the trademarks of the consequent Palestinian uprising, namely the spontaneous outburst of protest and the use of basic weaponry for resistance. 374 Bernard Wesserstein, Israel and Palestine: Why They Fight and Can They Stop? (London: Profile Books, 2008) 25. 375 Matar, What it Means to be Palestinian 156. The heavy price paid by this generation of resistance can be measured by the number of those killed in the years between 1987 through to 1991, where out of the 1000 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces, over 200 were under the age of 15. 376 Matar, What it Means to be Palestinian 160. 164

Suggested by several historians, including Jamal R. Nasser and Roger Heacock, to be the first mass-based and sustained popular revolt by the Palestinians, the intifada was a reinvigorated move to end the occupation and push towards self-determination.377

The uprising was not something that came from the top down but, rather, was a movement that sprung from grassroots resistance. This made it stand in contrast to the

PLO, who was deafeningly silent in the first few months of the intifada.378 Now operating out of Tunis, the PLO had always advocated an armed rebellion, not factoring in the possibility of the massive act of grassroots resistance increasingly being evidenced throughout Gaza, the West Bank and Israel itself.379

The role of Palestinians within Israel during the intifada was both particularly important and surprising. Within the first few weeks of the intifada, Palestinians in

Israel had coordinated strikes and demonstrations, becoming, as Ilan Pappe contends, a source of inspiration that led to bolder, extended acts of resistance.380 It is in this sense that Michel Khleifi’s Wedding in Galilee is often interpreted as having anticipated the intifada; that is, it centred on the plight of Palestinians within Israel and their willingness to engage with acts of resistance against the Israelis. Wedding in Galilee, in many senses, anticipated and represented the struggle for liberation that was witnessed in the intifada and, despite highlighting the divisions within Palestinians themselves, also anticipated the united struggle against occupation that characterised the intifada.381

The united struggle of Palestinians during the intifada was something that found itself almost permanently emblazoned across international television screens at the time, making the world witness Israeli’s forms of control, as Neve Gordon points out, thereby

377 Samira Megdissian, “The Discourse of Oppression as Expressed in Writings of the Intifada,” World Literature Today 72.1 (1998): 40. 378 Francis A. Boyle, Palestine, Palestinians and International Law (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2003) 17 379 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 235. 380 Matar, What it Means to be Palestinian 159. 381 Megdissian, “The Discourse of Oppression as Expressed in Writings of the Intifada,” 20. 165

‘undermining the normalcy of the occupation’.382 This process of subversion of the normalcy of the occupation went beyond the Palestinians taking part in the uprising, extending to international spectators. Though the outcome of the intifada was not to bring about the end of the occupation, it did send a clear message to Israel and its allies that the status quo was no longer tenable.

The years following the first intifada would see tremendous political change in both Israel/Palestine and throughout the Middle East. These changes became most pronounced with the outbreak of the First Gulf War in 1990, a conflict that continues to shape the geopolitics of the region. For Palestinians, the Gulf War delivered a devastating blow, arguably setting back the international popularity of their political struggle. However, despite this, the intifada was instrumental in raising global recognition of Palestinian suffering under Israel occupation. The growing international profile of Palestinian cultural output during this time, particularly the work of Michel

Khleifi and Mona Hatoum, only serves to reinforce an understanding that Palestinian life in exile and under occupation was not all it seemed through the media lens that had for decades framed Palestinians as extremists or terrorists. This slow shift in international understanding and perception of Palestinians, when coupled with changes in the political, economic and cultural landscape of the region in the 1990s, created a context that would serve to further diversify Palestinian cultural output. Most surprisingly, these changes were responsible for a seemingly unanticipated turn in

Palestinian art and film: the emergence of humour.

Critical junctions of history were always responsible for transformations in

Palestinian cultural output and the narration of national identity in previous decades; these events included the Nakba, the June War and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

382 Neve Gordon, Israel’s Occupation (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2008) 166. 166

When the 1990s arrived, Palestine entered yet another critical junction of history as it entered into the beginning of a new US-led peace process. The peace process was defined by two important events: the first Oslo Accord in 1993 and the Camp David

Summit in 2000. These events instigated a reconfigured approach to Palestinian cultural output, which, in a departure from previous decades, turned towards the use of humour.

In order to comprehend the significance of the turn to humour, one must look to the theory of humour, while developing a closer understanding of the political, cultural and economic context that led Palestinian practitioners to engage with laughter in their work. In doing so, one gleans an appreciation for what humorous Palestinian cultural output can tell about the Palestinian connection to place, life under occupation and the failure of the peace process. However, most importantly, an investigation of manifestations of humour in Palestinian art and film can illuminate the potential of laughter to frame the boundaries of Palestinian national identity and to act as a tool of narration and verification of Palestinian collective identity.

167

PART TWO

The Emergence of Laughter

168

CHAPTER FIVE

The Punchline: Oslo and the Emergence of Laughter

Why didn’t Arafat take Suha with him to Oslo? Because he would have given her away too!

Palestinian art and film have reflected changes in collective identity wrought by historical events that have radically altered the political and social experience of

Palestinians. As demonstrated in Part One of this thesis, cultural output has been inflected by several shifts in modern Palestinian self-perception; first with the decline of the Ottoman Empire, then with the Nakba in 1948, the battle of Al-Karameh in 1968 and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. These events all ushered in new political and ideological epochs. Further, they also reshaped Palestinian identity and experience while encouraging new forms of Palestinian national narration through art and film.

Between the years of 1968 and 1982, this national narration was fixated on

‘Palestinianism’ that was anchored in a revolutionary nationalist ideology. Although the devastating effects of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon changed both Palestinian identity and cultural output, it did not entail the absolute disappearance of the revolutionary identity. As this chapter demonstrates, the Palestinian revolutionary identity briefly and vehemently re-emerged in the years of the first intifada between 1987 and 1993.

The re-emergence of the revolutionary identity subsided in 1993 with the signing of the first Oslo Accord in September 1993. Officially described as the 169

Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (or DoP), the

Accords were supposed to lay out the framework for all negotiations and relations between Israel and the Palestinians, working towards the final aim of achieving a viable two-state solution. Oslo called for both sides to recognise the political legitimacy of the other; for the Israelis this meant acknowledging the PLO as the representative of the

Palestinian people, and for the Palestinians this meant denouncing terrorism and recognising Israel’s right to exist. Despite the optimism surrounding the Oslo Accords when they were first signed, most analyses draw the same conclusion: that the Accords were an epic failure. Indeed, in retrospect we could go so far as to look upon them as a tragic joke.

In this sense, Oslo was a critical junction in Palestinian history that can be described as a ‘punchline’, and it is with the beginning of the peace process that we can witness the explosion of humour in Palestinian art and film. To unpack the significance of the ‘Oslo punchline’, it is necessary to review the events that built up to culminate in the Accords; namely the first intifada, the first Gulf War and the Madrid Peace

Conference. It is also vital to examine the political ramifications of the Accords on

Palestinians, as well as their symbolic pertinence, something that will be explained here as an iconoclastic gesture. Finally, we also need to consider the way in which Oslo changed Palestinian art and film by destabilising the reliance on documentary genres and by introducing humour.

As we have seen, the history of the Palestinian experience is shaped by the

Israel/Palestine conflict and is marked with collective trauma, national struggle and political oppression. Given this, humour does not instinctively appear as a predictable choice for the narration of the Palestinian story. Yet it can be argued that laughter appears when tragedy exists in excess, as is undeniably the case in Palestinian

170 history.383 Given the fact that Oslo delivered a cruel blow to Palestinians by effectively destroying any hope of a sovereign state in the foreseeable future, it is a moment that can retrospectively be understood as signifying tragedy in excess. It is perhaps for this reason that humour enters Palestinian cultural output with the failure of the peace process. The kinship between laughter and tears, or humour and trauma, is characteristic of humour in Palestinian art and film. Hence, it is fitting that its advent in cultural output appears at a time of political despair and indeed absurdity.384

In this context, ‘Palestinian humour’ refers to humorous cultural output produced by Palestinian practitioners. Though an explosion of laughter can be witnessed in Palestinian art and film since 1993, this shift in emphasis away from didactic modes of representation towards humour became most apparent in the years following 2000. This correlation is no coincidence. These dates correspond to a historical junction in Palestinian experience and identity that occurred as a consequence of the peace process, beginning in Oslo in 1993 and with the failure of the 2000 Camp

David Summit. The failure of the Accords continued with the advent of the Roadmap to

Peace. Proposed by George W. Bush in 2002, the Roadmap to Peace, like its predecessor, continued to fail. Year by year, as the peace process continues to stall, it is

383 William Hazlitt cited in Benjamin La Forge, “Comedy’s Intention,” Philosophy and Literature 28.1 (2004): 125; Christie Davies, “Humour is not a Strategy in War,” Journal of European Studies 31 (2001): 396 – 406. The relationship between tears and laughter has long been witnessed and called into discussion outside the margins of humour theory. For English writer and humanist William Hazlitt the kinship between tears and laughter was argued in his 1819 essay On Wit & Humour to be forged because both laughter and tears are defined as convulsive and involuntary movements that come when we are asked to reconcile contradictory appearances. This substantiates the idea that there is a connection between laughter and tears that forms a bridge between humour and tragedy. The humour of Palestinians is inevitably shaped by the Israel/Palestine conflict and war of the previous decades and the tragedy that it has created. Although arguably a tool against oppression (a discussion taken up in Chapter 8), humour is occasionally argued to not be a strategy in war. This claim is made most significantly by Christie Davies. 384 Though the humour of Palestinians, like that of all other cultural and national groups cannot be argued to exist as a Palestinian humour per se, it is, like all other forms of humour, reliant on a shared understanding of experience, history and culture. Though one could spend considerable time attempting to argue and define a humour peculiar to Palestinians, this exercise would prove futile, for humour is akin to culture ‐ its meaning and content is constantly fluid, changing shape according to historical events and social mores. 171 increasingly apparent that negotiations spawned from the framework of the Oslo

Accords are doomed to failure.

In order to comprehend the meaning and significance of manifestations of

Palestinian humour in art and film one must be aware of the history of both as well as the Palestinian national story. The interdisciplinary approach towards art, film and humour can harness a variety of perspectives allowing for an integration of findings and observations. This reflects the current trend in humour studies, where interdisciplinary research has become an influential strategy precisely because it allows for the sharing of concepts, models and metaphors.385 To witness humorous Palestinian art and film without an understanding of Palestinian history would almost certainly create a ‘lost in translation’ effect, where audiences would be closed off from the meaning and indeed enjoyment encouraged by these humorous works. To achieve this understanding one must understand Palestinian historymore broadly but also understand the events of the first intifada, a period that not only shifted the collective mindset and identity but also instigated the first dedicated study of Palestinian humour.

The intifada and the corresponding mindset of the generation known as ‘children of the stones’ would probably not have come about when it did were it not for the economic, political and ideological changes in the years prior to 1987. For S. K. Farson and J. M. Landis, the ideological changes developed in that period include Israel’s retreat from Lebanon in 1982, the loss of Arab oil revenues and the unification of PLO factions in 1987.386 In addition to these factors, the tense political climate of the intifada was only bolstered by the growing high unemployment rate in the territories that came

385 Kristen A. Murray, “Burn, Bury or Dump”: Black Humour in the Late Twentieth Century, PhD dissertation, University of New South Wales, 2008, 9. Following from the research findings of Jerry Palmer and Christie Davies, who claim that humorology has been let down by the insularity of academics working in their given fields, Murray convincingly argues for the continuation of the current trend in humour research where writers take an interdisciplinary approach to laughter. 386 Meghdissian, “The Discourse of Oppression as Expressed in Writings of the Intifada,” 41. 172 about as a result of the Israeli government’s attempts to reduce reliance on Palestinian workers.387 With this in mind, Dina Matar would seem correct in saying that the outbreak of the intifada came because the situation in the territories had created a climate where the ‘Palestinians felt there was little to lose if they broke the rules of the game’.388

Though the major success of the grassroots struggle of the first intifada might be said to have been the transformation of both the way Palestinians perceived popular resistance and the international growing recognition of their struggle against the occupation, there were also several concrete political consequences to the uprising. The first of these was King Hussein of Jordan’s decision in July 1988 to terminate all forms of administrative and legal ties with what he called the West Bank.389 The second was the loss of Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) morale, which, having been trained for war situations struggled to keep up with its role as a policing agent during the intifada.390

Yet, the most important of the political actions to come about as a result of the uprising was the proclamation of the independent state of Palestine by the Palestinian National

Council in November of 1988.391 All these political transformations formed a new way for Palestinians to carry out and represent struggle. This transformation became evident in what can be described as the humorous folkloric practices of the time, something that forms the emphasis of the research of the anthropologist Professor Sharif Kanaana.

Kanaana’s body of research has centred on Palestinian identity in relation to the role of folk tales in its revival and understanding. Born in Nazareth prior to the Nakba,

Kanaana spent many years working in the United States where he became increasingly

387 Wasserstein, Israel and Palestine: Why They Fight and Can They Stop? 62. 388 Matar, What it Means to be Palestinian 156. 389 Boyle, Palestine, Palestinians and International Law 58. 390 Norman Finkelstein, Image and Reality of the Israel‐Palestine Conflict (New York: Verso, 2003) xxxiii. 391 Boyle, Palestine, Palestinians and International Law 59. For further discussion on the meaning and significance of the 1988 Declaration of Independence refer to Chapter 7. 173 interested in the nostalgia found in those longing for their homeland. For Kanaana, the interest in Palestinian folk tradition came as a result of his research into Palestinian identity. In a 2011 interview he explains that ‘the business of searching for your own identity is the business of locating things that symbolise it. For me, these symbols were in folklore’.392 Kanaana’s work is to date the most substantial research dealing with

Palestinian humour in the English language, albeit within the frame of political folklore.

His 2005 book Struggling for Survival: Essays in Palestinian Folklore and Folklife spans the spectrum of Palestinian folkloric practice and includes several essays on

Palestinian humour.

Though Kanaana has published widely on political folklore, it was not until the outbreak of the first intifada that he turned his attention to Palestinian humour and jokes. This interest was sparked by his observation of the proliferation of humour at that time alongside the realisation that ‘jokes and humour could co-exist with so much pain and misery, or even could be generated by it’. Further still, he argues that jokes and humour could react to political events faster than other forms of folklore.393 Rather than framing the humour he witnessed with the outbreak of the intifada within humorological analysis, the anthropologist chose instead to start collecting intifada humour without a

394 theoretical frame or hypothesis.

According to Kanaana, the jokes of this period signified a change in Palestinian self-perspective. This was because they mirrored a growing sense of positivity around

392 Sharif Kanaana quoted in Robin Myers and Shadi Rohana, “Interview: Sharif Kanaana on Palestinian Folklore and Identity,” The Electronic Intifada, 20 March 2011. 20 September 2011. . 393 Sharif Kanaana, Struggling for Survival: Essays in Palestinian Folklore and Folklife (Al‐Bireh: Society of Ina’ash El‐Usra, 2005) 17. 394 Kanaana, Struggling for Survival 19. Though Kanaana’s work does unpack the political and cultural genesis of the humour he witnessed at the time, his approach appears more akin to anthropological notes from the field. Kanaana’s decision to restrain from in‐depth analysis, allows researchers a rare retrospective insight in the Palestinian mindset on the ground in the first intifada. As such, his decision to avoid humorology only serves to be beneficial to his work and to those looking for the ‘word on the street’ during the uprising. 174

Palestinian identity, with jokes often portraying Palestinians as victorious or superior, something that stood in contrast to pre-intifada humour which ‘reflected a mood and attitude of self-hatred, disrespect, self-depreciation, even contempt’. 395 Though

Kanaana’s work does unpack the class divisions and intra-/inter-group conflicts witnessed in the humour of the uprising, it also suggests that overall Palestinians felt confident they would succeed in their liberation struggle, thus in many ways harking back to the legacy of the revolutionary identity.396

Following from Kanaana’s research, one might argue that the first intifada was a signal of an impending junction for Palestinian identity, created not only by the generational divide of those who participated in it, but also the revolutionary history that preceded it and the disillusionment that was to follow with both the first Gulf War and the Oslo Accords. As a result, the children of the stones found themselves approaching a crossroads of Palestinian identity, and their role in this was something that is echoed in the humour of the period where they feature heavily.397 In many ways

Kanaana’s work came before its time, showing tremendous foresight in its discussion of the benefits of Palestinian humour, including its ability to narrate the Palestinian story and coalesce a sense of solidarity.398 His work set the foundations for the analysis of

Palestinian humorous cultural output witnessed ever more frequently today.

The Palestinian use of humour changed with the events of the first Gulf War and later with the Oslo Accords. The Gulf War in particular can in retrospect be seen as an

395 Kanaana, Struggling for Survival 20. 396 Kanaana, Struggling for Survival 21 and 27. Kanaana’s essays on humour suggest that jokes were beneficial to Palestinian society during the intifada. Though he elucidates upon the way jokes serve to demarcate divisions and distinctions within Palestinian society. Overall humour is presented as a beneficial force, aiding the narration of the Palestinian liberation struggle. 397 Kanaana, Struggling for Survival 69. Many jokes from this period focus on the role of Palestinian youth in the intifada. These jokes even go so far as to suggest that Palestinian babies have a role in the uprising. 398 Kanaana, Struggling for Survival 65. 175 event that quashed the optimism witnessed in Palestinians in the years leading up to the conflict. Aside from the tremendous death toll and the mass depopulation that that came with the Gulf War, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait also reconfigured the parameters of

Middle Eastern political relationships and the Palestinian place within them. Revisiting the conflict, and in particular the role and consequences for Palestinians, reveals that indeed the first Gulf War marked a political crossroads for Palestinians, challenging their liberation movement and straining the growing international sympathy towards it.

The intifada was symptomatic of uprisings happening around the world in the late 1980s, in that it represented the shifting geopolitics that came with the winding down and eventual end of the Cold War. In the case of the Middle East, the cessation of the competing global superpower framework was not viewed as a victory of consensus politics over power politics, but rather as a new phase of American hegemony. Shibli

Telhami explains that for the Arabs, the decline of the Soviet Union as a major superpower was seen to usher in ‘an era of American hegemony that also entailed

Israeli’s regional hegemony’.399

For Palestinians this was made blatantly obvious when the US repeatedly delivered the PLO several blows. This first of these was in the spring of 1990 when both sides of the American Congress affirmed Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. This was followed by the US vetoing a United Nations resolution condemning Israel’s violent responses to the intifada, and President George Bush suspending dialogue between the

US and the PLO in June 1990.400 This strained political background, coupled with the grassroots demand for liberation in the intifada, perhaps explains Yassir Arafat’s decision to support Saddam Hussein’s annexation of Kuwait. Though with the benefit

399 Shibli Telhami, “Arab Opinion and the Gulf War,” Political Science Quarterly 108.3 (1993): 442. 400Ann Mosely Lesch, “Contrasting Reactions to the Persian Gulf Crises: Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinians,” Middle East Journal 45.1 (1991): 82. 176 of hindsight we now know Arafat’s decision to be a disastrous political mistake, it is important to understand his allegiance with Iraq as a result of Hussein’s vocal support of the Palestinian cause.

Saddam Hussein’s promises to Arafat were quite clear; indeed, by April 1990 he pledged to Arafat in a Baghdad meeting that ‘we shall support [the intifada] by our air force and accurate missiles in order to deal a blow to the enemy and defeat it even without ground fighting’.401 Arafat’s allegiance to Iraq saw him become increasingly vocal in his opposition to the US and by early 1991, only four months after the invasion of Kuwait, Arafat rallied a Baghdad audience by explaining that if the West want to

‘have O-I-L they have to also take the P-L-O’.402 The PLO chairman’s belief in

Saddam’s promises and threats towards Israel trickled down to Palestinians in the

Occupied Territories who, as evidenced even by their jokes at the time, began to believe that Iraq may lead the path towards liberation.

As the Gulf War progressed, the conflict was becoming less about an

Iraq/Kuwait confrontation and growing more to resemble an Arab/American one. In much of the Arab public opinion of the time, Saddam Hussein was seen as an all- powerful leader who could restore power to the Arab world. Examined more closely, this view of Hussein’s power and perceived ethos during the early stages of the Gulf war held many of the trademarks of the ghost of Pan-Arabism.403 This perception of

Saddam was made possible because of the reconfiguration of the major power-playing nations in the Middle East following the end of the Cold War. His popularity among some groups of the Arab world reinforced a legacy, as Anne Mosely Lesch notes, of

401 Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin, Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography (London: Continuum, 2003) 122. 402 Rubin and Colp Rubin, Yasir Arafat 122. 403 Lesch, “Contrasting Reactions to the Persian Gulf Crises,” 40. 177

Iraqi leaders who sought to lead the Arab world.404 The 1980’s presented Iraq with the opportunity to replace Egypt, which for decades was seen as the leader of the Arab world and the Pan-Arab movement. The Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s decision to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, making Egypt the first Arab country to officially recognise Israel, meant that Iraq now attracted increasing popularity following Arab disillusionment with Egypt.

Though Saddam Hussein’s past was not approved of by many political groups in the region, some went so far as to call him the new Salah al-Din, capable of uniting the

Arab world and transforming it into a dominant global force.405 With these Pan-Arabist rumblings of the time, Palestine yet again became the central tool of political rhetoric.

Given Palestine’s long and continuing history of being used as political fodder by Arab governments, it is surprising that Arafat so fervently adopted Hussein’s promises and supported his annexation of Kuwait.406 It would seem that yet again the rumblings of the Pan-Arabist poltergeist had promised the Palestinian people something it would not, and indeed could not, deliver.407

In terms of the Middle East, Iraq’s relationship with its neighbours had also cooled following the end of the Iran-Iraq war and Iraq had borrowed heavily from the

Gulf countries, a war debt that it was unable to pay. With the price of oil down substantially by 1990 due to Kuwait and United Arab Emirates overproduction, Iraq found itself in a financial crisis that threatened support for its president, even leading to

404 Lesch, “Contrasting Reactions to the Persian Gulf Crises,” 30. 405 Lesch, “Contrasting Reactions to the Persian Gulf Crises,” 44. 406 Shibli Telhami, “Arab Opinion and the Gulf War,” 441. 407 Alistair Finlain, Essential Histories: The Gulf War 1991 (New York: Routledge, 2003) 3. In many ways, Saddam Hussein needed to use the Palestinian occupation as a political draw card, without it he likely would not have achieved the popular Arab support he needed. Having amassed too many political enemies around the world and Iraq being in a dire economic situation, Hussein could no longer rely on the Soviet Union which (in its final days and under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev) was much more limited in its assistance and increasingly impartial in its view of the Middle East. In addition, Britain had also decided to halt arms trade with Iraq following Hussein’s human‐rights record. 178 four assassination attempts between 1988 and 1990.408 Given this background, one begins to clearly see that Hussein’s call to liberate Palestinians had less to do with his ideological position and was much more about invading Kuwait to rectify Iraq’s declining economic and political position.

Though Saddam Hussein’s threats to annex Kuwait were made repeatedly, most

Arab nations did not believe he would follow through with the invasion. Yassir Arafat was himself put in a difficult position, acting as a political mediator and easing Arab government’s concerns that Hussein may not follow through with his threats. When Iraq did eventually launch its offensive in August 1990, it was swiftly met with international condemnation. The US, Saudi Arabia and Egypt made up the great majority of the international coalition sent to Kuwait to expel the Iraqi troops.409

The success of the coalition’s assaults were understood very early in their engagement and within the first few days of the ground offensive it became clear to coalition military leaders and politicians that the war for Kuwait was in effect already won.410 Given that the coalition’s military equipment was in an entirely different league to that of Iraq, being at least a generation ahead, the coalition and various media outlets quickly began to suspect that ‘a degree of overkill was creeping into their operations’.411

The victory of the coalition army was incredibly swift and by 10 March 1991, the US began to remove its troops from the Persian Gulf.

The coalition’s victory over Iraq held devastating consequences for the

Palestinians. One could go so far as to argue that second to the Iraqis and the Kuwaitis themselves, the war brought the most political devastation to the Palestinians, with

400,000 expelled from Kuwait and a liberation struggle now tarnished again in the eyes

408 Finlain, Essential Histories 3. 409 This began on the 17th of January 1991 with an aerial bombardment that was followed with a ground assault in late February that year. 410 Finlain, Essential Histories 62. 411 Finlain, Essential Histories 62. 179 of the West. Though Arafat personally never apologised for the PLO’s support of the

Iraqi invasion, one can now see that Arafat would have benefitted from heeding the advice of other Palestinians in leadership positions, such as both Abu Iyad and Hanan

Ashwari, who strongly opposed the invasion. The Palestinian disillusionment that came with the Gulf War was to be replaced with a brief wave of optimism sprung from the peace conferences facilitated after the conflict.

The demise of Iraq as a growing power in the Middle East opened the potential for a new order in the region. Both the United States and the by now diminishing Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) were aware of this, and took up the opportunity to lay the groundwork for this new order by organising a peace conference in Madrid.

Instigated primarily by the United States, and co-convened by the USSR, the conference was hosted by Spain and lasted three days, beginning on 30 October 1991. With the involvement of the American, Soviet, Israeli, Syrian, Jordanian, Lebanese and

Palestinian authorities, the Madrid conference was shaped and conceived as an early step in the Arab/Israeli peace process. For Palestinians, the event allowed an opportunity to improve their image in the globally-mediated sphere, which had suffered a heavy blow after their public support for Saddam Hussein.412

Although the Oslo Accords are often credited as the historical moment when the

Palestinians denounced armed struggle in favour of diplomacy, Arafat had in fact suggested that the PLO turn to diplomatic means as early as 1988, where in speeches in

Algiers and Geneva he stated that reliance on armed struggle would not be enough to achieve Palestinian statehood and that diplomacy was now necessary. The Gulf War appeared as an intermission to this diplomatic sentiment, but with Iraq’s eventual loss in the conflict the Palestinian leadership had to embrace diplomacy in the early 1990s as

412 Yosefa Loshitzky, “The Text of the Other, The Other in the Text: The Palestinian Delegation’s Address to the Madrid Middle East Peace Conference,” Journal of Communication Inquiry 18.1 (1994): 36. 180 never before. The Palestinian address at the Madrid Peace Conference utilised these earlier commitments to diplomacy to affirm the re-invigorated Palestinian commitment to peaceful negotiations, claiming that ‘ever since then [Algiers and Geneva] our people have responded positively to every serious peace initiative’. 413

The conference based its quest towards peace negotiations around the principles of the UN Resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). These resolutions called upon Israel to withdraw its armed forces from the territories occupied in the June War of 1967 and for all states in the region to respect and acknowledge the sovereignty and independence of their neighbours.414 Though building on these resolutions some two decades after their declaration, the conference was given new gravity as a result of the changing international public sphere that was increasingly adopting televised political summits.

Given that this was the last international conference attended by the USSR before its collapse, Madrid stands as a symbol of the ushering in of a new period of ‘political reality’, which allowed for television to grow into a genuinely international institution with the ability to play an autonomous role in world politics.415 For Palestinians this new political reality, as Yoseta Loshitzky argues, offered the ability to redeem themselves from invisibility and silence, key themes in the Palestinian address at

Madrid.416

The other salient point made in the Palestinian address at Madrid was around the ongoing Palestinian process of nation-building, with the intifada described as the driving exercise behind this process. In this way, Madrid offered Palestinians the opportunity to present the essence and goals of their struggle to the global sphere via

413 Loshitzky, “The Text of the Other, The Other in the Text,” 29. 414 ‘Security Council Resolutions’, The United Nations, 30 September 2011 . 415 Jay Rosen, “Making Journalism More Public,” Communication 12.4 (1991): 267‐284. 416 Loshitzky, “The Text of the Other, The Other in the Text,” 28. 181 television. In other words, for the first time they could use their own voice in the narration of their liberation struggle on television screens. This opportunity to present the national narrative on international television contributed to the weight often attributed to the Madrid conference. Though the event delivered few political accomplishments, its legacy remains its symbolism as the event that laid the foundations for the historical Oslo Accords, the first of which was signed two years later in 1993.417

The signing of the Oslo Accords would not have been possible without the political changes that had taken place for both Israeli and Palestinian leadership. The

Oslo plan was devised by Israelis of the Zionist left within the Labor movement, who sought an agreement with the PLO and negotiated with willing members of the PLO in

Tunis.418 The facilitation of these preliminary talks came as a product of the changing geopolitics of the time, with the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Gulf

War, two events that had weakened the PLO’s political strength and position. These factors are those that many historians, including Ilan Pappe, cite as having allowed

Palestinian leadership to accept partition as the basis for a solution to the conflict.

Though this was contingent on the Right of Return, political sovereignty and Jerusalem as the capital, these factors were for the first time now negotiable for the PLO.419 On the

Israeli side of affairs, the 1992 election victory of Yitzhak Rabin’s Labor Party flagged a popular willingness to vote for a government that was vocal about its intent to vacate occupied land in order to achieve peace.420

Naturally, the factors contributing to the instigation of Oslo are framed very differently depending on the commentators (and subsequent political ideologies) to

417 Gregory Harms and Todd M. Ferry, The Palestine Israel Conflict: A Basic Introduction (London: Pluto Press, 2008) 153. 418 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 240. 419 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 240. 420 Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine 241. 182 which one chooses to subscribe. For writer Anthony N. Celso, the ‘glue’ that bound

Israelis and Palestinians together to forge Oslo was Rabin’s calculation that Arafat and the PLO had ‘sincerely’ renounced terrorism and that Arafat could be ‘trusted’ to quell terrorist acts in order to become a democratic statesman.421 Nearly all literature covering the Oslo Accords, whether it supports the Palestinians or the Israelis, centres on the language of ‘trust’ and ‘sincerity’, pitching the opposing side as saboteur to both depending on the writer’s political allegiance. Though this comes as no surprise, any author with a semblance of objectivity will agree that the Israelis were in a far stronger position in the Oslo negotiations.

One of the most crucial features of Oslo was that it called for the abandonment of the entire body of international law and resolutions relating to the Israel/Palestine conflict developed over 53 years. This, as political economist Sara Roy writes, was done ‘in favour of bilateral negotiations between two actors of grossly unequal power’.422 With only UN Resolutions 242 and 338 remaining as the international basis for peace negotiations, the international community, and indeed the PLO, believed that at the least this would require Israel to withdraw from land occupied in the June War of

1967. However, like so much else contained within the agreement, Resolutions 242 and

338 were open to manipulation by Israel. As Roy points out, the accepted English version of UN Resolution 242 (of which 338 is in essence only an reiteration) refers to

‘territories’ occupied in 1967, not the territories, as stated in the French version. This ambiguity was symptomatic of the entire character of the accords that allowed Israel the leeway to continue its occupation of Palestinian territories.423

421 Anthony N. Celso, “The Death of the Oslo Accords: Israeli Security Options in the Post‐Arafat Era,” Mediterranean Quarterly 14.1 (2003) 69. 422 Sara Roy, “Why Peace Failed: An Oslo Autopsy,” Current History 100.651 (2002) 14. 423 Roy, “Why Peace Failed,” 15. 183

The ambiguity that came to typify the impotence of Oslo to deliver any longstanding peace in the region is magnified by the fact that the Accords were struck as a set of principles rather than legally binding conditions. This set the Oslo peace process in opposition to other more successful peace negotiations such as those of South

Africa, Northern Ireland, Vietnam and Algeria because as a political and diplomatic document, the Accords are full diplomatic ambiguity that makes them ‘resources for those in polity committed to the principles underlying the agreement, rather than as a set of rules whose contravention will be treated, within each polity, as criminal acts’.424

This ambiguity has inevitably destroyed the credibility of Oslo, and in the years since has been manipulated with enormous sophistication and success by Israel to lead to the dire situation we continue to see in the region. As such, rather than heralding a move towards a lasting peace, Oslo provided an arsenal of legal and popular relations cannon fodder that prevents the transfer of territory to the Palestinians while continuing to immunise Israel against its commitments.425

The damage suffered by Arafat as a result of the Accords is also significant. As the face of Palestinian leadership for decades, and as their voice to the international community, his delegitimisation trickled down to affect both the Palestinians and their supporters. Looking back at Arafat’s decision to sign the Declaration of Principles, one is astounded that he would have conceded such an agreement. For when he did, he by proxy affirmed the Israeli position, which as Sara Roy notes, was the one that prevailed within all the Accords, none of which used the word occupation or addressed Israel as an occupying power.426 In addition, the agreements did not recognise borders or full

Palestinian equality. Most alarmingly however, the agreement also failed to properly

424 Ian S. Lustruck, “The Oslo Agreement as an Obstacle to Peace,” Journal of Palestine Studies 27.1 (1997): 61. 425 Lustruck, “The Oslo Agreement as an Obstacle to Peace,” 66. 426 Roy, “Why Peace Failed: An Oslo Autopsy,” 15. 184 address Israeli settlements and Palestinian land confiscation, with neither practice clearly prohibited by the agreement. This is most distressing because it remains to this day the largest obstacle to peace. The failure to acknowledge these issues meant that the

Palestinians now found themselves in a situation where Israel would decide for itself when, where and if it would withdraw from the occupied territories.

For the newly established Palestinian Authority (PA), Oslo created a role where they had the task of essentially managing the occupation of Israel by implementing interim arrangements. The PA was given control over services such as health and education, but importantly Israel still held control over security in the West Bank and

Gaza. This was worsened with the second Oslo agreement in 1995 when the West Bank was divided into Areas A, B and C. Area A was designated as under PA control and encompassed major Palestinian towns. Area B gave civilian control to the PA and security control to Israel in other remaining population centres. Area C was under complete Israeli control and was comprised of settlements and Israeli military bases.

Though this agreement was signed as being temporary, and did grant some control to the PA, it did not any way legitimise Palestinian sovereignty. Norman Finkelstein perhaps put it best when he explained that ‘the tacit, Pollyannaish assumption is that any new reality must improve on the present state of affairs. Yet, the new reality will more than likely allow for the tightening of Israel’s grip on the Palestinians’.427

Finkelstein’s analysis could not have been more accurate, in that since Oslo the

West Bank has become a fragmented land of Bantustans and Gaza an unliveable and sealed off territory. The conception of Oslo as an orchestrated plan to continue and intensify the occupation of Palestinians is also understood by Israeli political analysts such as Meron Benvenisti, who when writing in regard to the agreements made in the

427 Finkelstein, Image and the Reality of the Israel‐Palestine Conflict 177. 185

DoP explains that Oslo ‘is no more than permanent Israeli domination in disguise…Palestinian self-rule is merely a euphemism for Bantustanisation’.428 Yet in spite of all this, the Oslo Accords continue to be the basis of peace negotiations, regardless of the serious and obvious deficiencies of the agreements.

Ali Abunimeh, the founder of the Electronic Intifada, accurately describes the contemporary perspective on the accords, writing that ‘the lasting legacy of the Oslo process is that far from advancing the two-state solution, it in fact laid the groundwork for the fragmentation of the occupied territories’. 429 Abunimeh here obviously references the growth of settlements, the division of the West Bank into Areas A, B and

C and the construction of the (depending on your politics)

Separation/Security/Apartheid Wall. Given the sorry state of affairs that currently reign in the region, Oslo runs the risk of appearing as a distant memory, a historical moment and opportunity lost under the weight of the Palestine/Israel impasse. Importantly, the traces of Oslo are marked daily for those living in the West Bank. One might say that

West Bankers live in a perpetual Oslo interim period, waiting for final stage negotiations that now appear as a pipe dream. An interim period that was supposed to last a few years has now abominably come to define everyday life in the West Bank for almost two decades.

Laying witness to the Bantustanism that currently prevails in the West Bank justifies Edward Said’s 2004 claim that ‘the Palestinian people are paying a heavy, heavy unconscionable price of Oslo which…left them with bits of land lacking coherence and continuity, security institutions designed to assure their subservience to

428 Meron Benvenisti cited in Finkelstein, Image and the Reality of the Israel‐Palestine Conflict 177. 429 Ali Abunimeh, One Country: A bold proposal to end the Israeli‐Palestinian impasse (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006) 67. 186

Israel, and a life that imprisoned them’.430 Within such an analysis, Oslo clearly marked a destructive change for Palestinians on the ground in terms of their rights, movement, resources and political power. Yet Oslo can also be argued to mark another significant change in the conflict, and that is the way Palestinians saw themselves and their collective identity.

In the years building up to Oslo, Palestinians were framed often in terms of what is described by some scholars as a ‘revolutionary identity’. Over the decades prior to the

Oslo Accords, Palestinians had deliberately framed themselves within the scope of a revolutionary collective identity in order to elude the stigma of the refugee identity projected on them as a result of the Nakba. The revolutionary identity was most pronounced up until 1982, when the PLO was forced to leave Beirut. The revolutionary identity visibly re-emerged prior to the end of the first Gulf War. The devastation brought by the events of the Gulf War served to diminish the popularity of this identity as it became clear that Palestinian oppression and the consequent striving towards liberation were a political issue that could be manipulated for the political benefit of others. The revolutionary identity had not delivered what it was originally thought to promise and a change in political approach and national and collective identification was in some senses now inevitable.

Oslo marked a clear turning point for the Palestinian revolutionary identity because the recognition of Israel and the consequent diplomatic relations that came as a result of the DoP was orchestrated to force the revolutionary Palestinian identity to the sidelines. Given that the PLO had to now accept, as Alan Dowty notes, ‘the basic responsibility of all governments not to allow its citizens to attack neighbouring

430 Said, From Oslo to Iraq and the Roadmap 165. 187 populations’ Palestinians had to, at least officially, let go of the images of fedayeen freedom fighters and the idea of revolution by force.

Notwithstanding this transformation in self-perspective and the fact that ‘on all crucial issues—Jerusalem, water, repatriation, sovereignty, security, land—Palestinians, according to Said, ‘have in effect gained nothing’ [and] the actual picture is, if anything, bleaker than Said suggests, one must ask what good actually came of Oslo?431

Surprisingly, the success of Oslo extends beyond the mere heartwarming photos of

Yassir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin shaking hands for the first time (Figure 20). More symbolic than even these images is the fact that Oslo marked the first real time that

Palestinians achieved a certain stability. That is to say, that their identity, collective national struggle and right to the land, something that had been constantly under question over the years, finally became officially recognised internationally. The world’s gaze had ultimately granted the Palestinians cultural legitimacy and recognition.

This recognition did, however, come at significant cost; that of the abandonment of the long narrative of resistance and revolution that had underpinned Palestinian nationalism for decades. Leaving aside the catastrophic political consequences of Oslo for a moment, let us again consider the photograph of the Oslo Accords Signing

Ceremony, this time remembering that the image stands as a signifier of the moment

Arafat agreed to acknowledge Israel and, at least officially, abandon the revolutionary struggle.

431 Finkelstein, Image and the Reality of the Israel‐Palestine Conflict 173. 188

Figure 20.

Oslo Accords Signing Ceremony, September 13, 1993

This image of Arafat stands in direct opposition to the revolutionary nationalist iconography that characterised Arafat, not only as the Palestinian political leader, but also as an icon of Palestinian nationalism. Despite wearing his distinctive militaristic garb and keffieh, referencing the Arab revolts prior to 1948, Arafat is depicted here not with an AK47, nor steadfastly looking into the distance. Rather, he is shown shaking hands with ‘the enemy’, even smiling while he does so. The radical disjunction between historical depictions of Arafat as a revolutionary hero and his depiction as a diplomatic partner to peace in the photographs of the Oslo Signing Ceremony leads one to suggest that the photograph of Arafat shaking hands with Yitzhak Rabin functions as a form of iconoclasm.

The photograph of the Signing Ceremony functions as an iconoclastic gesture because it actively destroys the iconography surrounding Arafat as a Palestinian revolutionary hero and visually signifies a shattering of Palestinian militant nationalism.

189

Though it cannot definitely be said whether Arafat was complicit or indeed conscious of the ramifications of this iconoclastic gesture, one thing is certain: the image both served to undermine Arafat’s deliberately constructed iconography of Palestinian nationalism and that it signalled an end to the dominance of the Palestinian revolutionary identity.

Arafat’s decision to agree to the DoP continues to astound writers and commentators, as the DoP not only fundamentally challenged Arafat’s authority both politically and symbolically, but also because the Accords were arguably designed to fail from the outset.

Palestinians would become by far the biggest losers in the Accords, providing far more concessions in the agreement than Israel. This explains the joke presented at the beginning of this chapter about Arafat’s refusal to take his wife Suha to the signing of the first Accord in Oslo. The joke suggests that at Oslo Arafat gave away too much control to Israel, so much so that if he were to have taken Suha, he would have happily given her away too. The joke signified how far removed Arafat had come from the revolutionary identity and iconic status that he had been previously associated with. In turn it also reveals the failure of Palestinianism and a departure from a mindset characterised by the ethos of ‘revolution until victory’.

The signing of the Accords marked a moment of iconoclasm that signalled a critical junction in the reshaping of Palestinian identity and its narration. It is useful here to return to the idea of Oslo as the punchline of Palestinian identity. To unpack this comparison it is beneficial to consider Oslo literally as a joke. To unpack the comparison of Oslo to a joke, one should consider for a moment what humorologists call Incongruity Theory. The Incongruity Theory of humour suggests that laughter comes as a result of a defiance of our expectations.432 Take for example the structure of

432 James E. Collins and Wyer, “A Theory of Humor Elicitation,” 665. 190 jokes we most are familiar with, where a long meandering story is told, leading to what we call a punchline. The punchline marks the moment where our expectations are fractured and as a result we laugh. It would seem that Oslo was the punchline of

Palestinian identity, the end of a long narrative of resistance and nationalism centred on political revolution and militarism and the moment the world expected would bring about peace in the region. Instead, Oslo delivered to the Palestinians a cruel punchline, one that denied their expectations and hopes, reshaping their identity and leaving them in what is often described as the worst period in their history. It was with this Oslo punchline that we witness the explosion of laughter and humour in Palestinian art and film. The gaggle that followed Oslo continues to encourage a new experimentation with

Palestinian identity, one that tests the very boundaries of ‘Palestinianness’.433

As will be explored in subsequent chapters, the humour that emerged in

Palestinian cultural output challenged ‘Palestinianness’ in essentially three ways: first, by calling into question the identification with the landscape and by attempting to delineate the ‘borders’ of Palestine, a place that remains both politically and symbolically ‘borderless’. Second, this humour serves to draw attention to the ongoing

Israeli occupation and its consequences for Palestinians. Finally, this humour can be seen to coalesce a sense of collective Palestinian identity. Broadly speaking, however, the emergence of humour in Palestinian cultural output signified a departure from the aesthetic modes that had previously dominated both art and film.

For further discussion on Incongruity Theory and the literature that surrounds it refer to the Introduction. 433 Miriyam Aouragh, Palestine Online: Transnationalism, the Internet and the Construction of Identity (London: I.B Taurus & Co Ltd, 2011) It is noteworthy here to mention that it was arguably not only the Oslo Accords that spurred a shift in Palestinian nationalism. The timing of the peace process coincided with the emergence of the internet, a technological advance that arguably influenced Palestinian nationalism as Palestinians in exile could communicate more quickly and freely. The internet continues to play a vital role in the articulation of Palestinian identity and Palestinian transnationalism. Excellent analysis of this phenomenon is presented by Miriyan Aouragh in her book Palestine Online. 191

Following the critical junction of Oslo, Palestinian cultural output began to veer towards a new path, one that took a course away from the dominant esteem placed with the documentary genre and documentary modes. The reasons for documentary dominance are many and varied, yet one could argue that the primary explanation for the popularity of the documentary genre and aesthetic can be attributed to the fact that first, in the case of film, documentaries are cheaper to produce, and second, that the documentary in both art and film seems an obvious choice for a cultural group sublimated within the historical archive.

The documentary form has not only been esteemed by Palestinian filmmakers and artists but also appears to be the genre and mode of choice for audiences. Film in particular carries a long legacy of the documentary and the continuing urge to tell the

Palestinian national narrative explains why the divergence from the documentary form by Palestinians filmmakers is often treated with contempt, seen as an unnecessary folly that distracts from the urgency of telling the national story. Though fictional works that continue to didactically retell the national narrative appear impervious to this kind of criticism, others are not so fortunate. One excellent example is the harsh criticism received by Michel Khleifi for Wedding in Galilee and more recently Zindeeq. As the first major Palestinian filmmaker working outside the documentary form, Khleifi is the primary example of how straying from the national narrative continues to attract criticism.434

Given that the Palestinian story is still seen as under threat, censored and sublimated, the filmic approach to the documentary as best candidate for the narration of the national story is symptomatic of the view of documentary as an ‘assertoric’ medium, a perspective that approaches the documentary as ‘the film of presumptive

434 For further discussion of the work of Michel Khleifi refer to Chapter 4. 192 assertion’. For film theorists such as Noel Carroll, this means that the documentary cannot be conceived of as fiction. 435 As a genre that might be included among the

‘discourses of sobriety’, the documentary is often problematically associated with the real, as direct, immediate and transparent.436 Within a conception such as this, any move away from the documentary by filmmakers (and indeed artists) might be seen as straying beyond the narrative boundaries of ‘Palestinianness’. These boundaries, however, present filmmakers and their output with a series of constraints that are now becoming more widely acknowledged and investigated.

The constraint of the Palestine entwinement with the documentary form is poetically captured in Jean Luc Godard’s 2004 film Notre Musique. In the film, the director is seen entering a classroom where he tells a group of students that in 1948 the

Jews (or more appropriately, the Zionists) ‘walked out of the water, the Jews became the stuff of fiction, the Palestinians became a documentary’. 437 Godard’s ironic distribution of genres between the Israelis and the Palestinians echoes the sentiments of philosopher Jacques Ranciere who notes that ‘the division between the freedom of fiction and the reality of the news—is always a distribution of possibilities and capacities’.438 For Ranciere this division creates a world divided between those who can and those who cannot afford the luxury of playing with images.439 He elucidates upon this idea by explaining that in such a world, Palestinians ‘can only offer the bodies of their victims to the gaze of news cameras or to the compassionate gaze at their suffering’.440 Within Ranciere’s framework, the documentary takes the cinematic role of

435 Nico Baumbach, “Jacques Ranciere and the Fictional Capacity of Documentary,” New Review of Film and Television Studies 8.1 (2010): 60. 436 Baumbach, “Jacques Ranciere and the Fictional Capacity of Documentary,” 61. 437 Notre Musique, dir. Jean Luc Godard, Avventura Films, 2004. 438 Jacques Ranciere in John Kelsey and Fulvia Carnevale, “Art of the Possible,” Artforum 45.7 (2007): 259. 439 Jacques Ranciere in Kelsey and Carnevale, “Art of the Possible,” 259. 440 Jacques Ranciere in Kelsey and Carnevale, “Art of the Possible,” 259. 193 the news camera, depicting Palestinian life within the scope of predetermined possibilities and capabilities.

Ostensibly, the documentary and its corresponding didactic and linear characteristics seem an ideal genre for the case of Palestine. The appeal may correspond to a phenomenon discussed by Palestinian author Ghada Karmi, where the Palestinian conflict is argued to be presented as a series of news sound bites that often do not allow the listener to hear the story from the beginning, that is to say, starting from the

Nakba. 441 To follow Kharmi’s assessment is to realise the inclination towards documentary, in that it more often than not allows the audience to hear and see the story from the beginning, with a coherent beginning, middle and end, and certainly without the threat of disorienting gaps and sound bites in between. This understanding is also nurtured by the conventional idea that the documentary practice and aesthetic can carry the weight of capturing the ‘real’ and the ‘unseen’.

Though much of Palestinian documentary practice is wary of the pitfalls of placing too much esteem on the genre, much documentary output continues to subscribe to the idea that this genre of film can best reveal the Palestinian plight and change public opinion. Theorist T. J. Demos locates the problems with this perspective through a comparison to mainstream media, writing that ‘if mainstream reporting refers primarily to its own set of codes rather than to reality itself…then what hope can the documentary expose have in challenging public perception in the media’s regulated environment?’.442

The venture towards a conveyance of suffering under occupation is what buttresses the ‘traumatic realism’ commonly understood to characterise Palestinian

441 Ghada Karmi, “Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine: The Process, the failure and the prospect for a just and workable solution,” Sydney Ideas – International Public Lecture Series, Public Lecture, The University of Sydney, October 9th, 2007. 442 T.J Demos, “The Right to Opacity: On the Otolith Group’s Nervus Rerum,” October 129 (2009): 115. 194 cinema.443 The danger implicit in the overabundance of this traumatic realism is that it plays into the notion of what has been described as ‘Pallywood’ cinema.444 Coined by historian Richard Landes from Boston University, the term ‘Pallywood’ originally referred to the contested media coverage of the death of 12-year-old Muhammad al-

Durrah in the second intifada. For Landes, ‘Pallywood’ is used to illustrate the perceived theatricality of al-Durah’s death as emblematic of what he believes to be

Palestinian propaganda and media manipulation. Though the impetus behind Landes’ terminology is skewed to support Israel and his short online documentary on the topic named Pallywood: According the Palestinian Sources has all the hallmarks of conspiracy theory, his term does tap into a genre of Palestinian victim reportage, that as

Demos writes, is ‘clichéd—and all too easily dismissed’.445

Investigating this genre closely reveals that its dismissal extends beyond those that support the actions of the Israeli state. The central dilemma of this genre is that while it is intended to expose the brutality of the Israeli occupation and to encourage support of the Palestinian plight from audiences, it also runs the risk of maintaining the status quo by feeding into dominant narratives supporting the conflict.446 As a result, one can also locate the risk of exhausting the audience’s ability to sympathise or bridge a point of connection with the trauma of Palestinians they see on their screens.

The documentary may feed into a kind of audience trauma fatigue, where rather than elicit support or understanding of the Palestinian cause, audiences may simply emotionally shut off. For Demos, one avenue suggested to hold potential in eluding this problem, is that of opacity. Writing in regard to the London-based Otolith Group’s

443 Demos, “The Right to Opacity,” 117. 444 Coleman E. Shear, “Landes Discusses Pallywood Theory,” The Dartmouth Review, 17 December 2010. 30 August 2012. < http://dartreview.com/features‐page/2010/12/17/landes‐discusses‐pallywood‐ theory.html>. 445 Demos, “The Right to Opacity,” 114. 446 Demos, “The Right to Opacity,” 115. 195 documentary film Nervus Rerum (2008), a work that attempts to illustrate the Jenin refugee camp without anthropological insight or transparency, Demos suggests that

‘drawing out the opacity of the image, unleashes its potential’.447 This observation may also be channelled into discussion of the Palestinian cinema that refuses to didactically narrate the Palestine story; thereby transgressing inscribed political roles and expectations. In Rancierian terms, this achieves a ‘dissensus’, ‘a way of reconstructing the relationship between places and identities, spectacles and gazes, proximities and distances’.448 The creation of the dissensus is generated in order to achieve ‘a space of play’, a space where Palestinians may move beyond their place in the distribution of genre.

To return to Notre Musique as a film that deals with this issue quite directly, it is worthwhile to consider the words of Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish, who in the film describes himself as a Trojan bard. Pondering whether the Trojans were defeated by the Greeks because of their lack of poetry, Darwish explains that he is looking for the poetry of the Trojans. Here Darwish makes the point that as mere players in the Euripedean epic, the Trojans are voiceless and remain forever etched in history as victims. This point conveys the idea that cultural output that enjoys the luxury of playing with images and ideas is integral to freedom and empowerment.

The Palestinian cultural output that chooses to move beyond the distribution of genres, as defined by Ranciere, negotiates new spaces of play, a dissensus that allows for a new frame of understanding of the Palestinian experience. The documentary aesthetic in both art and film, though often employed with the best of intentions and occasionally capable of inciting political action, largely falls short of achieving this aim.

This is because the documentary all too often simply acts as an affirmation of the

447 Demos, “The Right to Opacity,” 128. 448 Jacques Ranciere in Kelsey and Carnevale, “Art of the Possible,” 258. 196 existing state of affairs, cementing the role of the Palestinians as Trojans within the

Israeli epic.

Let us return here to the two consequences of Oslo mentioned previously. That is, that the signing of the Accords granted international recognition of Palestinian cultural singularity and validated their rightful connection to the land. Oslo also signalled a moment of iconoclasm that destabilised Palestinian nationalism anchored on revolutionary struggle and militancy. When considering these two outcomes of the

Accords in unison, one can understand how Oslo allowed Palestinian artists and filmmakers the ability to transgress pre-inscribed political roles and expectations. In addition, Oslo reconstructed previous perceptions of Palestinian identity and connection to place, thereby reframing the international gaze upon their struggle for nationhood. In such a way Oslo created a space for Palestinians to engage in ‘dissensus’ and to open up a new space of play.

This newly opened space of play provided Palestinian practitioners the ability to break out from the confines of nationalist iconography, thus affording them the opportunity to participate in what Ranciere describes as ‘the luxury of playing with images’. This meant that artists and filmmakers could use their work to push the boundaries and to question the terms of Palestinian national and collective narration. It was in this newly formed space of play that followed Oslo that one begins to detect the growing use of humour in art and film. This employment of humour brought with it a new set of narrative tactics and consequences for the understanding of Palestinian identity and the expression of national struggle.

The emergence of humour in Palestinian art and film has reframed the approaches, consequences and indeed the ethics of representing the collective trauma of the Palestinian experience. Faced with the failure of the peace process, collective

197 punishment, ongoing exile and dispossession, humour initially seems not only surprising but also perhaps problematic. It begs the question, what does it mean to laugh at or with heartbreak? This question is reminiscent of Theodor Adorno’s suggestion that there can be no poetry after Auschwitz. Extending Adorno’s assertion, one might ask if there can be laughter after unimaginable trauma such as that faced by the Palestinians.

The humour that emerges after the punchline of Oslo provides us with a new way of thinking about this question and for tracing the repercussions of humour when articulated by oppressed and marginalised groups whose lives continue to be punctuated by the experience of trauma.

The emergence of humour in Palestinian cultural output following the failure of the peace process might also be considered through another of Adorno’s statements.

Namely, that ‘rational cognition has but one limit: its inability to cope with suffering’.449 Humour emerged in cultural output at a moment of Palestinian suffering that came as hopes for peace and a sovereign Palestinian state were diminished as the peace process was continually seen to fail. Further, it emerged when there was an acute disavowal of the ‘rationality’ of both the international justice system and the Palestinian revolutionary struggle. It is perhaps for this reason that Palestinian cultural output turned to humour at a time of political despair, serving to amplify the failure of

‘rationalism’ associated with the peace process and the Palestinian nationalist movement.

However, Oslo was also responsible for the influx of international funding into the Palestinian Territories from various governments and Non-Government

Organisations. With this funding came a growth in Palestinian arts organisations, the establishment of galleries and the opportunity for artists and filmmakers to participate in

449 Tiedemann, ““Not the Philosophy, but a Last One” : Notes on Adorno’s Thought,” Introduction, Can One Live After Auschwitz xvi. 198 residencies around the world. These changes (explored in greater detail in Chapter 6) were partly responsible for the astonishing growth of the international profile of

Palestinian art and film since the middle 1990s. It is significant to note that Palestinian cultural output achieved a pronounced place in the international art and cinema market at a time when international trends in both of these media turned towards an emphasis on humour. This meant that Palestinian cultural output mirrored wider international trends in art and film that have for the last two decades been characterised by a critical use of laughter and a humour noir approach. In such a way, humour can be seen to have lent Palestinian artists and filmmakers a passport to international recognition because they employed a technique and conceptual emphasis that was in keeping with work from the ‘centre’ of both industries.450

However, that is not to say that when Palestinian art and film is presented in international contexts that its humour is easily understood. Though we may laugh at instances of ‘universal’ humour such as slapstick in film, or incongruous elements depicted in art, our laughter or indeed silence at specific humorous cues signifies our participation in what philosopher Simon Critchley describes as the ‘secret code’ of humour. 451 For non-Palestinians, access to this ‘secret code’ is contingent on a familiarity with Palestinian signs and symbols and an understanding of Palestinian history. Our laughter and indeed silence towards humorous output instigates, as Sheri

Klein notes, an inquiry into further understanding of how or why a work is humorous,

450 David McNeill, “Planet Art: Resistance and Affirmation in the Wake of 9/11,” Australia and New Zealand Journal of Art 3.2 (2002): 11‐32. The description of the ‘centre’ of art and film refers to the markets of Europe, the United States and the United Kingdom. Perceived as ‘centres’ of both the art and film, artists from outside these centres are deemed as from the ‘periphery’. As suggested by David McNeill, the work of artists from the ‘periphery’ often appears as an art of unresolved tension that brings together ‘local’ and ‘international’ concerns in a way that is acutely aware of the international audience and gaze. 451 By ‘incongruous elements depicted in art’ I refer here to the Incongruity Theory of humour outlined in the introduction. This theory supposes that laughter occurs when there is a denial of our expectations. By incongruous elements, I refer to visual signifiers that instigate surprise or violate our expectations causing us to laugh. 199 therefore calling for a deeper understanding of the issues explored in the work.452 This marks one of the greatest potentials of humour in Palestinian cultural output; that it prompts viewers to understand the Palestinian ‘secret code’ at work in art and film, thereby leading them into an inquiry of Palestinian history and experience.

Working in a space of play, the humour of cultural output also confronts audiences with their stereotypes and assumptions about Palestinians. These stereotypes are not always the overtly negative ones that pitch Palestinians as either terrorists or political fanatics. These stereotypes can also circle around the view of Palestinians as victims of history that must be looked upon with a compassionate gaze.453 Forging a new lens for the comprehension of ‘Palestinianness’, humour provides audiences with an alternative way of engaging with the Palestinian experience, one that is capable of challenging stereotypes of Palestinians and the conventional understanding and approach towards their suffering. This potential of humour was perhaps best put by the philosopher Slavoj Zizek, notable for his crudeness, who when on a 2011 trip to

Ramallah for a talk to Palestinian students explained ‘I prefer to laugh at you than to give you charity and feel good about myself’.454 Sounding initially like an abrasive statement, Zizek here is actually noting that humour can break the deadlock of the compassionate gaze, dislocating our familiar response to the Palestinian plight and providing an alternative path to understanding. More broadly however, Zizek’s comment taps into the wider argument about the benefits and deficiencies of laughing at

452 Sheri Klein, Art & Laughter (London: I.B Taurus, 2007) 27. 453 The problem associated with looking at Palestinians with a compassionate gaze is an issue explored in detail in Chapter 7. 454 Slavoj Zizek in Neta Alexander, “Cinema Verite,” Haaretz Daily Newspaper 15 June 2011. 10 September 2012. . 200 the humour of oppressed people. In humorological scholarship this debate lies within the discourse surrounding ‘ethnic humour’.455

The most noteworthy research into the representation of foreigners in ethnic humour can be accredited to Christie Davies, whose book Ethnic Humor Around the

World laid much of the groundwork for understanding the basis of ethnic humour and why it ought to be disassociated from prejudice.456 Although Christie’s text lacks an in- depth analysis of how ethnic humour is enjoyed by members of the same group, his work is commended for criticising the idea that ethnic jokes always indicate hostility towards targeted groups. Claiming that ethnic jokes in particular are shared because they can provide a momentary superiority (even for those who are themselves the victim of ridicule), he writes that the point of such humour is not aggression but rather a way of ‘playing with aggression’.457 Leon Rappoport consolidates Christie’s argument by writing that ‘to laugh at some aspect of your family or ethnic group can be an essentially healthy way of releasing conflicted negative emotions. It allows us, at least momentarily, to rise above them’.458

This stance towards ethnic humour is also implicit in the work of Simon

Critchley and the theologian Jacqueline Bussie. Their work is notable for the ways in which they utilise all theories of humour to engage with the impetus behind laughter and its consequences. Though they refrain from the use of the term ‘ethnic humour’, their work deals with laughter’s social role and its consequences for marginalised

455 Further discussion on the debate surrounding ethnic humour can be found in Chapter 8. Rather than rely on the term ‘ethnic humour’, this debate is framed in Chapter 8 as being one centered on the differences between ‘intercultural’ and ‘intracultural’ humour. 456 Rappoport, Punchlines 31; Christie Davies, Ethnic Humour Around the World: A Comparative Analysis (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996) Rappoport claims in his book Punchlines which supports racial, ethnic and gender humour that scholars who have studied stereotype humour suggest that rather than being associated primarily with prejudice, such humour is frequently a matter of pride and play in minority groups. He suggests that the work of these scholars is indebted to Davies’ pioneering work Ethnic Humour Around the World. 457 Rappoport, Punchlines 35. 458 Rappoport, Punchlines 35. 201 groups. Claiming that laughter might hold a certain redemptive or even messianic power, Critchley defends the idea that humour returns us to a familiar world of shared belief and cultural meaning while also revealing a situation and indicating how it might be changed. Humour’s potential to allow us to imagine the world as a better place and to urge us to change the situation in which we find ourselves is why Critchley considers laughter to be messianic, going so far as to compare jokes to shared prayers.459 In the revelation presented by ethnic humour of what is morally and ethically wrong, we see the world’s folly for what it is. Unlike religion, humour ‘does not save us from this folly by turning our attention elsewhere…but calls us on to face the folly of the world and to change the situation in which we find ourselves’.460 Clearly, the defence of humour posited by Simon Critchley discloses the emancipatory capacity of laughter, a stance also taken up with force by Bussie.

As an enquiry into the theological and ethical significance of what it means to laugh, Bussie’s work focuses on what it means to find humour in suffering. Her book

The Laughter of the Oppressed investigates Holocaust humour, the laughter of African

American slavery and that of Japanese Christians to argue that humour is an invaluable tool of resistance. Arguing through the framework of an analysis of the fiction of Elie

Wiesel, Toni Morrison and Shusaku Endo, Bussie convincingly argues that laughter may deconstruct ideology, reveal collective consciousness and rupture the language of racism. Striving towards the creation of what she describes as a ‘theology of laughter’

Bussie’s work runs parallel to that of Critchley by heralding the messianic power of laughter. If the hypotheses of Bussie and Critchley are correct then laughter provides the possibility for rethinking our experience of suffering, oppression and marginality as well as understanding the trauma of others.

459 Critchley, On Humour 17. 460 Critchley, On Humour 18. 202

The messianic laughter described by Critchley and elucidated in greater detail by

Bussie is one that is formed in response to collective struggle and even trauma. The marginality faced by oppressed groups is therefore given a new passage for expression through laughter and a new mode for the narration of their experience. In the case of humour created by Palestinians, this extends an opportunity to relate their political and cultural oppression in a way that re-imagines the current political status quo. The laughter produced by Palestinian humorous output implicates audiences in ways that might otherwise be impossible through normative forms of language and communication, forcing audiences to re-evaluate their understanding and position towards the Palestinian plight, experience and history.

Having now understood Oslo as the punchline of Palestinian identity that led to the emergence of laughter in Palestinian cultural output, one must look to how humour in contemporary art and film operates as an alternative vehicle for the representation of the current political, economic and cultural experience of Palestinians in the wake of the failure of the peace process. The following chapter will address the fact that we live in a time of increased ambivalence about where, or what constitutes ‘Palestine’. Looking at specific examples of art and film, humour will be revealed as a vital technique used to frame the boundaries and indeed the borderlessness of the place we call ‘Palestine’.

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CHAPTER SIX

What/Where is Palestine?: Humour and the delineation of ‘Palestine’

‘Palestine is the state of Palestinians wherever they may be.’ 461 The Palestinian Declaration of Independence (Algiers Declaration), 1988

The understanding of cultural and national identification with Palestine as signifying ‘Palestinian’ instantly frames the work of Palestinian artists as being informed by a complex identification with place. Though undoubtedly we live in an age of globalisation and increased mobility, the description of work as ‘Palestinian’ is different to other national or cultural descriptors such as Australian, Italian, Canadian, or Egyptian because Palestinian mobility is a consequence of statelessness. Therefore, artists and their works may be described as Palestinian, even if the artists themselves have lived in exile away from Palestine for generations.

Perhaps surprisingly, artists and filmmakers have employed humour as a way of negotiating the question of where/what constitutes ‘Palestine’. The laughter induced by their tactics of humour unveils a collective and cultural identity that implicates

‘Palestinians wherever they may be’. Further, humour can be seen to act as descriptive vehicle that delineates the borders of Palestine and ‘Palestinianness’.462 The struggle to

461 Khalidi, “The Resolutions of the 19th Palestine National Council,” 33. 462 Their turn toward humour can be explained within a series of conventional theoretical frameworks of humour, most notably Incongruity Theory. Perhaps more importantly, the move toward humour can be understood as one that acknowledges the potency of laughter to coalesce a shared identity and to 204 delineate the boundaries of Palestine is an emphasis found in much Palestinian cultural output preceding forms that use humour. Being both of theoretical and political importance, the attempt to delineate the borders of Palestine is an ongoing and continual process. This struggle is perhaps nowhere better articulated than in the Palestinian

Declaration of Independence.

The Palestinian Declaration of Independence (otherwise known as the Algiers

Declaration) of 15 November 1988 was pivotal in future peace negotiations because the document recognised Israel’s right to exist and renounced terrorism, despite its insistence on the right of the Palestinian people to fight against foreign occupation.

Calling for the continuation of the first intifada that was going on at the time, the

Declaration accepted UN Resolutions 242 and 338 as the framework for peace negotiations and a two-state solution to the conflict. 463 These points within the

Declaration meant that the document carried tremendous weight with respect to shifting principles in the struggle for liberation. However, a single line from the Declaration continues to stand out for its potential ambiguity and poetic double meaning when addressing the point of the Palestinian collective experience of exile.

The line ‘Palestine is the state of Palestinians wherever they may be’ is in equal parts a clear declaration of the need for a Palestinian state, as it is a seemingly equivocal recognition of collective national identity for a people dispersed and exiled for generations. The Declaration also reinforced the notion that the Palestinian National

Council was a parliament in exile and that the PLO was operating as a state in exile, with governing bodies that performed decisions that affected the lives of Palestinians living in Gaza, the West Bank and those in exile around the world. In spite of the

recognize a common understanding and experience brought forth from that same identity. For further discussion on humour’s relationship to identity refer to Chapter 8. 463 Yezid Sayigh, “Struggle within, Struggle without: The Transformation of PLO Politics Since 1982,” International Affairs 65.2 (1989): 247. 205 practical and straightforward political implications of the statement, the line ‘Palestinian is the state of Palestinians wherever they may be’, also prompts a theoretical enquiry into the collective experience of exile.

The double entendre generated by the word ‘state’ in the Declaration, no doubt comes as a consequence of the two celebrated Palestinian minds that penned the document: the poet Mahmoud Darwish, who drafted the Declaration, and Edward Said, who translated the document into English. The poeticism of this single line drafted by

Darwish is qualified in the document by the subsequent sentence ‘the state is for them to enjoy in it a complete equality of rights’.464 Regrettably, the failure of the peace process and the devastation brought as a consequence of the ongoing occupation means that Palestine still has some way to go before Palestinians can enjoy their ‘collective national and cultural identity’ and an ‘equality of rights’.

Knowing this, the idea of Palestine being the ‘state’ wherever Palestinians may be continues to carry tremendous political, ideological and theoretical significance.

Palestine is not yet an officially recognised state, with even the recent move towards recognition within a UN observer state status causing international debate and a diplomatic scramble. For those engaged in the task of discussing Palestine within a public forum, the problem of what the word ‘Palestine’ actually entails will be a familiar one. Depending on the context, the noun ‘Palestine’ can signify a plethora of places, including Gaza and the West Bank, Israel, land defined in pre-1967 borders or indeed historical Palestine. Inevitably this problem signifies a much bigger question— what does ‘Palestine’ mean?

This question inevitably arises when dealing with the presentation of Palestinian culture within an international context. Given that many Palestinian artists and

464 Khalidi, “The Resolutions of the 19th Palestine National Council,” 33. 206 filmmakers were born, trained and practice in exile, the term ‘Palestinian’ becomes an issue of identification rather than a question of citizenship or residency. By implication, this means that a Palestinian survey exhibition or film festival inevitably becomes an

465 event made up of work from all around the world. Increasingly artists and filmmakers have turned to humour as a way to explore both the connection to Palestine and to describe where/what Palestine is in an international exhibition context.

A clear example of this employment of humour is the actress Areen Omari’s directorial debut short film First Lesson (2012). Starring Omari, the short is a reflection of the actress’ own experience of first leaving her Jerusalem home and Palestine.

Chronicling the story of a character names Salma, First Lesson follows the actress as she relocates to Paris in an attempt to settle in a city far away from the daily stressors of her hometown. Centred on Salma’s first French lesson in Paris, the film captures the surprising expressions of national identity that emerge when away from home.

Upon arriving at her first French lesson, Salma is greeted by classmates from around the world including students from Russia, Japan, Israel and the US (Figure 21).

As is typical of most first lessons, the teacher of the class asks each student to stand up, introduce themselves and explain where they are from. When it is Salma’s turn to address the class she explains that she is from Palestine and then proceeds to point out

Jerusalem on the map at the front of the classroom. Her gesture and proclamation of her identity in front of the class sparks outrage from two of her classmates. These classmates, one Israeli and the other American, begin to call Salma crazy while denying

Palestine’s existence, claiming that Salma is in fact pointing to Israel on the map.

465 Chrisoula Lionis ed., Beyond the Last Sky: Contemporary Photography and Video (Sydney: The Australian Centre for Photography, 2012) Having personally worked on the presentation of Palestinian art by way of curating the Beyond the Last Sky: Contemporary Palestinian Photography and Video exhibition in Sydney and the working on annual national Palestinian Film Festival in Australia, this problem is an all too familiar one.

207

Although Salma is supported by one other classmate (who claims Salma’s assertions are right and proceeds to justify his certainty with the words ‘I know, because I am an

Arab’), the class is left divided by the conflict they have just witnessed and the teacher decides to forcefully end the lesson.

Figure 21. Areen Omari First Lesson, 2012 Film Still

The scene of Salma’s first lesson, though beginning with humorous exchanges typical of the encounters between different cultural groups, quickly descends into a scene of anger and sadness entangled with political confrontation. The brief scene exposes the ongoing debate surrounding Palestine’s political and geographical borders and indeed its very existence. Whether an intentional cinematic technique by Omari or otherwise, this debate on screen is visually amplified by the fact that each time Salma points to Palestine on the map during her argument with her Israeli classmate, her finger drifts further away from Palestine/Israel’s location on the map.

First Lesson presents much more than just a reflection of the pain and struggle encountered with homesickness and the decision to move away from the homeland.

Rather, First Lesson also depicts the ongoing ambiguity surrounding what ‘Palestine’ actually entails and what the Palestinian identification with Palestinian involves. This is conveyed not just through Salma’s argument with her classmate, but is also

208 communicated by subtle cinematic techniques. The film creates repeated momentary confusions of place, where Parisian streets look for a moment as if they are Jerusalem, and Salma’s Russian twin classmates bear an uncanny resemblance to her theatre director friend in Jerusalem. This has the effect of momentarily disorienting the audience by blurring the lines of distinction between Paris and Jerusalem.

These repeated conflations of place in the film also serve to reinforce a much bigger and overall more significant point; namely, that we carry our sense of home with us wherever we go. For Palestinians who have endured the experience of collective exile this notion is one with particular pertinence. In this sense, First Lesson arguably reveals the potency of the Declaration of Independence’s statement that ‘the state of

Palestine is wherever Palestinians may be’. This has the effect of not only signifying one’s identity or identification with place but also results in every new ‘home’ becoming merged or blurred with the homeland.

First Lesson’s equally humorous and tragic enquiry into the geographical location of Palestine and the fraught identification with Palestine as a homeland is a theme that can be evidenced through much contemporary Palestinian art and film. The work of London-based artist Larissa Sansour also carries this line of enquiry, albeit in ways that draws upon popular culture and the genre of science fiction. Her works Space

Exodus (2006) and Nation Estate (2012) reveal the capacity of humour to uncover the complex relationship of Palestinian identification with place and the question of what constitutes Palestine.

For the last decade, Sansour’s work has been characterised by a distinctly critical or humour noir approach to issues pertaining to Palestine. Employing the language of popular culture, Sansour’s multidisciplinary approach embraces photography, video art, documentary, installation and novel forms. Sansour’s decision

209 to employ popular culture in her works dealing with Palestine has the consequence of layering multiple meanings, implicating alternative visual vocabularies and destabilising conventional associations to Palestine. Sansour’s subversion of typical portrayals of

Palestine marks a significant departure from the dominant iconographies surrounding

Palestine that have prevailed in the past. The use of popular culture has the effect of simultaneously drawing from essentialised representation of Palestine while nullifying the essentialist readings they might have previously encouraged.

Tina Sherwell explains the history of essentialised iconography that exists for both Palestinians and Israelis, writing that:

The mainstream Palestinian and Israeli nationalist discourses have both favoured essentialist representatives in the context of an uneven conflict compromising the historical claims of peoples in the same stretch of geographical terrain. And both have used different iconographies to represent their original, historical and eternal relationship to the land.466

The success of Sansour’s work rests on her ability to conflate these Palestinian iconographies with those of popular culture. This technique is evident in her best- known works Space Exodus and Nation Estate.

A parody of Stanley Kubrick’s Space Odyssey from 1968, the Space Exodus video work takes the audience on a five-minute journey with the artist through space, as she becomes the first Palestinian to land on the moon. Appropriating Space Odyssey’s recognisable musical score altered to arabesque chords, A Space Exodus channels

Kubrick’s questioning of the deeper philosophical implications of humanity’s origins and final destiny in the universe, creating parallels between these concerns and the contemporary political Palestinian impasse.

466 Tina Sherwell, “Topographies of Identity, Soliloquies of Place,” Third Text 20.4 (2006): 429. 210

Sansour’s decision to alter the score of Kubrick’s film by using arabesque chords parodies not only Space Odyssey but also Strauss’ original composition of Thus

Spoke Zarathusa. Coupled with the image of Sansour’s astronaut boots with upturned toes, the artist channels the Western Orientalist imagination of the Middle East. The conflation of the Orientalist imagination with the pop culture references to Space

Odyssey have the effect of nullifying any essentialised view of the iconographies

Sansour channels in her work. Dario Guigliano argues that this has the effect of creating a hermeneutic impasse that links the work to the ‘fundamental ambiguity inherent in the term and concept of history’.467

The use of parody in Space Exodus has the effect of not only drawing out the ambiguity of the concept of history but also the latent ambiguity that exists in the narration of Palestine though national signifiers and iconography. Although Sansour relies on some of the iconography of Palestinian national identity, including the

Palestinian flag and fellahi embroidery, her deliberate decision to omit signifiers of the

Palestinian geographical terrain serves to differentiate her work from the dominant symbols of the land in Palestinian art history and also functions to project a future scenario where Palestinians are divorced from the land of Palestine completely.

Space Exodus begins with Sansour as an astronaut on board a spacecraft, attempting to make contact with her base at Jerusalem while saying ‘Jerusalem, we have a problem’, followed shortly with the words ‘no, we are on track’. Ironically, although

Sansour is ‘on track’ and does finally arrive on the moon, the moment she does so she loses all contact with Jerusalem. The moment Sansour finally plants the Palestinian flag on the moon, the dark realisation surfaces that this has meant losing all contact with the homeland and bidding farewell to earth itself (Figure 22). Arriving on the moon has

467 Dario Guigliano, “A(hi)story pour les analphabetes – of Larissa Sansour’s video,” Third Text 25.3 (2011): 305. 211 thus in fact meant that the Palestinian astronaut now finds herself floating through space, wandering isolated and alone unfathomably far from home. As the Palestinian astronaut drifts off into space and becomes invisible at the conclusion of the video, the viewer is prompted to realise that this final Palestinian space exodus is one that threatens to remain invisible, essentially a private grief for Palestinians and one that we cannot see.

Figure 22. Larissa Sansour A Space Exodus, 2009 Video (still), 5.29 mins

It is here that we might be reminded of Mahmoud Darwish’s poem Earth

Narrows Before Us and the line ‘where do the birds fly after the last sky?’468 A Space

Exodus provides a glimpse into a world where Palestinians have literally gone beyond the last sky, losing contact with both the beloved capital of Jerusalem and planet Earth.

An image that initially appears as both humorous and politically empowering, Sansour’s planting of the Palestinian flag on the moon can also suggest a sense of despair and helplessness. Importantly it also suggests a real disillusionment with the ability for

Palestinians to achieve their own state and to maintain a connection the land of

Palestine. Sansour’s declaration that it is ‘one small step for Palestinians, one giant leap for mankind’ implies with bitter irony that finally an outcome for the peace process has

468 Mahmoud Darwish, “Earth Narrows Before Us,” Sand and Other Poems Trans. Rana Kabbani (London: KPI Limited, 1986) 5. 212 been achieved and a place for Palestinians has been established; however, this place is after the last sky and beyond the confines of our planet.

Thus, Sansour’s Space Exodus is characterised by the use of two forms of humour; those of incongruity and humour noir. By parodying the work of Kubrick,

Space Exodus defies our expectations of both Palestinian art and pop culture more broadly. This is achieved by using the symbol of the flag and placing it in a context that takes it beyond the framework of the nationalist iconography that dominated Palestinian art in previous decades. Sansour’s parody of Kubrick also creates an incongruity between the contemporary political concerns of Palestinian statehood and the original film’s questioning of humanity’s future.

The congruity, or indeed conflation, between the Palestinian present and future in the work has the effect of making us laugh despite the fact that the work is a melancholic reflection or the current dismal state of affairs for the Palestinian struggle for statehood. In this sense Space Exodus is characterised by the use of humour noir that draws together the tragedy of Palestinian exile and dispossession and our reply with laughter. Sansour’s bleak view of the prospect of Palestinian statehood represented in A

Space Exodus is also evident in her most recent work, Nation Estate. Where Space

Exodus suggests a dystopian future where outer space might be the only home left for

Palestinians, Nation Estate relegates Palestine to a skyscraper that holds almost all

Palestinian cities, landmarks and national signifiers.

The work is a photographic and video project the artist claims was shaped by the important recent political events of the Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN and their recognition as a member of UNESCO in that it rests its emphasis upon the continuing

213 struggle for a Palestinian national home.469 Drawing attention to continuing Palestinian dispossession, the skyscraper depicted in Nation Estate is built outside the actual city of

Jerusalem, with only the building’s top floors having views of the Dome of the Rock.

Describing the skyscraper in the work as the Palestinian ‘high life’, Sansour draws parallels to housing estates and to Palestinian camps where the occupation has created an impossible density of living and crowded conditions have required refugees to continually build one structure on top of another.

In its initial form in 2011, the Nation Estate project existed as a series of

‘sketches’, while the video component of the work was in post-production due for completion in late 2012. Even before its formal completion, the work had already received its fair share of international controversy. In late December 2012, Sansour’s international network all received a press release from the artist informing them of a

‘quite severe act of censorship’ she had just experienced.470 The artist had recently been asked by the Swiss Musee a l’Elysee to produce a portfolio of images for the prestigious

Lacoste art prize. In November 2011 three photograph ‘sketches’ from the Nation

Estate project were accepted by the museum, and Sansour was congratulated as being one of eight artists shortlisted for the prize. However, by December, the prize’s sponsor, the clothing brand Lacoste, made demands that Sansour’s work be revoked from the prize on the grounds that it was ‘too pro-Palestinian’ to support.471

469 Wafa Gabsi, “Fiction and Art Practice: Interview with Larissa Sansour “A Space Exodus”,” Contemporary Practices 10 (2012): 117. 470 Larissa Sansour, “Lacoste: No Room for Palestinian Artist,” Email to Chrisoula Lionis, 20 December 2011. 471 Gabsi, “Fiction and Art Practice,” 118. In her interview with Wafa Gabsi, Sansour explains that the Musee a l’Elysee reported to her that Lacoste deemed her work ‘too pro‐Palestinian for the brand to support’. This explanation was provided to the artist directly but did not appear in official statements by the museum or Lacoste. Refreshingly, following Sansour’s press release and the international support that in garnered, the museum decided to scrap the prize altogether and to cancel their partnership with Lacoste. Though the initial scandal is an indication of the current socio‐political climate and the potential dangers of reliance on corporate sponsorship, the museum’s decision was widely praised. However, the whole incident does beg the 214

Although the work does not demonise Israel in a straightforward sense,

Sansour’s use of humour noir allows her to subversively reveal the trauma of occupation while evading any didactic representation of Israel’s process of occupation and continuing violence. The black humour of Nation Estate is most clear when examining how Sansour utilises national symbols that have previously dominated

Palestinian cultural output. This is most clear in her use of the olive tree, which has long been utilised as a symbol of the Palestinian connection to the land. The olive tree that appears on one of the floors of the nation estate is depicted as removed from the land itself but continues to flourish through a concrete floor, nurtured by the artist herself

(Figure 23). In addition, the artist’s appearance in the work also taps into the role of women in Palestinian art history, who signify the land of historical Palestine itself.472

Figure 23. Larissa Sansour Nation Estate, 2012 Video Still, 9 mins

However, perhaps the strongest message to arise out of Nation Estate is the reflection on Palestinian land confiscation. This overt political message in the work means that Nation Estate reminds us that Palestinian land is shrinking not only year by

question, as to why Lacoste deemed Nation Estate too ‘pro Palestinian’? The work is not overtly critical or demonizing of Israel, nor is it militant or horrific, preferring instead to utilize a humour noir approach to describe the Palestinian experience of occupation. 472 The Dome of the Rock and the representation of Jerusalem in Nation Estate is also of particular importance being that it has been at the centre of breakdowns in peace negotiations and is the most hotly contested land in Israel/Palestine. Jerusalem is not only seen as the Palestinian capital but also the most important place for Palestinians to return. 215 year, but in fact week by week. In the work, the virtual Palestinian homeland is presented to the audience while the ‘real’ Palestine is just outside the confines of the estate skyscraper. The homeland has in effect been reduced to a simulation of real places, reflecting the current reality of the denial of the Right of Return, increasing land confiscation and restrictions imposed on movement between places.473

Sansour explains her use of fiction to describe the contemporary Palestinian political reality by saying that ‘reality in some cases could become so fictional that the only way to address it is to make work that exaggerates it even more’.474 Sansour’s use of science fiction motifs in her work has the effect of channelling the genre’s characteristically associated questions; namely, do projections of the future have the real threat of becoming an actual reality? Nation Estate’s use of the techniques and aesthetics of science fiction thus has the effect of accelerating time and imaging a future where the current restrictions on life brought by the occupation have not been removed.

This is clear in the work not only by the fact that Palestinian dispossession is represented as through it has continued to such an extent that Palestinians live in a colossal skyscraper, but also through the function of the building’s elevator and the advertisements found within it.

The elevator in Nation Estate has the role of the sole form of transport in the future Palestinian estate. Acting as the conduit between floors, and therefore cities, the elevator replaces the intercity checkpoints that Palestinians are faced with in the present.

The elevator is not only the sole form of transportation, but also becomes the place for communication within the estate. This space of communication is also one of commercialisation, as the elevator also displays advertisements for business within the

473 As opposed to the ‘sketches’ version of the work, Nation Estate in its final form has much more of a simulated feel. The work’s video component utilizes computer generated imagery (CGI), arabesque electronic music and even incorporates Sansour’s own siblings as live actors to suggest that in the future all people will look the same. 474 Gabsi, “Fiction and Art Practice,” 115. 216 estate (Figure 24). These advertisements encompass a range of daily issues and concerns including those that are commercial, social, official and political. As insights into the Palestine of the future, these advertisements are used as technique by Sansour to reflect on the chief contemporary issues of life under occupation while addressing future problems formed by issues standing in the way of the peace process today.475

Figure 24. Larissa Sansour, Nation Estate, Video Still, 9 mins. 2012

These advertisements are very much tongue-in-cheek and among others include an advertisement for a sushi shop named ‘Gaza Shore’ that boasts romantic views, and an advertisement for weekly water supply from a company named ‘Norwegian Fjords’ that states that the water they supply is part of the ‘water pipes for peace program’.

These advertisements are indicative of the fact that Nation Estate reflects on the acceleration of the processes and instruments of contemporary occupation. Sansour’s dystopian and humour noir representation of a potential bleak Palestinian future is informed by what she describes as an ‘occupation that has manifested itself in the most

475 Larissa Sansour, “Nation Estate,” Ibraaz, 2 November 2012. 25 November 2012. < http://www.ibraaz.org/projects/32>. 217 absurd and heartbreaking ways’.476 For Sansour, fiction is an ideal tool for exposing dispossession and occupation because it allows her to operate ‘in the face of such acceleration [of occupation] and direct confrontation with an abject reality’.477

Projecting a view into the future where issues of the present remain unsolved,

Nation Estate in effect accelerates time. In such a way, the humour of the work can perhaps be explained by Simon Critchley’s thoughts on comic timing. Critchley explains that ‘viewed temporally, humorous pleasure would seem to be produced by the disjunction between duration and the instant, where we experience with renewed intensity both the slow passing of time and its sheer evanescence’.478 This acceleration of time described by Critchley is also clear in the poster work that also makes up part of the Nation Estate work (Figure 25).

The Nation Estate poster is an appropriation of the now highly politicised 1936

Visit Palestine poster. The original poster, designed by Austrian born graphic designer

Franz Kraus, was initially published by the Tourist Development Association of

Palestine and makes up part of what is known as the ‘recruit Zion genre’. Initially intended to encourage the migration and support of a critical mass of Jews prior to the foundation of Israel, the poster depicts an idealised Jerusalem. Kraus’ poster, with its muted earth tones, illustrates the city of Jerusalem replete with urban dwellings, green parks and the significant Jerusalem landmark, the Dome of the Rock.

For supporters of the Palestinian cause, the original Visit Palestine poster has come to be seen as an ironic reminder of their historical presence in the Holy Land, renouncing previous claims that they did not exist as a national group with a connection to the land of historical Palestine. Not only have unauthorised reproductions made their

476 Gabsi, “Fiction and Art Practice,” 115. 477 Gabsi, “Fiction and Art Practice,” 116. 478 Critchley, On Humour 7. 218 way into Palestinian homes all over the world, but the poster has been frequently appropriated by artists and designers. A keen example of this appropriation is the Visit

Palestine poster by graphic designer Amer Shomali from Zan Studio, who appropriates the poster to include the Wall as a reflection on the current state of Palestine and its inaccessibility for both those faced with the denial of the right of return and Palestinians who live in the territories with restrictions on their movement (Figure 26).

Figure 25. Figure 26. Amer Shomali Larissa Sansour Nation Estate, 2010 Nation Estate, 2012 Poster Poster

Where Amer Shomali’s Visit Palestine poster brings the original into the present, Sansour’s appropriation of the original poster in Nation Estate parodies the original to imagine what a future visit to Palestine might look like. The ‘sudden acceleration’ of time in the poster achieves laughter, despite the work projecting an image of a bleak future created by the continued processes of dispossession. The

219 response of laughter is, however, contingent on the audience’s familiarity with the original poster and its historical context and political motivations.

Similar to the dark realisation of humour that is aroused in Space Exodus at the moment when the viewer realises the work is not necessarily about Palestinian empowerment, but rather is about exile, the Nation Estate poster, though undeniably tongue-in-cheek, also carries a bleak message. Sansour’s work removes the words ‘Visit

Palestine’ entirely, and though the Haram al-Sharif remains in the image, Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock have been removed, replaced instead with the colossal skyscraper that is depicted as the future Palestine.

Significantly, Sansour’s appropriation of the Visit Palestine poster in effect removes any distinct features of the Jerusalem cityscape, leaving only the separation wall as a reminder that we are in fact looking at the Palestinian landscape. This has the effect of removing not only the national signifiers of the landscape so closely bound to

Palestinian national identity, but also obstructs and denies dominant iconographies that have utilised the Palestinian landscape as representative of ‘Palestine’. This is a technique that is visible in the work of the artist, curator and arts writer Khaled Hourani in his work No News from Palestine (2007).

Hourani’s No News from Palestine is symptomatic of the artist’s frequent rejection of any straightforward representation of Palestine or the Palestinian experience. Indeed, much of Hourani’s work can be characterised by its active obstruction of essentialist readings of what constitutes Palestine and the common view of looking upon Palestinians as either heroes or victims of Israeli brutality. In order to facilitate this obstruction, Hourani’s work subverts his audience’s expectations, actively refusing to satisfy any desire to look upon Palestine and Palestinians with what might be described as an oppressive compassionate gaze. With techniques of obstruction,

220

Hourani’s work presents a resounding incongruity between our expectations of

Palestinian art, including nationalist symbols and revolutionary motifs, and the imagery included in his work. It is precisely this incongruity and obstruction of the essentialist and assumptive readings typically witnessed towards the work of Palestinian artists that forms the humour underlying Hourani’s work.

No News from Palestine is an excellent example of Hourani’s use of humorous obstruction. The work can be described as essentially a series of unwritten postcards, all without stamps and all labelled ‘Post Card Palestine’, with the name of the artwork and the location and date of the each postcard’s front image. The work functions by locating its emphasis on the fact that Palestine frequently appears as a topic of news coverage and debate because of the charged and frequently shifting politics of the region.

However, rather than narrate news of political unrest, or Palestinian resistance or victimhood brought about as a result of Israeli brutality, the postcards appear to report no news whatsoever. Instead, they merely list the location of each postcard’s accompanying photograph and the date.

The photographs that make up the front image of each postcard not only do not depict scenes of political unrest, but they also do not feature any of the notable places or landmarks typically associated with Palestine. Although most of the photographs are from Ramallah, they do not feature the city’s well-known landmarks of Al-Manara

Square, Arafat’s Tomb, the PA Headquarters or Arafat Square. Instead we find a pastry display from a bakery, an assortment of glassware from a restaurant, people going about their everyday business and parked taxis (Figure 27). In one sense then, No News from

Palestine might be argued to actually represent ‘news’ from Palestine; however, this news is that of the banal and everyday. Stripping Palestine of sensationalism,

221 glorification and nostalgia, No News from Palestine operates with a humour that

‘defamiliarises the familiar’.479

Figure 27. Khaled Hourani, No News From Palestine, 2007

For Simon Critchley one of the greatest potentials of humour is said to be its ability to ask us to take stock of our assumptions. It does this because, as Critchley explains, ‘[h]umour brings about a change of situation, a surrealisation of the real…’.480 This process of the defamiliarisation of the familiar is something we witness in Hourani’s No News from Palestine. However, the work takes Critchley’s reading of the humour of defamiliarisation to a second stage of progression. It does this by asking us to appreciate the fact that the representation of the ‘real’ Palestine is already one that is defamiliarised.

479 Critchley, On Humour 65. 480 Critchley, On Humour 10. 222

Despite the saturation of documentary modes and aesthetics used to capture the

‘real’ Palestine, the representation and definition of ‘Palestine’ remains elusive. Without question, it is precisely this elusiveness that informs the impetus behind the documentary practices devoted to capturing the ‘real’ Palestine. Ironically, these documentary modes have arguably only served to mythologise Palestine even further.

Though initially appearing as the polar opposite to nostalgic representations of Palestine that persist in the depiction of the landscape of the Holy Land and cities like Jerusalem, these documentary modes achieve precisely the same outcome as nostalgic representation. This is to say that the documentary conceivably defamiliarises Palestine equally as much as nostalgic and idealised representation. What is absent in both approaches is the representation of a ‘familiar’ Palestine, one that is void of sensationalism, whether it be political, historical or religious.

Understanding this, one can appreciate how Palestine is already defamilarised by the dominant forms of representation that surround it. These defamiliarised forms of representation are not just informed by the saturation of the documentary or nostalgic approaches to Palestine as the Holy Land, but also are figured by Palestinian art history that privileged a militant aesthetic and an idealised view of historical Palestine. By obstructing typical representations, and therefore identification with Palestine, Khaled

Hourani’s No News From Palestine is less about a ‘defamiliarisation of the familiar’, but rather is characterised by a defamiliarisation of an already defamiliarised familiar.

In this sense, it is it perfectly fitting that the No News from Palestine appeared in the publication Subjective Atlas of Palestine. The motivation behind the Subjective Atlas of Palestine project was to ‘produce an atlas that was much more than a set of maps, but rather a collection of visual and textual “mappings” of the lived reality of Palestine—

223 social, cultural, geographical and political’.481 As such, the project was geared towards problematising any black and white representation of Palestine. The collaborative project that culminated in the production of the Atlas began as a workshop between the

Dutch NGO the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO) and the

International Academy of Art Palestine (IAAP), where Hourani acts as Director, and is exceptional document for providing a fresh view of Palestine for international readers.

The introductory text to the Subjective Atlas of Palestine, written by literary critic Hassan Khader, is particularly illustrative of the driving force behind the project.

Perhaps more importantly, Khader’s text also sheds light on how the process of the defamiliarisation of Palestine has come to bear on Palestinians and on the representation of Palestine. Khader writes:

The potential of Palestine as a metaphor has always been rich. The Palestinians are tired, they need a break. The energies they invest just to be like everyone else, their quest for a normal life and the hopes they nourish, are channelled into a tortured relationship with time and place.482

In a sense, Hourani’s New News from Palestine offers a respite for Palestine and its people from their continuous metaphorical status. Focusing its emphasis away from metaphor, nostalgia and political sensationalism, the work instead attempts to turn towards a ‘real’ Palestine that can be potentially dull and void of any newsworthy discussion. As such the work momentarily breaks the often sensationalised ‘tortured relationship with place’, instead replacing it with the dull predictability of the everyday.

That said, the everyday ‘real’ Palestine captured in the work is undoubtedly that of Khaled Hourani, who as a resident of the West Bank has only restricted access to the

481 “Subjective Atlas of Palestine: Asserting the Right to Narrate,” Arena of Speculation, 28 May 2011. 20 June 2012. < http://arenaofspeculation.org/2011/05/28/subjective‐atlas‐of‐palestine/>. 482 Hassan Khader, “A Quest for Normalcy,” Subjective Atlas of Palestine, Ed. Annelys de Vat (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2007) 9. 224 nostalgic landscape and landmarks that dominate both the popular representation and identification with Palestine. This seems to reinforce the understanding that although the postcards in Hourani’s work depict Palestine, they portray a place laced with restrictions upon movement. These restrictions mean that even though one might live in

Palestine, their experience of and access to the land is often confined and frequently divorced from the places that figure in the popular imagination of Palestine.

The laughter induced by Hourani’s work in the Subjective Atlas of Palestine is echoed by other works included in the publication. No News from Palestine’s reflection on the impossibility of representing Palestine in a didactic way and its obstruction of essentialist depictions of Palestine and Palestinian life is something that also characterises many of the other works included in the publication. The text’s unique insight is garnered from the plurality of vision displayed in the work of its contributing artists, designers and photographers, who were brought together to map their country as they saw it. The personal, unconventional and diverse responses they submitted almost all carry an element of humour that is formed by the incongruity between our expectations and projections and the lived experience of Palestinian artists and designers.

It is precisely this subjectivity and humour of the contributions included in the publication that allow it to shed light on the diversity of identification with Palestine.

However, the idea of creating a subjective atlas for a nation that does not yet officially exist is in one sense a risky feat. The risk of the Subjective Atlas might be argued to be that it calls into question the ‘imagined community’ of Palestinians. If Benedict

Anderson’s hypothesis is correct and an imagined community is made of up signs and symbols in the collective mind’s eye, then the Atlas’ subjective approach might be said

225 to destabilise the unified vision of Palestinian identification that has been nurtured by decades of cultural output centred upon didactic national narration.

The national narration of Palestine and Palestinian national identity drew together a set of imagined signs and symbols that coalesced a unified vision not only to refute claims that Palestinians did not exist as a separate group with a collective identity, but also to repudiate claims that they did not identify themselves as coming from, and belonging to, the land of historical Palestine. For this reason, symbols of the land became dominant in almost all forms of Palestinian cultural output. In the process these symbols became charged with the capacity to work as vehicles for building an

‘imagined community’. This in turn forged a collective imagined communion with the landscape, even decades after exile from the land itself.

This collective communion with the landscape forged by symbols of an idealised past served to reinforce a traumatic separation between the Palestinian past and present. Palestinian art and film’s nostalgic preoccupation with the land was symptomatic of one of the phases of colonisation described by Frantz Fanon where colonised people enter into a passionate search for a national culture that existed before the colonial era. For Fanon, the affirmation of the existence of such a culture is said to represent a ‘special battlefield’.483 Fanon’s elucidation of the impetus behind this search for national culture argues that the process allows for colonised people to hope for a time beyond the misery of their present experience, lending them a form of personal and collective rehabilitation that rises above self-contempt, resignation and abjuration.484 In short, these nostalgic representations of the landscape provide a source of comfort. Tina

Sherwell supports this argument when explaining artworks in Palestinian art history.

483 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Trans. Constance Farrington (New York: Grove Press, 1995) 210. 484 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth 210. 226

She writes that images ‘were all discursive responses to war, a retreat to the comfort of the past, with emphasis on the social unit of the family and the nation as family’.485

It would appear that the retreat to the past has ceased to hold the capacity for comfort in the decades following the Oslo Accords. Images of an idealised landscape and depictions of the nurturing soil of the homeland became increasingly inapplicable following the shift in mobility and the changes in the political, economic and cultural landscape of the region. Although nostalgic images of the landscape continue to stand as signifiers of an imagined past prior to occupation, they also represent a bitter reminder of the impossibility of that connection in the present. Following Oslo, nostalgic images of the historical landscape were re-evaluated to reveal their construction as imaginary images conjured as a consequence of collective trauma. In such a way they might be argued to in fact represent discomfort for Palestinian artists.

As images that held paramount place in the collective imagination and national visual vocabulary, these representations of the landscape have in the last two decades increasingly become the object of scrutiny, dissection and re-evaluation.

For Adila Laidi-Hanieh, the Palestinian idealised depictions of the historical landscape are argued to stand as momento mori in that they were created in anticipation of the disappearance or expected appropriation of the landscape.486 Her argument would suggest that images of the landscape were reminders of the collective traumatic rupture from the land and way of life that existed prior to Israeli occupation. Though her argument is legitimate, there is room to also extend Laidi-Henieh’s reading of the images of landscape as momento mori.

485 Tina Sherwell, “The power of place and the representation of landscape in the work of Palestinian artists” cited in Adila Laidi‐Hanieh, “Palestinian Landscape Photography: Dissonant Paradigm and Challenge to Visual Control,” Contemporary Practices (2009) 120. 486 Laidi‐Hanieh, “Palestinian Landscape Photography,” 120. 227

One might argue that the images of the landscape functioned as momento mori for decades while exiled Palestinians were entirely divorced from the homeland through exile. However, the form of momento mori changed following Oslo when many diasporic Palestinians with foreign passports were allowed back to visit Palestine and

Palestinians within the territories experienced a loosening of travel restrictions.

Following these changes, the Palestinian encounter with the homeland could not have been further away from the imagined and idealised depictions of the landscape that prevailed in previous decades. It is these changes in the encounter with the homeland that allow one to extend Laidi-Hanieh’s reading to suggest that following Oslo the representation of the landscape became a transformed momento mori. In its altered form, this divergent momento mori stood as a signifier of the death of nostalgia and idealism that exists in exile.

This notion of a transformed form of momento mori in the depiction of the landscape is reinforced by Laidi-Hanieh’s own observations on the changing political, economic and cultural climate in the West Bank following Oslo. She is well placed to write about this shift in the political and cultural landscape, having been in charge of the

Khalil Sakakini Centre in Ramallah between 1996 and 2005. Her position meant that she witnessed first-hand the return of 150,000 diasporic Palestinians to the West Bank and Gaza, the relaxation of travel restrictions for Palestinians with Western passports and the unprecedented emergence of Palestinian cultural events across not only

Palestine but also in the international art and film circuit.487

These changes were amplified by the remarkable inpouring of foreign funding from international not-for-profits and NGOs. This funding allowed for the emergence of new educational possibilities in the arts both locally and internationally and also

487 Laidi‐Hanieh, “Palestinian Landscape Photography,” 120. 228 nurtured a cultural boom that materialised in the creation of arts festivals, cultural centres, art awards, galleries and cultural foundations. These transformations meant that

Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories were living through a cultural overhaul brought about by an introduction to the globalised world.488

This emergence of globalisation is argued to have encouraged the abandonment of previous political problematics. Laidi-Hanieh explains that ‘the transformations and the entry of Palestine, or at least part of its population, into globalisation meant a new representational paradigm in contemporary Palestinian culture’.489 The transformation brought by globalisation and changes in the political and economic landscape meant that the cultural context for artistic production changed tremendously. This new context freed up representational paradigms for artists in ways that were not possible in previous decades. Not only was the direct relationship to the land vastly different to that of artists working in the past, but so too was the economic backdrop that supported the production of art. Where artists from previous decades (Ismail Shammout, for example) depicted the landscape from a distance and with the support of the PLO who could use their work for political (and propagandistic) purposes, artists who produced work following Oslo were in a better economic and experiential position to challenge idealised and nostalgic representations of the landscape.490

Despite the shift in emphasis towards the landscape and the exposure to funding and exhibition space brought by globalisation, Laidi-Hanieh argues that Palestinian photography is the only medium exempt from the trends of self-criticism and irony witnessed in other art forms. She maintains that photography continues in a ‘probing’ representational paradigm, which although starkly different to commercial photographs

488 Laidi‐Hanieh, “Palestinian Landscape Photography,” 120. 489 Laidi‐Hanieh, “Palestinian Landscape Photography,” 120. 490 For further discussion on the ways in which artists were politically and economically bound to the PLO in previous decades refer to Chapter 3. 229 that produce a highly aestheticised depiction of the landscape and Palestinian life, continues to insist upon a documentary mode geared towards exposing the effects of occupation.491 Although this may be the case for the majority of Palestinian artists working in this medium, there are increasing examples of photographic artists who use humour, pastiche and irony to undermine the saturation of documentary and its association to objectivity. Notable in this regard is the Gaza born artist Taysir Batniji.

A keen example of Batniji’s subversion of the documentary is his 2008 work

Watchtowers (Figure 28). The seed of Batniji’s Watchtowers was planted when the artist visited the Centre Pompidou’s retrospective exhibition of Bernd and Hilla

Becher’s work in 2004. Subverting the history, meaning and artistic processes of the

Bechers, Betniji’s series negotiates the difficulty in attempting to follow the Becher method to create a typology of military watchtowers in the West Bank. Not permitted to visit the region, Batniji commission a Palestinian photographer instead. The impossibility of manoeuvering heavy equipment to frame the perfect shot with the ideal light means that Watchtowers appears out of focus and imperfectly lit. The resulting series of works challenge viewers to consider the impossibility of Palestinian mobility, while also calling the architectural heritage of military constructions into question, consequently revealing their role as symbols of surveillance and control.

With this reading alone, Batniji’s work undoubtedly functions as an ‘exposing tool’ in much the same way as other Palestinian photographic practice described within

Laidi-Hanieh’s argument. The exception in Batniji’s work, however, is his use of pastiche and parody in the appropriation of the Becher method and aesthetic. The initial effect of Watchtowers is to produce an ‘unheimlich’ response from the viewer. This uncanniness is informed by the familiarity with both the images of Israeli watchtowers

491 Laidi‐Hanieh, “Palestinian Landscape Photography,” 121. 230 and the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher. The cognitive dissonance produced by

Batniji’s Watchtowers functions equally as a source of discomfort as it does potentially as a source of laughter.

Acting as something of an art historical joke, Batniji’s work’s ability to incite laughter creates an altogether more complicated documentary photographic representation of the landscape than those described by Laidi-Hanieh. Highlighting the impossibility of the Bechers’ formalist method, Batniji draws attention to the political and cultural constraints he faces as a Palestinian artist whose work is always pre- inscribed as being from the periphery of the art world. This stands in opposition to the

Bechers, who hold pride of place within the canon of photographic history. Further,

Watchtowers also highlights the position of privilege of the Bechers, who enjoy the liberty of movement in order to capture typologies of architecture. Hence Batniji’s

Watchtowers employs a self-critical approach, not only to his own work, but also art history more broadly. In the process his work dislodges romanticised visions of both the

Palestinian landscape and also the methods of canonical photographic practice.

Figure 28. Taysir Batniji

Watchtowers, 2008 C-Type Photographic Prints (Installation view detail)

231

Batniji’s ironic approach and his utilisation of pastiche places his art within the trend that can be witnessed in Palestinian art more broadly following Oslo. In this regard, Batniji’s work and its mediation of the landscape fits within the approach outlined by Adila Laidi-Hanieh, even though his work is photographic. This shift is described by Laidi-Hanieh as being one where ‘revolutionary or romanticised representation was replaced by irony, self-criticism, the exploration of subaltern identities, nihilism and self-narration’. 492 This transformed approach towards the representation of the landscape following Oslo, although informed by a multitude of changes including international art trends, the effects of globalisation and increased

Palestinian mobility, is remarkable for how distinctly different it is to the processes of representation described by Frantz Fanon.

It would appear that in the years following Oslo, although Palestinian artists have employed a different approach to representing the landscape, they have still done so in an attempt to articulate a sense of national culture and collective experience.

Fanon described the emphasis on capturing the landscape of a pre-colonial past as a process that allowed a transcendence of ‘self-contempt, resignation and abjuration’.

Although Palestinian artists still find themselves under Israeli occupation and they continue to emphasise the articulation of Palestinian culture in their work, the art produced by contemporary Palestinian practitioners might superficially appear to convey all three of the negative hallmarks described by Fanon.493 However, it is through the use of humour and its various techniques that artists are able to engage with self- contempt, resignation and abjuration while also challenging colonial control and articulating a collective identity both before and after occupation. As a consequence, their work calls into question not only their own experience and its subsequent

492 Laidi‐Hanieh, “Palestinian Landscape Photography,” 120. 493 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth 210. 232 representation, but also the modes and aesthetics that have dominated the representation of national culture in the past.

Raeda Saadeh is a keen example of an artist who employs humour to query the representation of Palestinian life and the landscape in both the past and present.

Saadeh’s work is focused primarily on her experience as a Palestinian woman, and using the mediums of photography, video and performance, she investigates the complex relationship with the homeland. Concerned with issues such as displacement, identity and gender, Saadeh’s work questions the forces of political occupation of

Palestinians collectively while also engaging with the effects of personal occupation brought by traditional cultural and social expectations. It is Saadeh’s use of humour to engage with these themes that lends her work the ability to evade didactic interpretation.

Saadeh’s humour often relies on the use of parody and irony that draws upon the artist’s appropriation of female figures within the canon of Western art. Francesca Ricci suitably describes Saadeh’s use of humour writing that ‘Saadeh’s heroines display fear, suspicion, anger, cynicism and resignation in their gaze, yet they have the wisdom to face the absurd with the absurd, and to adapt to their reality with humour’.494

A keen example of the humour described by Ricci can be evidenced in Saadeh’s work 2007 Vacuum (Figure 29). A 17-minute two-channel video installation, the work depicts Saadeh performing the absurd task of vacuuming the desert. Shot in the desert between Jericho and the Dead Sea, the immersive work is striking for the absurdity of

Saadeh’s action, the imposing desert landscape and the haunting constant hum of the sound of the vacuum cleaner. Appearing initially as though Saadeh is performing a

494 Francesca Ricci, “True Tales. Fairy Tales,” Raeda Saadeh: Reframing Palestine, Rose Issa ed., (London: Beyond Art Production, 2012) 22. 233 meaningless Sisyphean task, upon further consideration the work presents a profound reflection upon the Palestinian connection to the land.495

Figure 29. Raeda Saadeh Vacuum, 2007 2 Channel Video (still)

Although Vacuum has been described as a reflection on the never-ending work that needs to be done to survive daily life in Palestine, the work is perhaps better interpreted as a meditation upon the processes of Palestinian dispossession and erasure from the landscape.496 Israel has long promoted its state’s purported ability to ‘make the desert bloom’. As if in direct contradiction to this adage, Saadeh depicts an imposing barren desert landscape that runs counter to the Israeli maxim. The Israeli process of

‘making the desert bloom’ has relied on the physical and symbolic erasure of the

Palestinian presence. In this regard, Saadeh’s work is particularly menacing because the work may suggest Saadeh’s own complicity in the act of ethnic cleansing. Although vacuuming the hills of the desert can be interpreted as a deliberate act that presents a landscape contrary to Israeli propaganda, the work is not clear about who or what

Saadeh is attempting to clear away from the land.

495 Rose Issa ed., Raeda Saadeh: Reframing Palestine, (London: Beyond Art Production, 2012) 22. 496 Issa, Raeda Saadeh 48. 234

The ambiguity behind Saadeh’s seemingly absurd action in the piece is what brings humour to the work while also encouraging the audience to draw their own conclusions about the meaning of the work. If we are to consider Vacuum as a reflection on dispossession and the deliberate processes of erasure of the Palestinian presence on the land, the work can be seen as one that makes visible process that are so insidious that they cannot be clearly witnessed. By drawing attention to a gesture of erasure and a clearing away of the landscape, Saadeh reminds us of the manipulation of the landscape within both the Israeli processes of ethnic cleansing and the Palestinian resistance to it.

Significant in this regard is Saadeh’s appearance as the lone figure within the video. The artist’s appearance in the work calls into question not only her experience as a Palestinian and the role of women in the Middle East (two central concerns in the artist’s oeuvre) but also the depiction of women in the history of Palestinian art. The depiction of women as allegorical figures is a well-known theme in the history of

Palestinian art and has been the subject of consideration by many commentators examining the history of Palestinian art.497 The depiction of women as a symbol of homeland is of course not unique to Palestinian practice; however, Palestinian visual art is, as Gannit Ankori writes, notable for being replete with metaphors that equate

Palestinian with national and/or beloved female figures.498

The allegorical female figures in history of Palestinian art are noteworthy for being often depicted as literally part of the landscape. This gymnomorphism of the landscape presented idealised depictions of women, who standing as symbols of the land and mother earth, were embodiments of the collective connection to the land.

Although in most instances these women were depicted as nurturing mother figures, they often displayed other collective sentiments around the conflict and occupation.

497 For further discussion on the depiction of women in Palestinian art refer to Chapter 3. 498 Ankori, Palestinian Art 64‐65. 235

These representations saw women depicted holding doves, crying, leading resistance or giving birth to thousands of workers or farmers.499

Understanding this history of the role of women in Palestinian art provides a different conceptual framing of Saadeh’s Vacuum work. Although the artist seemingly continues the trope of women as providers within the landscape, Saadeh’s cleaning of the landscape might also be interpreted as suggesting the very opposite of a nurturing

Palestinian connection and approach to the landscape. By vacuuming the landscape,

Saadeh may also be seen as participating in an act of clearing away the Palestinian connection to the land.

Barefoot and wearing traditional dress, Saadeh’s absurdist action within the landscape brings together the historical depiction of the role of women in Palestinian art, while also calling attention to the erasure of the Palestinian presence on the land.

With an absurd performance of domesticity in the desert, Saadeh presents an acutely self-critical work that collapses the collective identification to the gymnomorphic landscape in Palestinian art with her own experience of a Palestinian woman living in

Israel. Though Vacuum might induce laughter when first viewed, the absurdity of the work is informed by a distinct humour noir approach. The humour noir of Saadeh’s work is created by the juxtaposition of her humorous absurd action and the traumatic divorce and erasure from the land that the work represents.

The humour of Saadeh’s work is translatable in both local and international contexts. Where Vacuum articulates concerns pertinent to the Palestinian experience and understanding of the landscape while drawing upon the history of Palestinian art, well- known works from the artist’s Great Masters Series (2007) such as Mona Lisa, Diana and The Milk Maid (Figure 30) project a humour that is accessible to international

499 Tina Sherwell cited in Laidi‐Hanieh, “Palestinian Landscape Photography,” 120. 236 audiences because the works draws from canonical works of Western art. The 2007

Great Masters Series and more recent additions in 2010 including Rrose Selavy (Figure

31) and Little Red Riding Hood are responsible for earning Raeda Saadeh the title of the

‘Cindy Sherman of the Middle East’. Gallerist and curator Rose Issa writes that ‘at first glance there appears to be nothing inherently political about her photographs, yet they link to specific times, places and events…’.500 It is Saadeh’s use of humour that allows her work to elude the strictly political reading that is often witnessed in writing around

Palestinian art in international contexts. Saadeh’s ability to evade the ‘political’ tag often attached to work by Palestinian artists may be one of the reasons her work is so prominent within international circuits and might explain why her work has been collected by the likes of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum.

Figure 30. Figure 31.

Raeda Saadeh Raeda Saadeh The Milk Maid, 2007 Rrose Selavy, 2007 C-Type Photographic Print C-Type Photographic Print

500 Rose Issa, “Reframing Palestine,” Raeda Saadeh 8. 237

Saadeh’s presence in collections, exhibitions and art festivals internationally is symptomatic of Palestinian art that now functions as one of the chief forms of cultural export from the region. Articulating issues and experiences pertinent to Palestinians while remaining acutely aware of an international gaze, contemporary Palestinian art and film are the tools at the forefront of the instigation of an international dialogue around Palestine. Moreover, the international gaze places Palestinian art and film in a context where investigations of notions of collective identity and connection to place become a public performance. In the case of Palestinian film, this is most apparent in the work of Elia Suleiman.

Arguably the most celebrated of all Palestinian filmmakers working today,

Suleiman’s films are notable both for their success with international audiences and for their radical departure from the aesthetics, structures and political emphasis that dominates Palestinian filmic output. Marked by the technique of non-linear episodic narratives, Suleiman’s films are also typified by an emphasis on film structure, editing and sound track rather than plot and characterisation to create meaning. This is in direct opposition to the majority of Palestinian films that rely on storytelling and verbal narration and are in essence ‘issue films’.501 If we are to consider the occupation as having made Palestine in a ‘story factory’, then Suleiman obviously works from outside the factory walls.502 This is because the filmmaker’s active dismantling of all forms of teleological storytelling disrupts all conventions, conclusions and certainties of

501 Refqa Abu‐Remaileh, “Palestinian anti‐narratives in the films of Elia Suleiman,” Arab Media & Society 5 (2008) January 20 2013. < http://www.arabmediasociety.com/?article=670>. 502 Abu‐Remaileh, “Palestinian anti‐narratives in the films of Elia Suleiman”. 238

Palestinian cinema. In effect Suleiman’s works mark a dismantlement of the very act of storytelling.503

Suleiman’s refusal to didactically record the Palestinian story is a trait of

Palestinian cinema arguably instigated by Michel Khleifi.504 Both filmmakers have one important thing in common; they are both Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. This means that conceptually, ideologically and even economically, they work within the interstitial place between these cultures.505 As Haim Bersheeth observes, ‘this interstitial mode of production is forced and justified by the normative state of Palestinians in

Israel—living on the seams of Israeli society: they always are situated between two other points, Israeli and Hebrew points, on the virtual map of Palestine’.506 Working from with this interstitial place, Suleiman, like other Palestinian artists and filmmakers with Israeli citizenship, has a lived experience and therefore vision that operates both inside and outside of his ‘Palestinianness’. This lends Suleiman the ability to broaden the parameters of national identity by challenging the nationalist tropes that characterise

Palestinian cultural output.

Suleiman achieves this through the use of almost the entire register of symbols of Palestinian culture, ranging from the keffieh, the map of Palestine, Arafat’s face to the Kalashnikov.507 However, in stark contrast to the ways that these symbols have been employed in previous cultural output, Suleiman exposes the fictitious nature of these nationalist symbols. He achieves this by subjecting them to scrutiny using the humorous

503 Hamid Dabashi, “In Praise of Frivolity: On the Cinema of Elia Suleiman,” Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema 160. 504 For further discussion on the work of Michel Khleifi and his influence and impact upon Palestinian cinema, refer to Chapter 4. 505 Haim Bresheeth, “Telling the Stories of Heim and Heimat, Home and Exile: Recent Palestinian Films and the Iconic Parable of the Invisible Palestine,” New Cinemas 1.1 (2002):37. 506 Bresheeth, “Telling the Stories of Heim and Heimat, Home and Exile,” 37. 507 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 180. 239 techniques of absurdity and parody.508 Although the microscope of humour dislodges the mythical status of their nationalist symbols, Suleiman’s work also searches for the meaning behind them, thus renewing their significance. 509 Put together, the destabilisation of national signifiers and the disavowal of normative structure and storytelling might superficially suggest that Suleiman’s work is expunged from nationalist tropes. This perception of Suleiman’s cinema remains a point of contention for many, who continue to burden Suleiman with the task of national narration because of his status as the most renowned of Palestinian filmmakers in international cinema.510

Though there is no obvious correlation between the characters in Suleiman’s films and the nationalist tropes they might represent, Suleiman’s work explores national identity and experience in what can be described as ‘anti-moments’.511 These ‘anti- moments’ focus on the mundane, revealing the effects of occupation that exist in everyday acts of aggression, oppression and resistance. This is clear in Suleiman’s highly acclaimed work from 2002, Divine Intervention: A Story of Love and Pain

(Figure 31). A surreal black comedy, the film chronicles a love story between E. S., the film’s protagonist (played by Elia Suleiman), who lives in Nazareth and East Jerusalem, and his lover, who lives in Ramallah. Comprised of a series of vignettes, Divine

Intervention refuses to didactically represent the history of the Palestinian conflict or the reality of occupation. Rather, it chooses to focus on the absurdity of occupation and

508 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 180. 509 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 180. 510 The Palestinian alienation and slander of Suleiman’s work is acutely apparent in his 2007 film Awkward that came as result of Chacun son Cinema; a collection of short‐films commissioned by the Cannes Film Festival to celebrate its sixty year anniversary. The premise of the commission was to create a short film about the nature of cinema and its place within the lives of filmmakers. Awkward centers on the ambivalent and disinterested approach of Palestinian audiences toward Suleiman’s films. In turn, Awkward reveals to us much about not only Suleiman’s conception of the role of cinema but also the way in which Palestinian audiences respond to it. 511 Abu‐Remaileh, “Palestinian anti‐narratives in the films of Elia Suleiman”. 240

Israeli violence, blending scenes of checkpoints with computer-enhanced fantastical vignettes.512

Figure 29. Elia Suleiman Divine Intervention: A Chronicle of Love and Pain Video Cover, 2002

One of the tropes of Palestinian identity explored in Divine Intervention is that of the enduring Palestinian connection to the land. This is most apparent in a scene from the film involving a Palestinian prisoner, a tourist and an Israeli police officer. The scene depicts the tourist asking the Israeli police officer for directions. Unable to provide directions for the tourist, the police officer releases a blindfolded Palestinian prisoner from his van. When asked to provide directions, the prisoner turns repeatedly to his left and right, eventually providing the tourist with directions. Though seemingly out of place in the narrative of the film, the absurd scene clearly conveys the idea that

512 Despite winning the jury prize at the 2002 Cannes film festival and being nominated for the Golden Palm, Divine Intervention was reportedly rejected from running for the award of Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards because Palestine was not a state recognized in the rules of the Academy. 241

Palestinians, even if blindfolded, have a stronger knowledge and connection to the land than the Israelis.

This ‘anti-moment’ in Divine Intervention signals Suleiman’s ability to broaden the parameters of nationalist tropes while avoiding didactic nationalist narration.

Suleiman is critically aware of this and insists that there are no solutions in his films, proclaiming ‘I do not teach history in my films’.513 This destabilisation of nationalist tropes in his films can be explained as an oscillation between a ‘straight’ representation of the Palestinian narrative and a parody of it. This oscillation might be argued to signify a new language that revives the discourse of Palestinian cinema.514

This new language of cinema that oscillates between the ‘straight’ narrative and its parody is one that can also be extended to Palestinian art. Like Suleiman, artists such as Raeda Saadeh, Taysir Batniji and Larissa Sansour employ humorous techniques such as parody and absurdity to simultaneously narrate the story of Palestine and the

Palestinian connection to the land while at the same time dislodging nationalist mythologies that have prevailed in previous Palestinian cultural output.

Through their use of humour, these artists and filmmakers explore the consequences of the Palestinian experience of exile. Locating their focus on exilic identity, their work simultaneously reinforces the Palestinian connection to the land while problematising the national signifiers of the landscape in nationalist iconography.

In so doing their work addressed the ‘borderlessness’ of Palestine. This borderlessness is both symbolic and material. As Palestine is not yet a state and has no fixed borders its material location and geographical space is constantly in flux. Borderlessness is also symbolic because the word ‘Palestine’ can refer to a multitude of spaces identified as

513 Nathalie Handal and Elia Suleiman, “The Other Face of Silence,” Guernica Mag, May 1 2011. January 10 2013. . 514 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 181. 242 the Palestinian ‘home’. This identification fluctuates between the West Bank and Gaza,

Israel and pre-Israel borders.

This important trope in Palestinian art and film comes as a direct consequence of

Israeli occupation. Although the exploration of the connection to the land is one of the primary themes in contemporary Palestinian humorous cultural output, the overarching effects of the occupation have created another trope that focuses on the failure of the peace process. Artists and filmmakers dealing with the occupation through the use of humour will be discussed in the following chapter to reveal the capacity of laughter to fracture the political status quo and to challenge the banal evil that characterises the lived experience of many Palestinians.

243

CHAPTER SEVEN

Occupied Laughter: The Failure of the Peace Process

‘A child from Gaza asks his father, “Give me two shekels so that I can get to the checkpoint.” “One shekel should do,” the father replies, “since you’ll be coming back by ambulance.”’515

The failure of the peace process has meant that Palestinians in effect live in a state of perpetual limbo. This is most apparent when considering the administrative divisions of the Oslo Accords that created the ‘temporary’ administrative breakup of the

Palestinian Territories. The division was created as a consequence of the Oslo II Accord

(or the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) of 1995, which dictated that the Palestinian Territories be divided into Areas A, B and C.516 Although allegedly established as a temporary agreement serving until a final status accord was established, the division of the Territories remains in place today, almost two decades later. Understanding this, it is not at all surprising that retrospective accounts of the

Oslo process are now discussed by some senior Israeli politicians as being pre-

515 Palestinian joke recorded in (No) Laughing Matter, Dir. Vanessa Rousselot, eO Productions, 2010. 516 After the signing of the Oslo Accords, the West bank and the Gaza Strip were divided into areas (A, B, and C) and governorates: ‘Area A’ refers to the area under PA security and civilian control. ‘Area B’ refers to the area under Palestinian civilian and Israeli security control. ‘Area C’ refers to the area under full Israeli control such as settlements. 244 determined to fail. This is evident in the words of former Israeli foreign minister

Shlomo Ben-Ami, who explains that Oslo was ‘an exercise in make-believe’.517

The failure of Oslo has meant that Palestinians live in a constant ‘interim’ period. This means that their daily lives in the Palestinian Territories is essentially a long-lasting groundhog day of un-abating occupation. Thus, in a twist of perverse irony, the long-lasting legacy of the Oslo Accords is anything but an advancement of the two- state solution. Instead, the Accords mark a process that laid the groundwork for the

Bantustanism we see in the West Bank that culminated in the construction of the

Separation Wall. Far from granting Palestinian autonomy, Oslo legitimised the

Palestinian government as having the primary role in maintaining the occupation and protecting Israeli settlers from their Palestinian subjects.518

The effects of the failed peace process have led to what can be described as a

‘slow death’ for Palestinians in the territories. The ongoing occupation and the inability to maintain and predict an economic and political infrastructure and future mean that

Palestinians live in a constant state of emergency. Though Israel has been subject to increased international criticism in recent years following the attacks on Gaza

(2008/2009 and 2012), the Mossad passport scandal and the attack on the Mavi

Marmara flotilla and Palestine has achieved the status of non-member observer state (an implicit recognition of statehood) and membership of UNESCO, occupation in the

Territories remains a humanitarian emergency. Understanding this, it is perhaps surprising that the failure of the peace process and the ongoing occupation form a central emphasis in the humour of contemporary Palestinian art and film.

However, this prominence of humour during this time of ongoing political crisis might in part be explained by theorist Paolo Virno. Providing an explanation of jokes,

517 Abunimah, One Country 64. 518 Abunimah, One Country 67. 245

Virno writes that they need ‘an indifferent audience to exist’.519 Comparing the need for an indifferent audience to the success of a joke as being the same as for a revolution,

Virno’s discussion might also broadened to account for manifestations of humour more generally. This can also be said of his discussion of jokes as innovative actions where he explains that ‘the innovative action is an urgent action…those who accomplish it are always in a state of emergency’.520 When Virno’s discussion of humour is applied to

Palestine, it becomes foreseeable why Palestinian artists and filmmakers have turned to humour. They are faced both with a state of emergency that is both an experiential

‘state’ and a political ‘state’. Adding to the fact that they are operating within a relentless ‘interim’ emergency period, these artists and filmmakers are also confronted with an indifferent international audience who, both confused and wearied by the conflict, have developed trauma fatigue.

Sharif Waked is an excellent example of an artist who employs sharp use of humour to investigate the ongoing occupation. Waked’s works appear acutely aware of the trauma fatigue of audiences towards the political turmoil faced by Palestinians.

Working with video, installation and painting, Waked’s richly diverse practice both reflects and dissects political history in order to examine present-day issues including propaganda strategies and the globalised images of conflict that have emerged in the media.521 His 2010 work Beace Brocess (Figure 33) is a keen example of the artist’s use of humour to investigate the failure of the peace process.

Beace Brocess references the well-known news clip of Yassir Arafat and former

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak engaging in a display of hospitality that involved rotating in a circle, playfully fighting over whom should first enter the negotiating

519 Paolo Virno, Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2008) 85. 520 Virno, Multitude 92. 521 Collected by the likes of the Guggenheim Museum (New York) and the Israel Museum (Jerusalem) and exhibited in museums, biennales and art venues internationally, Waked’s work is one of the prime examples of Palestinian contemporary art that engages with humour. 246 chamber during the 2000 Camp David talks. This footage made international headlines as being much more than a sign of norms of hospitality but rather a clear indication of a contest of wills between the two leaders. The appropriation of this well-known clip serves to highlight both its absurdity and our investment in it. As Uros Cvoro notes, the work reveals a ‘deadlock of politeness as the reverse “civilised” image of ongoing violence’.522

Beace Brocess draws on this archival footage to uncover how the peace process raised the symbols of sovereignty only to make a mockery of them.523 Set to a carnivalesque soundtrack, the work is presented in a loop with the feel of silent cinema.

This has the effect of making the video appear as simultaneously historical and contemporary, thus symbolically reinforcing the Camp David talks as a historical event responsible for the current state of perpetual limbo. The work’s title also makes a mockery of the Declaration of Principles negotiations common title of ‘peace process’ by playing with the fact that Arabic speakers are frequently unable to pronounce the letter ‘p’. This might be said to allude to the Palestinian criticism of Arafat, who participated in the peace process, signing Accords that resulted in the devastation of his people. Given that the failure of past resolutions have often been argued to have come in the legal wording of documents, Arafat’s failure to understand the ramifications of his approval of the documents may be highlighted in his inability to even enunciate the words ‘peace process’ correctly. Further, this also operates as an allusion to the fact that

Arafat was consistently blamed for the breakdown of negotiations during Camp David, something that was later proven to be false.524

522 Uros Cvoro, “Beyond the Last Laugh,” Beyond the Last Sky: Contemporary Palestinian Photography and Video, Ed. Chrisoula Lionis (Sydney: The Australian Centre for Photography, 2012) 30. 523 Abunimah, One Country 65. 524 Said, From Oslo to Iraq and the Roadmap 18‐23. 247

Waked’s decision to place the appropriated footage in a loop reveals the absurdity, repetition and tedium of the long drawn out and increasingly fraught peace process. By appropriating the original Camp David footage Beace Brocess causes us to distance ourselves from our familiarity with the event, thereby subverting the ways in which the event sits within international media history. Drawing reference to an event that has contributed to the current crippling political status quo in the region, Beace

Brocess is in line with Waked’s wider oeuvre, which is marked by the use of subversive humour. Using subversive humour requires a good dose of self-criticism, which at its best, is capable of destabilising the status quo by asking us to re-evaluate our basic assumptions and values.525

Figure 33. Sharif Waked Beace Brocess, 2010 Video 2.47min, (still)

Beace Brocess therefore signals both rumination on the status quo brought about by the failure of the peace process and a subversive intervention upon the political and representational status quo. Waked’s meditation upon the breakdown of the peace process and the inability of Palestinians to achieve their own state is echoed, and indeed amplified, by the work of other Palestinian artists, curators and organisations that have used art to forge a sense of statehood. Acknowledging the limbo of Palestinian

525 Heike Munder, “Humour: The Secret of Aesthetic Sublimation,” When Humour Becomes Painful Eds. Felicity Lunn & Heike Munder (Zurich: JRP Ringier, 2005) 13. 248 statehood, contemporary art is increasingly marked by the performance of the functions of the state. In some instances parodying and in other examples actually fulfilling these functions, these examples of Palestinian contemporary art intervene in the performance of the roles of a state that is yet to be actualised.

The role of art and culture in forging the nation state forms the emphasis of a study by the anthropologist Chiara De Cesari, who perceptively analyses and describes shifts in cultural production by Palestinian practitioners. For De Cesari Palestinian art practices of recent years represent a form of ‘anticipatory practice’. In this regard, contemporary Palestinian art is contended to resonate with current political anticipatory practices, most notably the PLO bid to obtain full UN membership.526 In order for art to be conceived as politically anticipatory, De Cesari draws upon the work of art theorists such as Hal Foster, who writes of the artist as ethnographer, and Claire Bishop (among many others), who argues that relational art practices and the shifting roles of both artists, audiences and art institutions mean that art can no longer be seen as ‘discrete or portable, nor can it be any longer understood as autonomous with the ability to transcend its context’.527

The current popularity of theorists such as Claire Bishop and the continued interest in the relational aesthetics theory of Nicolas Bourriaud over the last decade might explain the ongoing current interest in Palestinian art. 528 This is because contemporary Palestinian art practice, whether within organisational structures or individual works of art, signals a clear convergence between art, politics, community and institutional practice operating outside of the state. The ‘anticipatory’ dimension of

526 Chiara De Cesari, “Anticipatory Representation: Building the Palestinian Nation(‐State) through Artistic Performance,” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 2.1 (2012): 86. 527 Claire Bishop cited in De Cesari, “Anticipatory Representation,” 84. 528 Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics (Paris: Les Presse du Reel, 1998) 249

Palestinian art might therefore be understood as one of the reasons Ramallah is now said to be full of ‘art missionaries’ who are keen to explore Palestinian art practice.529

The never before witnessed surge in international interest in Palestinian art and film over the last decade is evidenced by the Palestinian Film Festivals appearing in new cities around the world almost every year and the growing number of Palestinian art exhibitions internationally. This is further supported by the participation of

Palestinian artists in premiere art and film festivals around the world, including

Sundance, the Toronto Film Festival, the Venice Biennale and Documenta, to name but a few. This international profile has been supported by events within the Palestinian territories and in Jerusalem, including the Jerusalem Film Festival, the Riwaq Biennale, the Qalandia International and the A. M. Qattan Young Artist of the Year Prize/Hassan

Hourani Award. These local and international events have created a new environment for Palestinian art and film that is increasingly open to interest from international audiences. The establishment of galleries within the West Bank and Jerusalem, the increase in artist’s residencies and the training of artists in West Bank institutions, including the International Academy of Art Palestine in Ramallah have in effect provided an infrastructure for Palestinian art. Although this infrastructure is supported by the PA, Palestinian NGOs and international funding from various governments and cultural organisations, the infrastructure remains anticipatory insofar as its consequent cultural output appears as though it is supported, or indeed orchestrated, by a Palestinian state that does not yet exist.

Though the practices of Palestinian NGOs and intellectuals in the representation of Palestine and Palestinians are constantly under scrutiny for not being in touch with the needs and desires of ‘ordinary Palestinians’, many artists and theorists have taken a

529 Emily Jacir cited in Guy Mannes‐Abbott, In Ramallah, Running (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2012) 250

‘fake it until you make it’ approach. An excellent example of this is the Ramallah

Syndrome work that appeared at the 2009 Venice Biennale. Focused on the changes and delusions of normality that crept into Ramallah after the Oslo Accords, the work questions the ‘hallucinations of normality’ in the city to culminate in the suggestion that

‘if the establishment of a Palestinian state is indefinitely postponed it will be achieved through pure illusion’. 530 The Ramallah Syndrome work appeared within what is perhaps the most well-known example of the performance of state cultural sovereignty; the Palestinian pavilion at the 2009 Venice Biennale.

The Palestine c/o Venice exhibition at the Biennale was significant both in art historical and political terms because 2009 was the first Venice Biennale in which

Palestine had its own pavilion, after failed attempts in previous years.531 Inevitably, this raised questions, both political and symbolic, as Palestine was granted a pavilion even though it is not an official state, therefore making it an exception with the Venetian

Biennale model that only recognises formal nation states. As the Venice Biennale functions as a form of state-supported cultural export, Palestine’s inclusion at the event was a performative statement of statehood. The Palestinian inclusion in the Biennale meant that the pavilion behaved as if the Palestinian exhibition was a proper national pavilion, thereby evoking the future existence of the Palestinian state by performing the prefiguration of an institution that does yet fully exist.532

The struggle to establish the Palestinian pavilion at the Venice Biennale and the political, cultural, theoretical and practical constraints of achieving this are echoed in the struggle towards establishing a Palestinian museum. Although Palestinian exhibition spaces have been set up by various societies, NGOs, foundations and other

530 Salwa Mikdadi ed., Palestine c/o Venice, (Beirut: Mind the Gap, 2009) 44; De Cesari, “Anticipatory Representation,” 96. 531 Regina Gleeson, “Dislocate, Renegotiate and Flow: Globalisation’s Impact on Art Practice,” Circa 107 (2004): 69. 532 De Cesari, “Anticipatory Representation,” 95. 251 organisations in Palestine and abroad, a Palestinian Museum operated and solely funded by the state remains a practical impossibility.533 Without a state, these museums and exhibition spaces remain supported by various organisations in the way they have for decades. Though undeniably they have grown in number and have established further support by way of funding, these institutions remain makeshift and improvised until a

Palestinian state with an appropriate state cultural apparatus is established.534

Perhaps the most exciting example of museological ‘anticipatory representation’ is the ongoing Contemporary Art Museum Palestine (CAMP) project spearheaded by

Palestinian curator Jack Persekian. In its current form, the museum consists of a series of agreements signed by 35 Palestinian artists to donate work to the museum once it has been established in Jerusalem. The museum currently exists in a physical form at the

Van Abbe museum in the Netherlands. In its ‘surrogate home’ at the Van Abbe, CAMP is exhibited as a collection of artworks held on loan by the museum as a cultural promise of an institution to come.535 Though CAMP is a nomadic and exilic museum by necessity, Persekian’s project inevitably functions as a revelatory tool regarding the current political situation in Palestine and the practical impossibility of having a

Palestinian national institution. In this regard the CAMP project is not dissimilar to the

Palestinian Museum project (whose Director is also Jack Persekian), headed by the

Palestinian NGO, the Welfare Association (WA).

533 Jack Persekian cited in De Cesari, “Anticipatory Representation,” 87. 534 Jack Perskekian cited in De Cesari, “Anticipatory Representation,” 87; Daniel McGowan, “Deir Yassin Remembered,” Remembering Deir Yassin 3‐9. Well‐known Palestinian curator Jack Persekian observes that part of the fundamental problem with establishing a Palestinian museum in the current political context is the obstacle of where it would be located. For Persekian, the museum can only be located in Jerusalem, the symbolic, political and spiritual capital for Palestinians. The impossibility of establishing a Palestinian Museum in Jerusalem signals the current restrictions on Palestinian mobility and Israeli opposition to a Palestinian institutional presence in the city of Jerusalem. The same can also be said of previous attempts to establish a museum commemorating the massacre at Deir Yassin, which today is the site of a mental hospital in West Jerusalem, a mere stones throw away from the Holocaust Museum. 535 De Cesari, “Anticipatory Representation,” 91. 252

For several years Beshara Doumani led the strategic planning for the creation of the WA Palestinian Museum. Although he was been charged with the task of creating a national museum, Doumani was critical of such an endeavour being taken by an NGO rather than a state. For Doumani, one of the ways of circumventing the overarching problem of an NGO taking up the role typically assigned to state apparatus (including ongoing funding, long term commitment etc.) is to create a ‘mobilising and interactive cultural project’ that is capable of stitching together the fragmented Palestinian body politic by reaching out to Palestinians, wherever they may live, through transnational projects.536 The attempt to bring together the fragmented Palestinian body politic involves a blurry repetition and mockery of standard national museum forms. However, as De Cesari rightly explains, both the CAMP and WA projects mock the museum format, but in doing so they plant the seeds for future national institutions.

The transnational nature of attempts to create a Palestinian museum highlight both the exilic experience and identity of Palestinians while revealing the real-politik of the region and the political constraints of creating a national museum, both in economic and geographical terms. Through anticipatory processes the CAMP and WA museums prefigure the role of a future Palestinian state and its interest in creating a national museum. Importantly, however, they also offer a critique of state museological practices, highlighting the difficulties in creating a monument representative of national identity and ownership or connection to geographical space. At a time when national museums are more than ever the subject of enquiry and scrutiny in theoretical discourse,

536 De Cesari, “Anticipatory Representation,” 88; Palestinian Museum, January 29th 2013. . It must be clarified that Doumani was hired over a decade after the first work on the museum began. The Welfare Association supported the idea of a Palestinian Memory Museum in the late 1990s and academic Ibrahim Abu Lughod was the leader of the project at the time. 253 these Palestinian projects offer insight into problems of museums at a time of globalisation, transnationalism and economic crisis.537

Most interestingly, the Palestinian museum projects in their current form exist in ways that are more akin to ongoing art projects than national museums. To accept these museological practices as ongoing art projects is to lend to them a different form of immediacy, acknowledging that they a revelatory projects capable of unveiling the contemporary political, economic and cultural climate. As art projects perceived as transnational museums, these projects also exist as international exhibitions and in such a way might be seen as ‘live events’. As theorist Jill Bennett explains, ‘an exhibition itself is always in part a live event, unfolding in the here and now: an orchestration of present affects rather than a retrospective analysis’.538

As art projects, these museological endeavours also resonate and carry similar concerns and consequences to individual artworks that both mimic and mock the role of the state and parody its representation. An example of such an artwork is Khaled

Jarrar’s The State of Palestine passport stamp project (Figures 34 and 35). The concept of the work is relatively simple: to stamp people’s passports with the seal of the ‘State of Palestine’. Beginning in Ramallah in January 2011 and ending in Oslo in September

2012, Jarrar stamped the passports of individuals from around the world as a way of

537 Operating as museums in exile and as suspended projects until the formation of a sovereign state, these Palestinian museological projects call into question the collection practices, funding models and geographical spaces of international state institutions more broadly. Though this is a line of enquiry in museological theory in places where sovereign states do exist, in this case of Palestine, this is a practical necessity. The strive to create these museums also signals the need to establish a continuing articulation of Palestinian identity and connection to the land, both of which were subjects of scrutiny for decades prior to Oslo when both Palestinian identity and the connection to the land were officially recognized internationally. 538 Jill Bennett, Practical Aesthetics: Events, Affects and Art after 9/11 (London: I.B. Tauris & Co, 2012) 37. 254 welcoming them to Palestine.539 A subversive political gesture, Jarrar’s stamp, which features the words ‘the State of Palestine’ in English and Arabic accompanied by the

Palestinian sunbird, appears initially as a parody of state security and authority. For

Jarrar, the passport stamp project was, as he explains, about wanting ‘to provide the whole idea of the state’.540

Mimicking visa and entrance stamps from other established nation states,

Jarrar’s work is undeniably politically provocative but not technically illegal. Similar passport stamps exist for visitors to Machu Picchu, the Tower of Pisa, and Check Point

Charlie. However, as anyone who has experienced security checks at Israel’s Ben

Gurion airport would know, a stamp such as this within any passport would rouse serious concerns and questioning, if not interrogation, by Israeli security. Implicating audiences in what Jarrar describes as a ‘participatory experience’, the stamp created concrete consequences for audiences.541 Although some participants merely had their passports photocopied and queried by Israeli security, others have faced interrogation and at least one Israeli passport with the Palestinian stamp has been cancelled.542

Figure 34. Khaled Jarrar, The State of Palestine, 2011-2012 Passport Stamp

539 Maureen Clare Murphy, “Palestinian Artist Khaled Jarrar Wants to Stamp Your Passport,” Electronic Intifada, 21 July 2011. 28 January 2012. < http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen‐clare‐ murphy/palestinian‐artist‐khaled‐jarrar‐wants‐stamp‐your‐passport>. 540 Emily Gogolak, “Khaled Jarrar Stamps His Authority,” Rolling Stone, 5 February 2012. 27 January 2012. . 541 “#12 by Khaled Jarrar,” Truth is Concrete, 27 Janurary 2012. < http://truthisconcrete.org/graphic‐ project/15‐‐12‐by‐khaled‐jarrar.php>. 542 Gogolak, “Khaled Jarrar Stamps His Authority,”. 255

Figure 35. Khaled Jarrar, The State of Palestine, 2011-2012 Jarrar with Passport Stamp

Perhaps more interestingly, Jarrar’s stamp project involves participants around the world and not just those visiting the West Bank where Jarrar resides. Jarrar stamped passports with the seal of the Palestinian ‘state’ in various countries where the artist travelled, including Egypt, Jordan, Serbia, Italy, France and Germany.543 In so doing,

Jarrar renders the state of Palestine as one that is mobile and that can appear at any given city where the artist is permitted to travel. Following from this, the stamp project resonates with Darwish’s line from the Palestinian Declaration of Independence that

‘Palestine is the state of Palestinians wherever they may be’.544 Through Jarrar’s stamp work we see the creation of a transnational state that collapses the personal restrictions of Jarrar as an individual and the consequences of the collective identification with a state of Palestine. Symptomatic of ‘anticipatory representation’, Jarrar’s work mimics the symbols of a future state in ways that have real life consequences in the present; again reminding us of Jill Bennett’s assertion that art offers present affect and not just retrospective analysis.545

Whereas Jarrar’s stamp project functions as an anticipatory representation of the future Palestinian state within a single artwork and the CAMP, WA and Biennale

543 “State of Palestine Stamping Action,” FotoGallerieT, 27 January 2012., http://fotogalleriet.no/Nyheter%20og%20prosjekter/state‐of‐palestine‐passport‐stamping‐action>. 544 Rashid Khalidi, “The Resolutions of the 19th Palestine National Council,” Journal of Palestine Studies 19.2 (1990): 33. 545 Jill Bennett, Practical Aesthetics 37. 256 projects function as anticipations of national institutions prior to the establishment of the state, the work of Khalil Rabah behaves as an anticipatory museum within a single work of art. For several years Khalil Rabah has worked on an ongoing project involving a functional nomadic museum that collects and classifies the national environment of

Palestine, The Palestinian Museum of National History and Humankind. Each of the man-made and natural specimens Rabah presents appear ‘authentic’ yet the objects, ranging from meteorites to lumps of coal, are fabricated by the artist out of olive wood.

Questioning the formation of knowledge, museology and the dematerialisation of the art object, Rabah’s museum parodies cultural institutions and their role in the shaping of national identity and state authority. Mimicking the institutional displays of nature and culture and styled according to the conventions of national museums of natural history,

Rabah’s work serves as a critique of museological practice while at the same time drawing attention to the current impossibility of establishing a Palestinian museum.

Figure 36. Khalil Rabah The 3rd Annual Wall Zone Auction, 2004 Video still

For all intents and purposes, Rabah’s museum initially appears authentic, travelling its collection around the world with sponsors and even a newsletter. Upon closer inspection, however, the audience begins to sense that the artefacts are forged by

257 the artist and that the sponsors of the museum are not real. One of the most well-known aspects of Rabah’s project was the 3rd Annual Wall Zone Auction that was staged at the

Khalil Sakakini Centre in Ramallah in March 2004 (Figure 36). A performance documented in a two-channel video work, the auction involved the sale of materials and objects from the area surrounding the Wall with audiences bidding to buy objects ranging from stones, olive branches and a mesh fence. The absurd action appears as a real event designed to raise funds to support The Palestinian Museum of Natural

History and Humankinds ‘permanent’ collection while functioning as an expose of the consequences of the Wall. The farcical nature of the event, selling objects of oppression to raise money for a state museum, is at once both an empowering humorous gesture and a melancholic reflection on Palestinian oppression and the impossibility of institutional representation of Palestinian history and presence in the Holy Land.

When considered alongside the efforts to establish Palestinian state museums, the work of individual artists such as Khalil Rabah and Khaled Jarrar can be considered as exercises in nation-building. The humour that resides in each of these nation-building works and parodies of the state acknowledge the current political impossibility of a

Palestinian state while simultaneously disavowing this political reality. This collision between avowal and disavowal is at the heart of humour. This is best explained by

Alenka Zupancic, who points out that humour ‘involves a strange coincidence of realism (it is supposed to be more realistic and down-to-earth than, say, tragedy) and utter unrealism (defying all human and natural laws, and getting away with things that one would never get away with in “real life”)’.546 This collision between the real and the utterly unreal is what informs the absurdity that characterises Palestinian art and film dealing with the occupation. In the case of cinema this is nowhere more apparent than in

546 Alenka Zupancic, The Odd One In: On Comedy (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2008) 217. 258 the work of Elia Suleiman and his film Divine Intervention: A Chronicle of Love and

Pain (2002).

Lacking any clear narrative structure, Divine Intervention presents a world where humour and tragedy exist in a poetic symbiosis that blurs structure and genre. If one was forced into confining the film to a synopsis they might say that Divine

Intervention centres on its protagonist’s return to Nazareth from New York and his love affair with a woman who resides in the West Bank and also fantastically manifests as a symbol of Palestine itself. Almost entirely absent of dialogue, the film sees Suleiman examine the ways that images relate to reality, only to deconstruct them and again reconstruct them as political intersections pregnant with multiple meanings. It is in these junctions that the Palestinian story of life under occupation appears as a narrative that cannot be told, but is recounted nonetheless.547 Indeed, Divine Intervention can be interpreted as a parody of narrative structure itself, refusing to make the story of

Palestine and Palestinians comprehensible. Dense with references from popular culture, biblical mythology, cinematic history and Palestinian nationalist iconography,

Suleiman’s film articulates an ironic identity that escapes the narrow confines of nationalism while maintaining an expression of identity and experience in the face of aggressive negation and appropriation.548

To avoid being pigeonholed into nationalist confines, Suleiman engages both the absurd and the fantastical juxtaposed with ‘reality’. This juxtaposition is clear when considering two vignettes from the film; the first is the film’s climactic ‘ninja’ scene and the second scene sees the protagonist E. S. (played by Suleiman) stopped at a traffic intersection alongside a politically fanatical Israeli. Considered together Suleiman’s

547 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 181 548 Najat Rahman, “”Laughter that Encounters a Void?”: Humor, Loss and the Possibility for Politics in Recent Palestinian Cinema,” Storytelling in World Cinemas, Ed. Lina Khattib (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012) 486. 259 cinematic language is revealed as one that ‘juxtaposes two versions of reality—one present and the other absent, each concealing yet exposing the other’.549 The ninja scene involves a female ninja figure facing off with Israeli armed men while dressed as though she is a member of the fedayeen (Figure 37). This image of the Palestinian that serves as target practice is then seen to transform before the eyes of the Israelis into a flying ninja with moves reminiscent of those from the Matrix film.

Figure 37. Elia Suleiman, Divine Intervention Film Still, 2002

The ninja scene essentially casts the Israelis in the role of Goliath, as they are defeated in battle by a lone Palestinian woman who assaults them with all manner of absurd weaponry. The assault is both physical and symbolic as the Palestinian woman uses weapons that cover the spectrum of Palestinian symbols including stones, an

Islamic crescent dart, a keffieh and even a shield in the shape of the map of historical

Palestine. As Najat Rahman observes, the confrontation in this scene ‘presents the conflict and face off as one of representation, and hence of political existence: who has the power to represent, who creates images of others, who diffuses these images’.550

The ninja scene exposes the mixed circuits in Suleiman’s cinema; in this particular example the mixed circuit is that between auteur film and commercial cinema. More

549 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 181. 550 Rahman, “”Laughter that Encounters a Void?”,” 485. 260 broadly, however, Suleiman can be said to mix expected codes to create something new by bringing together the private and public, violence and laughter and the actual and the virtual.551 Humour appears in Suleiman’s work precisely because of these mixed circuits because as Incongruity Theory suggests, laughter occurs when there is a disavowal of our expectations. This denial of expectations is evident not only in

Suleiman’s fantastical scenes, but also in the way he approaches realism.

An example of Suleiman’s ‘realism’ can be witnessed in the scene involving E.

S. and a fanatical Israeli at a traffic intersection. The scene depicts a stand-off between the Palestinian protagonist and an Israeli driver whose car is plastered with nationalist paraphernalia and the Israeli flag. As the cars behind them beep, the two men remain in their cars staring at each other while E. S. blares Natascha Atlas’ rendition of I Put a

Spell on You. The stand-off between the two drivers is accentuated by both their silence and the lyrics of the song coming from E. S.’s car. Interpreted within the context of the scene, I Put a Spell on You becomes an expression of the overall nationalist message latent in the fantastical scenes of the film. The song’s lyrics ‘I put a spell on you, because you’re mine’ are transformed to reveal Suleiman’s fantastical representations of

Palestine as a ‘spell’ that signifies the Palestinian connection and ownership over the land.

Both the intersection scene and the ninja scene reveal the tensions between national affirmations of identity and globalised representations of them. Najat Rahman evidently has this in mind when she explains that Suleiman’s depiction of the sociopolitical reality of Palestine is linked by both the absurd and humour noir. In this representation ‘the absurd is thenceforth an index of power and for violence, a

551 Patricia Pisters, “Violence and Laughter: Paradoxes of Nomadic Thought in Postcolonial Cinema,” Deleuze and the Postcolonial, Eds. Simone Bignall and Paul Patton (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010) 210. 261 manifestation of state violence’.552 Using the fantastical and the absurd to present experience that evades representation, Suleiman’s cinema is in line with Palestinian films more broadly that are argued to exist at a series of exilic interstices, including fact and fiction, between narrative and narration, between storytelling and its telling and importantly, between documentary and fiction.553 The interstice between documentary and fiction is particularly significant given the prominence of documentary forms in

Palestinian cultural output and the saturation of the documentary in the chronicling of

Palestinian life under occupation.

The division between the genres of documentary and fiction might be said to form a representational occupation of Palestine. This representational occupation is a point of reference in Jean Luc Godard’s Notre Musique where he is depicted explaining to a group of students that in 1948 the Jews ‘walked out of the water into the Holy

Land—The Palestinians walked into the water, the Jews became the stuff of fiction, the

Palestinians became a documentary.554 Godard’s distribution of genre between Israelis and Palestinians is also echoed by Jacques Ranciere, who explains that the division of genres always entails distribution of possibilities and capacities.555 For Ranciere, this division creates a ‘world that is divided between those who cannot afford the luxury of playing with images’.556 It is with this in mind that Suleiman finds his greatest importance within the history of Palestinian cinema. Confusing the expected codes of fiction and the documentary and operating at the interstice between realism and unrealism, Suleiman cracks open the representational history of Palestine and dislodges

552 Rahman, “”Laughter that Encounters a Void?”,” 484. 553 Haim Bresheeth, “A Symphony of Absence: Borders and Liminality in Elia Suleiman’s Chronicle of a Disappearance,”’ Framework 43.2 (2002): 81. 554 Notre Musique, Dir. Jean Luc Godard, Avventura Films, 2004 555 Although there has been repetition of Jacques Ranciere’s observations regarding the relationship between Palestinians and the documentary, it was necessary to include here as a reminder within the context of this chapter. For further analysis of Ranciere’s observations refer to Chapter 5. 556 Jacques Ranciere in Kelsey and Carnervale “Art of the Possible,” Artforum 45.7 (2007): 259. 262 the documentary’s pride of place in the depiction of life under occupation. The collision of genres and his use of humour have the consequence of representing what is essentially not representable: traumatic experience.

Just as in his previous film Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996), the protagonist of Divine Intervention serves as a silent witness to the ongoing cycle of violence brought by the occupation and the trauma that surrounds Palestine. Yet he is defiant. Though E. S.’s role is comparable to Buster Keaton or to Charlie Chaplin, the character’s incessant gaze into the camera, and therefore at the audience, is both a depiction of defiant witness to occupation and a call to recognise our complicity in the representation of Palestine. This is an act of creative resistance to power and violence and an act of aesthetic emancipation.557 It is in the humour noir of Suleiman’s films and their employment of absurdity that creates the seeming lightness of purpose in the filmmaker’s approach. As Hamid Dabashi observes, it is this ‘dead-serious frivolity that flies in the face of trauma and tragedy, a flightiness that can no longer be captured, nailed, checkpointed, jailed, expelled or called a terrorist’.558

The emancipatory aesthetic of Suleiman’s films can also be traced in contemporary Palestinian visual art that operates within the interstice between realism and unrealism. This is evident in the work of Sharif Waked, whose absurdist humour noir approach also takes aim at the representation of the Palestinian experience of occupation. This is acutely apparent in Waked’s 2003 work Chic Point (Figure 38). The

9-minute video work begins with a presentation of a fashion catwalk with music and set design reminiscent of Fashion TV. However, as the male models parade down the runway their outfits start to become increasingly bizarre.

557 Dabashi, “In Praise of Frivoloty,” 160. 558 Dabashi, “In Praise of Frivoloty,” 160. 263

Despite being outlandish, the clothing on display does resemble avant-garde fashion from the early 2000s (most notably that of Alexander McQueen) and the bizarre designs all have one thing in common: the exposure of their male model’s midriffs.

Although the video is a humorous parody of fashion parades, the exposure of the mid- section of the Palestinian male bodies, when considered alongside the work’s title, begin to alert the viewer that Waked is drawing a line of reference to the Palestinian experience of Israeli checkpoints. Once this realisation is made, the artist’s exploration of the nexus between politics, consumption and desire is revealed as a clear artistic agenda.

The parade of Palestinian bodies dressed in their bizarre ensembles is captivating as outfits become increasingly absurd, drawing both the audience’s laughter and attention. In this sense, Chic Point can be compared to the structure of many humorous exchanges (primarily jokes), where a long meandering story is told in the lead up to a punchline. Although the punchline typically signals an incongruity that urges laughter, Waked’s Chic Point inverts this process, whereby a humorous build-up is established only to reach a punchline that is not one of delight, but rather of horror.

This is established when the video of the fashion parade is cut short and replaced with black and white documentary stills from around the West Bank during the second intifada. These stills are all of Palestinian men subjected to humiliation at Israeli checkpoints, most of them forced to expose their midriffs to soldiers.

The collision between these documentary stills and the absurd fashion parade earlier in the work, signals a merge between the utterly unreal and the real. This collision alerts us to the necessary reliance and symbiosis between fiction and reality in the facilitation of affect. Highlighting the collective humiliation of Palestinians, Chic

Point reveals the occupation as one not just of land but also of the Palestinian body that

264 is interpreted as a dangerous weapon and therefore subject to same surveillance and control enforced upon the land. Importantly, Waked’s fashion parade can be interpreted as not only a shock tactic to reveal the humiliation suffered at the hands of the Israeli army, but can also be read as an attempt to emancipate Palestinians out of the image of victimhood that is reinforced by the images of the occupation.

It does this both through a use of humour to reinforce a shared experience of occupation among Palestinian viewers, but also subverts the oppressive intentions behind military strip searches suggesting instead that they are also informed by desire.

For Gil Hochberg Chic Point is argued to signal an empowering artistic gesture in that it forges a sense of community that is organised outside of injustice, subjugation and humiliation. Through parody, Waked takes control of the gaze and scrutiny imposed on the Palestinian body, replacing it instead with one of sexuality and forbidden desirability.559 Understanding this, Chic Point is viewed as a work that plays with perversity, both in regard to the fashion parade and the documentary stills featured in the video. According to Hochberg, ‘there is something about that perversity that is very important to explore, precisely because it is so politically daring’.560 It is humour that calls into attention the perversity of our gaze looking at Palestinian bodies, whether they shown in a fashion parade, humiliated at a checkpoint, or indeed as corpses. By locating an emphasis on desire, Waked’s Chic Point challenges audiences to dislodge understandings of representations of power and counter-power, asking us therefore to not only look out for them, but also to embody and host them. 561

559 Hoda El Shakry, “A Conversation with Gil Hochberg on “Queer Politics and the Question of Palestine”,” Newsletter for the UCLA Centre for the Study of Women, April 4 2009. June 10 2012. . 560 El Shakry, “A Conversation with Gil Hochberg”. 561 El Shakry, “A Conversation with Gil Hochberg”. 265

Figure 38. Sharif Waked Chic Point, 2003 Video (still) 7min

Through Chic Point’s channelling of sexuality and forbidden desirability, the audience is implicated through a transmission of affect. This transmission leads to the questioning of the impetus behind the gaze upon the Palestinian body. This is an uncomfortable question precisely because it may point to the perversity of our gaze. It is the ‘forbidden desirability’ of the Palestinian male body in Chic Point that arguably reveals our perversion as an audience as our desire is suspended throughout both the hypersexualised fashion parade and the documentary photographs that follow. 562

Despite a fracture between the ‘real’ and the ‘unreal’ imagery in Chic Point, our desire is in both instances directed at an occupied body. Within the collision between the sexualised gaze and a compassionate gaze, Chic Point asks us to acknowledge whether they are one and the same, both informed by a certain perversity.

One might look to the saturation of documentary images of Palestinian suffering as evidence of the forbidden desire to look gaze upon Palestinian misery and occupied bodies. Despite the fact that these documentary endeavours are geared towards exposing the effects of the occupation of Palestinian life, they maintain an emphasis on the humiliation, despair and death of Palestinians. This again can be reinforced by Jacques

562 El Shakry, “A Conversation with Gil Hochberg”. 266

Ranciere’s observation that the division of genre between ‘fiction’ and ‘reality’ has created a world where Palestinians ‘can only offer the bodies of their victims to the gaze of news cameras or to the compassionate gaze at their suffering’.563 The sustained dominance of these forms of representation begs two important questions; the first being what are the consequences of a continued emphasis upon victimhood and horror?

Secondly, what is the impetus behind (and consequence of) the compassionate gaze?

The continual emphasis upon images of Palestinian suffering is informed by an attempt to unveil the continued horror that Palestinians have been repeatedly subjected to as a result of Israeli violence. The emphasis on bodies that have been maimed, disfigured, burned or indeed reduced to unrecognisable corpses, undoubtedly initially induces a visceral affect when viewed. Though these image proliferate the representation of most Israeli assaults, notable instances in terms of documentary footage include the Sabra and Shatila massacre of 1982, the 2006 war and the assaults on Gaza in 2008/2009 and 2012.564 Though these images may rouse compassion, there is also a danger that they might encourage audiences to a sense of pity. This sense of pity correlates to feeling of trauma fatigue that rather than incite compassion or political action, instead encourages audiences to switch off.

The trauma fatigue in regard to the suffering of Palestinians can partly be attributed to the proliferation of these images. Rather than function as a call to understand the Palestinian experience, these images demarcate a line of irreconcilable distance; a process that teeters on the edge of dehumanisation. These images thus become disempowering for both their subjects and their audience, potentially closing

563 Jacques Ranciere in Kelsey and Carnevale, “Art of the Possible,” 259. 564 The photographs and videos that emerged in the wake of these events often focused on the unspeakable violence inflicted upon children and young men. Both harrowing and grisly, these images can be found at the centre of countless documentary films addressing the Palestine/Israel conflict. 267 off a circuit of affect that provokes critical inquiry or compassion.565 The possibilities and dangers of this visualisation of suffering have most notably been taken up by

Hannah Arendt, but continue to draw interest and analysis in recent visual culture studies, most significantly in the work of Luc Boltanski, Slavoj Zizek and Jill

Bennett.566 Although these images are an implicit call to action, their danger in the case of Palestine and Palestinians is that they reinforce an image of repeated victimhood. In this sense they operate as ‘status-enforcing’ images and as the dominant form of representation mark a sublimation of the diversity of Palestinian experience and the repeated efforts (both historically and in the present) to remove ‘Palestinianness’ outside the boundaries of victimhood.567

The dominance of these documentary forms comes not only as a consequence of ongoing violence and occupation, but also because they are cheaper to produce and remain extremely popular with audiences. The dominance and popularity of the documentary genre is clearly evidenced in the programming of Palestinian film festivals internationally where documentaries almost always far outnumber other genres. This poses a dilemma for those involved in curating festival programs. For them the inevitable question arises as to whether high audience numbers from non-Palestinian or

Arab backgrounds attend screenings in an attempt towards understanding or a clear narration of the conflict, or whether there is a latent desire in audiences to gaze at other

565 Ariella Azoulay, “Getting Rid of the Distinction between the Aesthetic and the Political,” Theory, Culture & Society 27.8 (2010): 239‐262. 566 Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (London: Penguin Classics, 2006) 49‐106; Jill Bennett, Practical Aesthetics 138‐158; Luc Boltanski, Distant Suffering: Morality, Media and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Slavoj Zizek, “Neighbors and Other Monsters: A Plea for Ethical Violence,” The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology Eds. Eric L. Santer, Kenneth Reinhard and Slavoj Zizek (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2006) 134‐164. 567 This move beyond the representation of Palestinianness as defined by suffering, was most notably a conscious effort following the battle at Al Karameh during the period of militant cinema and revolutionary art. Further discussion of this transition can be found in Chapter 3. 268 people’s suffering.568 Though this question can never be conclusively answered, the work of contemporary Palestinian artists and filmmakers signals an awareness of the problematic international gaze that is one of both compassionate, pity and possibly perversity. The increasing use of humour in Palestinian cultural output therefore intimates an understanding of laughter’s ability to unhinge the oppression latent in the international gaze.

The channelling of the compassionate gaze can also be witnessed in the art that deals with what is today the greatest symbol of both Israeli oppression and Palestinian resistance to it: the Separation Wall. The Wall features in countless documentaries, art projects and books, and the in case of art, interest in the Wall has been bolstered since the work of Banksy appeared on it.569 As artist, curator and architect, Yazan Khalili observes ‘taking photos of the Wall has become the common image of Palestine and the

Palestinians’.570 For Khalili, the fixation on the representation of the Wall has replaced other images of the beauty of the Palestinian landscape, including the Bahai gardens in

Haifa that are today the image of Israel. Khalili rightly notes that images of the wall hold as their aim the attempt to see Palestinians within a frame of pain and suffering.

Acutely aware of the dangers of the fixation upon images of suffering, Khalili explains that ‘the image alone cannot be political if it stays fixated in the realm of mere

568 Having been involved in curating the program for the annual Palestinian Film Festival for several years in Australia, this is something that has been witnessed first hand. Though these documentaries are deemed important by the curatorial team and they are increasingly more sophisticated, audience numbers to documentaries in the Australian Palestinian Film Festival have always far outnumbered those of films from other genres. 569 William Parry, Against the Wall: The Art of Resistance in Palestine (London: Pluto Press, 2010) Since the appearance of Banksy’s stencils, tour groups visit Bethlehem to see his works, gift stores and restaurants have popped up with Banksy’s name, and books have been published that chronicle the graffiti on the Wall by both locals and international visitors one such book is William Parry’s Against the Wall. 570 Yazan Khalili, “Regarding the Pain of Oneself,” Beyond the Last Sky, 26. 269 documentation that proves fodder [of] victimhood that makes visible everything that should be fought against’.571

Though the Wall is the strongest contemporary symbol of Palestinian suffering under occupation, images of Palestinian homes, whether bombed, occupied by settlers, or bulldozed, also feature prominently in news coverage of Palestine. The potency of these images comes because they stand as symbols of the issues that are at the heart of the occupation and the failure of the peace process. For every Palestinian home that is confiscated or destroyed there is a reminder of the shrinking of Palestinian land, the aggressive growth of Israeli settlements and the violation of human rights in the occupation. Mostly importantly, however, these images of Palestinian homes carry symbolic pertinence because they are a reminder of the current impossibility of achieving a safe and stable Palestinian ‘home’, both in the personal and the collective sense. This conflation of issues at the heart of the conflict means that artworks and films dealing with Palestinian homes are loaded with political and symbolic significance.

In GH0809 artist Taysir Batniji has imagined a real estate agency offering homes for sale in Gaza, but in this scenario, the properties ‘for sale’ are those that were damaged or destroyed in the 2008/2009 military campaign Operation Cast Lead.

Mimicking the aesthetic language and display of real estate agencies, GH0809 (short for

Gaza Houses 2008/2009) is temporarily misleading, particularly when the work is installed in the front window of gallery spaces, as was the case when the work was exhibited in Sydney and in Lyon (Figure 39).572 The momentary disorientation created by the work that initially appears as local real estate display serves to defer the compassionate gaze often projected by audiences upon the Gazans who experienced the

571 Khalili, “Regarding the Pain of Oneself,” 26. 572 GH0809 has been shown in the windows of two gallery spaces, at The Australian Centre for Photography as part of the Beyond the Last Sky exhibition (1/8/2012‐18/11/2012) and in Lyon at LaBF15 as part of the Troubles exhibition (8/8/2012‐10/11/2012). 270 violence of the 2008/2009 assault. This deferral, or momentary disorientation, serves to obscure the circuit between fantasy and reality. At once humorous and traumatic,

GH0809 investigates the representation of the destruction of Gaza and the impact upon

Gazan lives while questioning, or indeed imagining, the possibility that Gaza might one day enter into a ‘normalised’ world of commercial activity, investment and political freedom.

Figure 39. Taysir Batniji GH0809, 2009 Installation View

Though born in the Strip, Batniji is unable to return to Gaza and therefore the images of the houses in GH0809 were commissioned by the artist and taken by a local photographer. The homes in the photographs are surprising for their diversity, ranging from the grandiose to those that have been reduced to mere rubble. It is Batniji’s inclusion of text that disrupts these images, lending them humour that disavows the compassionate gaze and our expectations of Gaza, a place heavily marred by suffering.

271

The artist’s description of each house heavily draws upon the language of real estate and focuses on the assets of each property’s locale. However, Gaza is not a place we associate with capitalist investment potential. Batniji’s draws from this association and uses each house’s description as a simultaneous reminder of the beauty of the Gaza landscape and the possibilities of enjoying its topography while also serving to bitterly remind the audience of the trauma of each house’s inhabitants (Figure 40).

Figure 40. Taysir Batniji GH0809, 2009 (Detail)

Each house therefore stands as a signifier of both the suffering and possible future of the Gaza strip. This is amplified by the black humour of the text Batniji uses to

272 describe each property. These descriptions range from claims that houses a ‘calm and sunny’, have ‘beautiful exposure’, ‘unobstructed views’ with lush gardens and proximity to the sea. The disjunction between these descriptions and the damage evident in the documentary photographs alongside them produce laughter because there is a denial of our expectations and recognition of the subversion of melancholia that resonates from each image. The bleak humour of GH0809 is equally as startling as the aesthetic and display of the work, all of which obstruct the compassionate gaze by redirecting the typical responses to Gazan suffering.

GH0809 also disavows another of the most common projections upon

Palestinians; that which looks to heroicise them as symbols of resistance against a much stronger and better-equipped oppressor. This view of Palestinians is arguably equally as oppressive as the fixation upon Palestinian suffering, as it creates yet another essentialised characterisation of a cultural group. Though these essentialist characterisations as victim and hero seem as though polar opposites, they exist within a circuit where one can be interchanged with the other so long as a single constant remains; that Palestinian identity and experience is defined in opposition or as a consequence of Israeli occupation. The use of humour again can be seen to topple these projections, often doing so by parodying the roles of victim and revolutionary associated with Palestinians.

The performance of the roles of both victim and hero/revolutionary are implicitly examined in the work of the filmmaker and artist duo Tarzan and Arab. Twin brothers Tarzan and Arab (Ahmad and Mohammad Abu Nasser) were born in Gaza after the last cinemas closed there in 1987.573 In spite of the growing international recognition of their work, Tarzan and Arab work under exceptionally difficult

573 Completing their studies in Fine Arts at the Al‐Aqsa University in Gaza, the twins’ work is increasingly recognized around the world with shows in London, Sydney, Dubai and the United States. 273 circumstances in Gaza, with limited resources, infrastructure and funding. Further, the artists only left Gaza as recently as late 2011 when they travelled to Austin, Texas to screen their first short film Colourful Journey and to watch a film in a cinema for the first time.574 Their 2010 body of work Gazawood (Figure 41) is a sound example of

Tarzan and Arab’s awareness of both the projection upon Palestinians (and Gazans in particular) as either victims or heroes and the capacity of parody and pastiche to subvert these projections.

Gazawood takes its name from the media production company established by the brothers with clear reference to the Hollywood and Bollywood industries. With this title, Tarzan and Arab draw reference to the cinematic genres of these leading industries to imagine a cinematic future in Gaza and a new mode for representing the

Israel/Palestine conflict. Lacking the resources to produce feature films, Tarzan and

Arab instead create posters for movies they would like to make. As if in direct opposition to the films deemed as ‘Pallywood’, the artists’ works displays a sharp subversion of the dominant mode of documentary film centred on capturing ‘real’ violence directed at Palestinians.575 Further, their artistic titles of ‘Tarzan’ and ‘Arab’ indicate a willingness to perform the role of ‘primitive’ Other. This does not, however, preclude the artists from dealing with ‘real’ events. All the posters in the Gazawood project take their names from Israeli Defence Force military campaigns, drawing attention to the depth and breadth of Israeli military history.

With titles ranging from Autumn Clouds, Operation Cast Lead and Santorini, each poster stars one or both of the brothers in an exaggerated caricature of images that

574 Laura Allsop, “Colourful Shadows and Reel Journeys: A Conversation between Tarzan and Arab and Laura Allsop,” Ibraaz, 2 May 2012. 5 August 2012. < http://www.ibraaz.org/interviews/32>. 575 Shear, “Landes Discusses Pallywood Theory,” Coined by historian Richard Landes from Boston University, the term ‘Pallywood’ originally referred to the contested media coverage of the death of twelve‐year‐old Muhammad al‐Durrah in the second intifada. For Landes, ‘Pallywood’ is used to illustrate the perceived theatricality of al‐Durah’s death as emblematic of what he believes to be Palestinian propaganda and media manipulation. 274 typify a broad spectrum of cinematic genres including thrillers, westerns, war drama and horror. Once the audience is aware that each Gazawood poster corresponds to a fictional film, yet real event, the work becomes entangled in an interstice between fiction and reality. This interstice is punctured by a parody of both cinematic genre and military terminology, revealing the sensationalism of both. It is the humorous techniques of pastiche and parody that allow the work to hover between fact and fiction, thus obstructing any attempt to essentialise understandings of life in Gaza under occupation.

Figure 41. Tarzan and Arab, Gazawood, Posters (Detail) 2010

Gazawood thus makes visible audience’s preconceptions of Palestinians as either tragic victims or heroes. Eluding both these characterisations by performing both roles, Gazawood displays an awareness of pre-inscribed views of Palestinian experience and identity. However, this evasion is even more significant because the work functions

275 as though it is a mirror, reflecting back an exaggerated performance of Western popular culture. The work thus signals a double imagining where a circuit of imaginary representation exists between popular views of the Palestinian conflict and a Palestinian view of cinematic genres dealing with conflict. In such a way Gazawood reveals the ways in which parody and pastiche may defend against essentialised views of the Other.

The work’s ability to harness humour to undermine conventional perceptions of life under occupation is symptomatic of the fact that humour and the incitement of laughter might be described as a ‘mature defence mechanism’.

The investigation of humour as a mature defence mechanism is widely researched and discussed in psychological discourse. This discursive conception of humour argues that as a psychological defence, humour is a protective process that allows individuals to maintain their integrity in the face of threat and danger.576 As a mature defence mechanism, humour finds itself in company with other psychological processes including suppression, rationalisation and sublimation that all guard against the detrimental psychological effects of trauma.577 Psychological inquiries into the benefits of humour for Palestinian political prisoners who have been subject to torture reinforce the significance of manifestations of humour in Palestinian art and film that address the occupation. These discursive inquiries reinforce the understanding that laughter defends against trauma, redirecting the personal and collective response to the everyday threat, danger and anxiety brought by occupation.

Perhaps the most lucid example of the utilisation of humour to examine the psychological effects and trauma brought by occupation is the documentary film Fix Me

(2009). Fix Me revolves around the story of its director Raed Andoni as he strives to

576 Raija‐Leena Punamaki, et al. “The Role of Psychological Defences in Moderating Between Trauma and Post‐Traumatic Symptoms Amongst Palestinian Men,” International Journal of Psychology 37.5 (2002): 286. 577 Punamaki, et al. “The Role of Psychological Defences in Moderating Between Trauma and Post‐ Traumatic Symptoms Amount Palestinian Men”, 289. 276 remedy a seemingly incurable headache that he contends may have existed for generations. Following Andoni through twenty therapy sessions as he tries to cure his condition, Fix Me uncovers the filmmaker’s repressed memories of his time as a political prisoner as the root of his ailing health (Figure 42). With each appointment and exercise with his psychologist in Ramallah, Fix Me further investigates the effects of displacement and alienation on not just Andoni and his family and friends, but also upon Palestinians at large. Rendered with a sly humour, Andoni’s film traces the faultlines of traumatic memory with a self-criticism that exposes the limitations of

Palestinian sumud.578

Figure 42. Raed Andoni Fix Me, 2009 Film Still

Exploring the standards Andoni believes Palestinians are measured against, Fix

Me chronicles the stories of other West Bank men of the generation of the stones who suffered torture while imprisoned. This proves to embarrass the filmmaker who believes that he is weak in comparison to most men of his generation. He explains that since childhood Palestinians are told that ‘we are the Palestinians, we are the tough guys, we

578 The word ‘sumud’ translates from Arabic to mean ‘steadfastness’. It is used to refer to Palestinian steadfastness in the face of occupation and persistence in the struggle against Israeli oppression. For further discussion on sumud refer to Chapter 2. 277 will return, we won’t be beaten’.579 Critical of his own weakness but also the impossible collective standard of psychological and political willpower, Andoni exposes the collective trauma of Palestinians to insist that sumud may in itself be an occupying force that restricts personal freedom and frames all creative endeavours as acts of resistance.

It is Andoni’s self-critical humour that punctures the bleak narratives presented throughout the film. Offering respite, hope and relief, Fix Me is exceptional because it engages with humour while being a documentary. In so doing it validates humour as appropriate in the documentary narration of ‘real’ trauma; a previously unthinkable union.

There is also a growing interest in Palestinian humour internationally. This is evidenced by the recent documentary (No) Laughing Matter (2010), by French filmmaker Vanessa Rousselot. The film is currently the only documentary to deal specifically with Palestinian humour by a cultural outsider. As such, the film signifies an international interest, and acknowledgement of, Palestinian humour.580

The attention to Palestinian humour suggests two lines of interest for outsiders.

The first of these is informed by an element of surprise that Palestinians laugh. This view is somewhat problematic because it draws from the idea that foreigners are often viewed as misoglasts.581 It is reinforced by the fact that stereotypical representations of

Palestinian focus on their suffering or upon a perceived political fanaticism that frames them as terrorists. Within this view, humour enters as a destabilising process that

579 Fix Me, Dir. Raed Andoni, Rouge International, 2010. 580 (No) Laughing Matter, Dir. Rousselot. Rousselot originally traveled to the West Bank to learn Arabic, while there she claims to have swiftly recognized the flood of humour in daily exchange. She explains that ‘people were joking all the time. They were always laughing about occupation, death and prison’. Capturing jokes from around the West Bank and investigating the specificities of Palestinian humour (including the dominance of Hebronite jokes), Rousselot’s film is the first documentary extensively dedicated to the exploration of Palestinian humour. Teeming with insight into the daily exchanges of humour, and even featuring an interview with Sharif Kanaana on his research in the area, the documentary is significant because it illuminates the potential of humour to reveal Palestinian experience to cultural outsiders. 581 Critchley, On Humour 68. 278 fractures stereotypes and depictions of Palestinians in the media and in popular culture.

The second attraction to humour for audiences is informed by an interest in how humour can exist in Palestinian lives marred by occupation. This interest focuses on the emancipatory potential of laughter as well as its ability to open channels of understanding towards the Other. It also suggests an acknowledgement of humour’s potential to rupture ‘banal evil’ and to render the authority of Israel’s occupation as suspect.582

If we are to consider Israel’s occupation as signalling a banal evil, there is perhaps no clearer manifestation of this evil than the Palestinian experience of waiting.

The experience of waiting shapes the lives of Palestinians everywhere. For those in exile, there has been a seven-decade wait for the Right of Return. For those in Palestine, everyday life is characterised by waiting; waiting at checkpoints, waiting for permits, waiting during curfews and most importantly, waiting for the creation of a sovereign state. The experience of waiting acts as a form of psychological warfare that is often neglected in news stories and documentaries focusing on more visible materialisations of occupation. In such a way, the experience of waiting and the international failure to understand or focus upon this central tool of occupation indicates that it is a form of banal evil. Failing to arrest our attention or to stimulate a response, the act and experience of waiting is so commonplace that it elicits apathy rather than moral condemnation.

582 Kristeva, Hannah Arendt 144. The term ‘banality of evil’ was coined by holocaust survivor and intellectual Hannah Arendt in her book Eichmann on Trial: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963). Arendt conceived of the term to describe the actions of Otto Adolf Eichhman who was the former chief of the Gestapo’s Jewish Office and his justifications for the crimes he committed against Jews when under trial for his actions. Julia Kristeva explains that Arendt’s term refers to evil that ‘entails the destruction of thinking (a destruction that is surreptious, generalized and imperceptible, and thus banal, though it also scandalous) which prefigures the scandalous annihilation of life’. 279

This experience of waiting is a banal evil precisely because it engenders a ‘slow death’. Describing the restrictions on movement, Edward Said explained that a

‘Palestinian has to resort to improvisation or persistent stubbornness…for the most part,

Palestinians wait…Eons of time wasted, gone without a trace’.583 In the same year he made this observation, Said was to die of cancer. The resentment of time lost resonated with Said, who spent hours in hospital waiting while dying of cancer. During his illness

Said wrote his article Slow Death, which begins with a description of his personal experience of waiting and his own slow death. He writes that ‘I have been in and out of hospital…hours and hours of unproductive time…unable to do normal work, and thinking, thinking, thinking’.584 Implicit in Said’s writing is the understanding that his slow death of cancer involved the unbearable experience of waiting, something that was in line with the collective ‘slow death’ of Palestinians living under occupation.

The experience of waiting is witnessed in countless artworks and films. Though these works are too many to list, one example stands out: Rashid Mashrawi’s film

Waiting (Intizaar), from 2005 (Figure 43). The film follows the story of a director named Ahmad (Mahmoud Al-Massad) who is set to leave Palestine to settle abroad but decides to accept one last job before he leaves. This final job involves auditioning actors for the new grandiose National Palestinian Theatre in Gaza that is under construction with European Union funds. Although the theatre is being built with underground parking for 500 vehicles and its opening will be attended by foreign leaders, there are no actors in Gaza to perform within it. Ahmad is joined by an interviewer named Bissan and a cameraman named Lumiere to travel to numerous Palestinian refugee camps in

583 Said, “Emily Jacir – ‘Where We Come From,” 47‐48. 584 Said, From Oslo to Iraq and the Roadmap 94. 280

Jordan, Syria and Lebanon to find actors to play in the theatre.585 Each of these hopefuls is enticed into auditioning because the role would mean permission to visit Palestine.

Figure 43. Rashid Masharawi Waiting, 2005 Film Still

The emphasis on Palestinian refugees and refugee camps is a distinctive trope of

Mashrawi’s work. Masharawi’s cinematic vision is shaped by his birth in the Shati camp in Gaza, and despite having lived in Tel Aviv, the Netherlands and now residing in Ramallah, Masharawi maintains an emphasis on the camp as a site of Palestinian identity.586 Mashwarawi’s characteristic avoidance of explicitly political filmmaking is evidenced in Waiting, where he prefers to focus on characters’ incessant existential battles.587 Blurring the line between fiction and the documentary, Waiting’s cast of auditioning actors were all themselves not actors but rather refugees from camps and the film was shot on location at the Bakaa camp in Amman, Shatila in Beirut and at a refugee cultural centre in Damascus. When each actor comes to audition in the film it is made clear to the character of Ahmad that most are not actors, but rather are simply using the audition as a chance to return to Palestine or to pass messages to loved ones they have not heard from. All the ‘actors’ seek direction from Ahmad for the audition

585 Lumiere’s name may be a tongue in cheek reference to the Lumiere brothers who are credited with inventing cinema and who filmed in Palestine in the mid 1800s. 586 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 44. 587 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 45. 281 and his decision to ask each refugee to perform the act of waiting, produces an absurd humour that is also a poignant reminder of the denial of the Right of Return.

As each audition hopeful performs the act of waiting in diverse and humorous ways, they are in fact being asked to carry out an activity that not only marks their everyday lives but also the lives of Palestinians in exile everywhere who are awaiting a return to the homeland. In such a way, each audition is marked by two performances of identity; the first is that of the refugee, and the second is that of the exile. This irony is picked up by one of the actors during their audition who explains, ‘waiting isn’t acting, it is something I’ve been doing my entire life’.588 Deeply aware of the poignancy and significance of waiting within the Palestinian experience, Masharawi observes that

‘waiting has become an integral part of our lives. It is at the root of our entire being’.589

Operating in the interstice between fiction and reality, Waiting reveals the banal evil of an occupation that prevents Palestinians from exerting control over their everyday lives and their destinies. It achieves this by unveiling the enforcement of the act of waiting as a central tool in the banal evil of the occupation. By making refugees perform their own identity and experience, Waiting is marked by an absurd humour that forces a recognition of a banal evil that has now become commonplace. In so doing it utilises laughter as an interruption that creates an awareness of an aspect of the occupation that otherwise goes unnoticed.

Using laughter as a tool of exposure, Waiting is in keeping with other

Palestinian cultural output that addresses the occupation with humour. The laughter incited by film and artworks centred on the failure of the peace process remind us that humour destabilises the status quo, that it does not disavow reality, and that it can reveal

588 Waiting, Dir. Rashid Masharawi, Silk Road Production, 2006. 589 Rashid Masharawi cited in “Palestinian Filmmaker Shows Refugee’s Agony of Waiting,” Miftah, 7 September 2005. 6 August 2012. < http://www.miftah.org/PrinterF.cfm?DocId=8397>. 282 the perversity of our gaze while shielding against it by working as a mature defence mechanism against trauma. Understanding this, laughter acts a tool against occupation because it is an expression of will that calls attention to the oppression created by the

Israeli systematic violence and banal evil. 590 Most importantly, however, humour renders the authority of Israeli oppression as suspect and calls us to recognise it as such.591

The failure of the peace process has engendered a situation where Palestinians live in a constant ‘interim’ period. The trauma fatigue in the international community towards the Palestine/Israel conflict has served to reinforce a political deadlock in the region. The employment of humour challenges the political status quo by asking audiences to acknowledge the lived experience of Palestinians under occupation and to question the validity of the ongoing occupation and political deadlock. Further still, humour also serves to function as an anticipatory action that both imagines and enacts the roles of a future Palestinian state. Although humour acts as revelatory vehicle, unpacking the effects of occupation, it also plays a vital role in the narration and coalescence of collective Palestinian identity. This aspect of humour in Palestinian cultural output will be explored in the following chapter.

590 Bussie, The Laughter of the Oppressed 53. 591 Bussie, The Laughter of the Oppressed 59. 283

CHAPTER EIGHT

Who is Laughing?: Laughter and the Boundaries of Identity

‘So where are you from?’ ‘I’m Palestinian.’ ‘Pakestilian? What the hell is that? So, where is Pakestilia?’ ‘There is no such country as Pakestilia…but I guess there is no Palestine either. Ever heard of Israel?’ ‘So you’re Jewish?’ ‘How many rocks do we have to throw? God damn!’ 592 Palestinian standup comedian Aron Kader, Axis of Evil Comedy Tour 2009.

In his seminal text Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, Henri

Bergson observed that ‘our laughter is always the laughter of a group’. 593 Bergson goes on to suggest that the experience of shared laughter can travel through a wide circle of people, yet the circle of laughter remains nonetheless a closed one.594 The ‘circle’ of humour to which Bergson alludes is one that is contingent on a shared understanding of the world, and therefore a shared appreciation of humour. When looking to Palestinian humorous cultural output, Bergson’s observations raise an important question; namely who makes up the ‘group’ laughing at/with Palestinian humorous art and film?

592 Aron Kader in The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, dir. Michael Smith, Image Entertainment, 2007. 593 Bergson, Laughter 6 594 Bergson, Laughter 6. 284

If we are to concede that laughter is dependent on a shared experience of the world, it is also therefore contingent on a shared sense of identity. Knowing this, the humour of Palestinian art and film can then be said to draw out two circles of laughter.

The larger of these two circles is that of international audiences responding to humorous

Palestinian cultural output. The smaller of these two circles is that made up of

Palestinians, who through shared laughter can be said to be reinforcing a sense of identification with one and other. Within this smaller circle laughter is transformed into a litmus test that probes the boundaries of Palestinian identity and verifies a sense of

‘Palestinianness’. One can look to the Sexy Semite artwork as evidence of how the

Palestinian circle of laughter demarcates a sense of collective identity.

In the years between 2000 and 2002, a series of peculiar personal advertisements appeared in the New York Village Voice newspaper. These personal advertisements all appeared to be placed by Palestinians seeking romantic liaisons with Jewish readers. An example of one of these advertisements reads as follows:

Palestinian Flamenco Dancer semetic sex pot SKG: Jewish M (any race) for LTR and to share our lives in Israel. I love Palestinian falafel, Akka and the Gaza beach.595

All the advertisements ran a similar line, each seeking a Jewish reader willing to possibly marry a Palestinian, thereby facilitating a return to the homeland using the

Israeli Law of Return. Though there were over sixty advertisements placed between

2000 and 2002, it was not until the Valentine’s Day edition of the Village Voice that concerns were raised about the true nature of these personals.

595 Emily Jacir: Belongings, Works 1998‐2003 15. The original advertisement included a misspelling of the word ‘Semitic’. It has been left in its original form here (as reproduced in the monograph Emily Jacir: Belongings, Works 1998‐2003) so as to not confuse the reader who may become confused by the proliferation of acronyms and unconventional grammar in the advertisement text. 285

As media outlets began to report on the story, it became clear that the adverts were an act of political agitation. The lack of understanding of the intention behind the adverts, and indeed the failure of the newspaper to make contact with the individuals that ordered them, led some media outlets to speculate that the personals were part of a

Palestinian terrorist plot.596 Far from terrorist activity, the advertisements were in fact an artwork by artist Emily Jacir. The artist orchestrated the work by commissioning sixty Palestinian participants, who along with Jacir placed these advertisements in the

Village Voice with the intention of highlighting the continuing denial of the Palestinian

Right of Return. The advertisements came to be known as the Sexy Semite artwork and have been displayed in exhibitions with an archival aesthetic that when installed sets out the advertisements alongside newspaper reports (Figure 44).

Figure 44. Emily Jacir Sexy Semite, 2000 – 2002 Installation View

Appearing initially as innocent adverts, the texts take on a different character when installed in exhibition. In the gallery context these advertisements are stripped of their ambiguity and are revealed as a distilled tongue-in-cheek commentary on the

596 Dorris Bittar, “Crossing Boundaries – Artist Profile: Emily Jacir,” Canvas Magazine 31 December 2008. August 12 2012. . 286 continued denial of the Right of Return. In this context, the initial concerns that the advertisements might have been part of a terrorist plot are rendered laughable. The gallery space therefore serves to frame the advertisements as a deliberate act of subversive political defiance. Further, it is the gallery space that gives license to audiences to appreciate the humour in each advertisement by revealing the intentions behind each personal.

Contextualised by the gallery space, each advertisement appears as though a parody of genuine newspaper personals. It does this by drawing from acronyms characteristic of personals, including LTR (long term relationship), or SKG (seeking), and clichéd personality descriptors such as enjoying walks on the beach, enjoying sunsets etc. These clichés are also set alongside stereotypes of Palestine and Israel in each advert; these include suggestions that applicants enjoy olives, falafel, the land of milk and honey etc. This has the effect of fusing together two forms of the banal in the artwork: the first is the inclusion of commonplace descriptors of the land of

Israel/Palestine, and the second is the banality of the medium of the personals themselves. Importantly however, Jacir’s use of the banal also brings to play the ‘secret code’ quality of humour.

It is vital to remember that Sexy Semite was a relational artwork, a collaborative work between a Palestinian artist and other Palestinians commissioned to submit advertisements. When commissioning the advertisements, Jacir insisted that participants adhere to certain guidelines. These included an insistence that writers use the word

‘semite’ to describe themselves, that the Right of Return was mentioned and that each advert highlight the fact that Palestinians are indigenous to the land.597 The adverts that

597 Dorris Bittar, “Crossing Boundaries,”; Andy Soltis, “W.Banky Panky in Personal Ad Blitz,“ New York Post 12 February 2002: 5. 287 followed from Jacir’s commission not only adhered to these guidelines but also were loaded with subtle references easily recognisable to those privy to the Palestinian perspective.

These included references to citrus fruit, the mention of house keys and a description of the city of Acre with the Palestinian name of Akka rather than the Israeli

Akko. These heavily loaded references each draw upon Palestinian nationalist iconography that reinforces a connection and ownership over the land. This is perhaps most clear in one advertisement (Figure 45) that reads ‘Do you love milk and honey?

I’m ready to start a big family in Israel. Still have house keys. Waiting for you!’ The mention of house keys draws upon the nationalist significance of the key in Palestinian iconography. The key is a symbol that stands for the Right of Return, as many

Palestinians still have their house keys from the time of occupation and hold on to them as precious objects that are a reminder and validation of the appropriation of their land and property.

Figure 45. Emily Jacir, Sexy Semite, 2000- 2002 Newspaper Personals Advertisements

The use of the word ‘Semite’ was deliberately included in each advertisement by instruction from the artist. It was used in the hope of undermining the common understanding of the word in the United States where it is perceived as only pertaining to Jews. 288

The inclusion of these national signifiers in the work makes the initial advertisements in the Village Voice instantly recognisable to Palestinian readers as a humorous act of political subversion. Their laughter precedes the context of the gallery because for Palestinians these banal objects are immediately understood as cultural signifiers and therefore do not require framing devices or contextualisation. The immediacy of the Palestinian understanding of the humour within each artwork reinforces Simon Critchley’s assertion that ‘having a common sense of humour is like sharing a secret code’.598 Although we might appreciate that having a sense of humour is a universal human trait, humour is undoubtedly context specific and importantly, it serves as a form of cultural insider knowledge.599

In such a way, Sexy Semite might be said to operate as an artwork that delineates

Palestinian collective identity through the use of humour. It does this by drawing a line of division between those that understand the cultural insider knowledge latent in each advertisement. It might be said that the delineation of identity is made visible (or rather audible) when or in which context a viewer laughs. The ability to appreciate the humour of each advert prior to the contextualisation that occurs in the gallery space indicates an understanding of Palestinian collective iconography and national signifiers, as well as signalling a shared experience of exile. Understanding this, Sexy Semite is marked by a humour that reinforces a sense of collective identity and is, as Critchley argues, an indication of laughter’s ability to return individuals to a circumscribed ‘ethos’ and

‘ethnos’.

Using the term ‘ethos’ as it is understood in the Ancient Greek sense, Critchley elaborates on the connection between laughter and ethos by exploring how humour validates a shared understanding of custom and place but also disposition and character.

598 Critchley, On Humour 68. 599 Critchley, On Humour 67. 289

With this in mind, humour is said to be the vehicle that connects us strongly to a particular place and leads us to predicate characteristics of that place while attributing certain customs and dispositions to its inhabitants. Humour therefore takes us back to the place where we are from, whether that is our neighbourhood or the nation.600 In other words, laughter returns us to our ethnos.

The ability to laugh at Sexy Semite with immediacy therefore reveals a shared disposition and a return to place, in this case a return to Palestine and to

‘Palestinianness’. Although this ultimately frames Palestinian laughter at Sexy Semite as coming from a sense of identification, the humour of the work must not simply be understood as the humour of recognition. The point of differentiation between the humour of Sexy Semite and a comedy of recognition is that the latter only serves to reinforce consensus and in no way seeks to change a situation or to challenge the established order. 601 The immediacy of Palestinian laughter towards Sexy Semite, although indicative of a sense of identification, clearly challenges the established order by using humour to highlight the denial of the Right of Return by attempting to facilitate a Palestinian return to the land by way of marriage to an Israeli citizen.

This indicates that Sexy Semite is engaged with what can be described as the redemptive power of humour. The work validates Critchley’s assertion that sharing laughter is akin to sharing prayers.602 It reinforces this idea of humour by making visible the background meaning implicit in each of the Palestinian cultural signifiers in the advertisements. The work therefore reveals the potency of humour to coalesce a shared cultural identity by highlighting the collective experiences, understandings and aspirations that inform that identity. The humour of Sexy Semite functions as a

600 Critchley, On Humour 68. 601 Critchley, On Humour 11. 602 Critchley, On Humour 17. 290

Palestinian ‘shared prayer’ precisely because it reveals the injustices of the world but imagines a better world in its place. It achieves this by using humour to stimulate a change in the way Palestinian exile is looked upon and understood and indeed actually suggests a path to ending exile.

The humour of Sexy Semite can also be said to operate at the frontier of national identity. This is because it harnesses the reactionary quality of humour that tells us important truths about who we are.603 Clear evidence of humour’s ability to coalesce a shared identity can be seen in an experience that is familiar to many. When travelling abroad and meeting a stranger who we discover is from the same place as us, one of the first things we do is to share a joke about the place where we are from. This serves to rapidly draw a line of connection between people who are otherwise strangers. The consequence of this exchange is a swift sense of intimacy that is informed by a common understanding of the world. This laughter shared by compatriots is therefore akin to sharing a secret code of cultural distinctiveness. Exchanges of this sort are observed by

Critchley, who writes that ‘we wear our cultural distinctiveness like an insulation layer against the surrounding alien environment. It warms us up when all else is cold and unfamiliar’.604

Humour’s ability to serve as a layer of insulation is nurtured by an understanding of cultural distinctiveness. This is particularly important for Palestinians who are divorced from their land and whose collective identity is often seen as predicated on an experience of exile.605 The appreciation of the humour of Sexy Semite is in fact contingent on the understanding of Palestinian cultural distinctiveness. It is precisely the lack of understanding of the cultural signifiers in each of the adverts that

603 Critchley, On Humour 13. 604 Critchley, On Humour 68. 605 For a detailed discussion on the view that argues Palestinian national identity is predicated on exile refer to Chapter 1. 291 caused the work to be misconstrued as a terrorist plot. Although Sexy Semite is indicative of humour’s ability to delineate a shared experience and understanding of the world, it is not alone in this.

The humour of Palestinian cultural output almost always relies on some degree of appreciation of cultural particularities. In all examples of humour in Palestinian art and film, the speed with which one recognises the cultural signifiers within each work directly correlates with the time it takes one to laugh. The proximity of laughter to a humorous stimulus is therefore an index of cultural understanding or ‘insiderness’.

Accordingly, the failure to appreciate the humorous cues in cultural output is an indication of a position of cultural outsider. Laughter is therefore shown to be a sign of tacit consensus, comparable to a game that players play when they both understand and follow the rules.606

Elliott Oring has explored the potential of humour to be nation specific in his work Engaging Humor. Exploring the humour of the settler nations of Israel, the US and Australia, Oring contends that although we might assume that nation’s humour is unique because it is an expression of a peculiar character, the humour of different nations proves strikingly similar.607 Within Oring’s analysis, it is only colonial nations

(as new nations) that are better placed to consider humour as a ‘national and original’ form of expression. This is because new nations were established at a time when humour could be thought of as an expression of self, both in the personal and the collective sense.608 What is significant about Oring’s discussion is his suggestion that

‘new’ countries are better placed to consider humour as an expression of their national singularity. Although Palestinians are not considered within his argument, there is a

606 Critchley, On Humour 4. 607 Oring, Engaging Humour 115. 608 Oring, Engaging Humour 115. 292 strong case to be made that Palestinian humour may fit into the framework Oring sets out for new nations.609

Oring’s suggestion that humour developed alongside the establishment of the new states of Israel, the US and Australia might be said to correspond with Palestine.

This is because humour emerged in Palestinian cultural output at the time when there was first a concrete international acknowledgement of Palestinians as a distinct cultural group with a legitimate right for statehood following Oslo. Oring’s assertion that bourgeoning national humour is relayed and legitimised in settler societies because it was promoted in newspapers, books, novels and scholarly works also resonates with the humour witnessed in Palestinian cultural output.

These materialisations of ‘frontier’ humour are based and located in the local and it is only with their recording that they become established as authentic reflections of a national character. These materialisations of humour are purveyed to the citizens of a new nation, who accept humour as their own. Humour is therefore held up as a mirror of the whole and accepted as such.610 In the case of Palestine, humour in art and film might be argued to be materialisations of humour that function as a national mirror.

Since the time of Oslo, Palestine has been cast into the role of (re)emerging state, and the period of its emergence corresponds with materialisations of humour in Palestinian cultural output. Within Oring’s conceptual framework, the humour in Palestinian art and film takes on a different symbolic resonance; it is capable of narrating national identity for Palestinian dispersed throughout the world, coalescing a sense of national character.

Though different nations and cultures have much humour in common, it is the shared experience of the world that forms a unique humour. To illustrate this point, it is

609 Although Oring’s work discusses the humour of Israelis toward Palestinians, it does not elaborate on Palestinian humour. 610 Oring, Engaging Humour, 113. 293 useful to consider a breed of ethnic jokes we are familiar with. These jokes have a standard formula that altered to fit a local context. Examples include the English laughing at the Irish, the Australians at the Tasmanians and the Greeks at the Pontians.

For Palestinians, the butt of the joke is most often the Hebronites, who are pitched as naïve, dim-witted and overly earnest. Although requiring some degree of local knowledge, many of these ethnic jokes are essentially formulaic.611 Despite eliciting laughter, this form of humour does not harness the greatest potentials of laughter. It does not challenge the status quo, it does not challenge contemporary realities or stereotypes, and most importantly it does not oblige audiences to understand anything new about themselves, others, or the world.

To propose that humour has the ability to tell us about ourselves is importantly not the same as suggesting that the revelations that come from laughter are all inherently positive. If we are to concede, as Olenka Zupancic argues, that the contemporary ideological climate is one that demands that we perceive all terrible things that happen to us as positive, there is an expectation that only ‘good’ people feel good, and only ‘bad’ people express negative emotions. 612 For Zupancic this contemporary ideology is argued to be one that perceives humour as a ‘positive attitude’ that stands apart from the ‘rigid fanaticism’ associated with ideology.613 Despite this perceived dichotomy, laughter is able to transcend the divide between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ despite the perception that it is an inherently positive behaviour.

611 Mark Geoffrey Young, The Best Ever Book of Palestinian Jokes: Lots and Lots of Jokes Specially Repurposed for You‐Know‐Who (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012) An example of the failure of this formulaic humour is The Best Ever Book of Palestinian Jokes. The text is made up of a series of jokes that might be applied to any ethnic group. Though claiming to be a text dedicated to Palestinian jokes, the text merely repurposes existing jokes placing Palestinians as the butt of all jokes compiled. Although some of the jokes might elicit laughter, none of them serve to reveal a sense of Palestinian cultural distinctiveness and the majority of jokes included are in fact offensive. 612 Zupancic, The Odd One In 5. 613 Zupancic, The Odd One In 4. 294

Laughter subverts the contemporary ideological climate’s emphasis on positivity because it arguably returns us to our ideological perspective. The spontaneity of laughter is responsible for the misconception that humour exists outside of ideology.

Laughing and breathing freely, we appear as though we are beyond constraint and withdrawn from any immediate ideological claims.614 It is perhaps for this reason that humorous Palestinian cultural output continues to draw international interest and acclaim. Engaging humour, Palestinian art and film appears as though it is absent of ideology, yet a reply of laughter to Palestinian art and film signals an ideological position. As an act of consensus, laughter reinforces the ideological perspectives projected in art and film. This is significant because in a period where contemporary discourse is seen to promote a distancing from the glorification of ideology, humour returns us to our ideological position.615

The laughter towards Sexy Semite might then be said to reveal an ideology of nationalism. The laughter incited by the recognition of nationalist signifiers such as citrus fruit and olives indicates a nationalist ideology that is based on the idea that

Palestinians have a longstanding connection to the land and thereby have legitimate claims of ownership over that land. The utilisation of nationalist symbols was in fact deliberately enforced by Emily Jacir who when commissioning the advertisements for the work, set the perquisite that all contributors include a reference to the fact that

Palestinians were indigenous to the land of Israel/Palestine. The emphasis on the connection to the land is a longstanding trope in Palestinian art and film and was in previous decades deliberately used a form of nationalist propaganda.616 Although the acknowledgement of these nationalist symbols signifies an awareness of an ideological

614 Zupancic, The Odd One In 4. 615 Zupancic, The Odd One In 7. 616 For further discussion on the use of signifiers of the land within Palestinian art refer to chapters two, three and six. 295 perspective, increasingly the use of these symbols in Palestinian art and film also suggests a critical approach to nationalist ideology.

The critical approach to Palestinian nationalism can be evidenced in humorous cultural output that actively seeks to deconstruct existing nationalist iconography. This iconography was largely established by the jeel al-thawra (generation of the revolution) following 1967. The generation of the revolution were responsible the deliberate construction of a Palestinian nationalist iconography that marked an attempt to shift the collective Palestinian identification with refugeedom towards a nationalist ideology and national identity. This process in art and film corresponded with the construction of the

Palestinian national movement that came after the defeat of Pan Arabism and the

Palestinian takeover of the PLO. This period of ‘militant’ cinema and art actively sought to transform a sense of ‘Palestinianness’ into one of ‘Palestinianism’.617

Perhaps not surprisingly, one of the most pronounced nationalist symbols to emerge during the revolutionary period was the Palestinian flag. Although the

Palestinian flag was originally based on the flag of the Arab Revolt from the time of the

Ottoman Empire, it was adopted by the PLO in 1964 prior to Palestinian control over the Organisation.618 The flag took on new significance following the June War of 1967, when Israel banned the flag from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank following its occupation of these territories. Israel went even further in 1980 when it banned the use of the colours of the flag in artworks and repressed any overtly political imagery. So deep was the Israeli censorship that paintings were confiscated and exhibitions were closed for displaying anything that might be deemed as containing a political message.

617 Sayigh, “Armed Struggle and State Formation,” 18. For further discussion on the deliberate construction of Palestinian national identity and iconography refer to Chapter 3. 618 Yair Wallach, “Creating a country through currency and stamps: state symbols and nation‐building in British‐ruled Palestine,” Nations and Nationalism 17.1 (2011): 130. 296

This meant that artworks were in effect treated with the same censorship regulations as other printed political material.619

This censorship is an indication of the oppressive Israeli paranoia of the time that broached upon political absurdity. This absurdity meant that even banal objects could be invested in as national signifiers. Artist Suleiman Mansour joked about the absurdity of Israeli censorship at the time explaining, ‘I am unable to paint a slice of watermelon’.620 The severe censorship of this era meant that national signifiers held utmost importance, a gravity that was only magnified by the revolutionary struggle towards achieving statehood. Although restrictions of the depiction of the flag were lifted in the Palestinian Territories following the Oslo Accords, the flag naturally remains as the paramount symbol of Palestinian nationalism.

The nationalist investment in the symbol of the flag can be made clear by looking to a statement by Yassir Arafat in the weeks prior to the official signing of the first Oslo Accord in 1993. Arafat proclaimed, ‘the Palestine state is in our grasp. Soon the Palestine flag will fly on the walls, the minarets and the cathedrals of Jerusalem’.621

Here Arafat was describing the nation of the flag as a metonym of Palestinian nationhood. By discursively waving the flag, Arafat was hoping that flags would eventually be waved in a recovered Palestinian homeland. Yet, as Michael Billig notes,

Arafat’s longer view would be a hope that the flag waving would stop, for only then would Palestine have achieved the status of stable sovereign nation-state.622

As statehood is yet to be achieved, the flag remains a signifier of an urgent and vigilant nationalism. It is only when Palestinian state sovereignty is established that this

619 Tina Malhi‐Sherwell, “Imaging Palestine ad the Motherland,” Self‐Portrait Palestinian Women’s Art Eds. Tal Ben Zvi and Yael Lerer (Israel: Andalus Publishing, 2001) 167. 620 Suleiman Mansour cited in Jay Murphy, “The Intifadah and the work of Palestinian artists,” Third Text 4.11 (1990): 124. 621 Yassir Arafat cited in Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage Publications Ltd, 2010) 41. 622 Billig, Banal Nationalism, 41. 297 symbol of nationhood will be absorbed into the environment of the established homeland. This process of transition for nationalist signifiers is discussed by Billig as being a ‘movement from symbolic mindfulness to mindlessness’.623 Contemporary

Palestinian cultural output’s self-critical approach to national symbols might superficially appear to resonate with a sense of ‘mindlessness’. This veneer of mindlessness comes through the employment of humour towards national signifiers.

The use of humour appears contradictory to a sense of ‘mindfulness’ towards nationalist iconography because it appears as though to ridicule these signifiers.

This veneer of mindlessness towards the nationalist symbol of the flag can be witnessed in the New Flags for Palestine project in the Subjective Atlas of Palestine.

The project came as a result of the publication’s commission of Palestinian artists and designers who were all asked to design a new flag for Palestine. Most of the designs were marked by an aesthetic deconstruction of the Palestinian flag with interventions that shifted the shapes of the flag or included additional symbols to reference the landscape, Palestinian suffering under occupation, or allusions to dispossession.

However, one flag stands out from the rest; that of artist Khaled Hourani.

Hourani’s flag is the only one out of the 36 included in the Atlas to completely depart from any clear reference to conventional flag design. Instead, Hourani chose to submit an image of a piece of watermelon (Figure 46). Appearing as completely absurd within the context of the other flags, Hourani’s submission initially suggests a complete irreverence towards the national signifier of the flag. Rendering the symbol of Palestine into a piece of fruit, Hourani’s work initially incites laughter because it appears as absurd. In such a way, the work gives an impression of mindlessness towards nationalist

623 Billig, Banal Nationalism, 41. 298 iconography. In spite of this, the Watermelon maintains one important aesthetic attribute of the Palestinian flag: the use of the colours red, black, green and white.

The use of the flag’s colours suggests that there is perhaps seriousness beneath

Hourani’s image that initially appears as one of folly. It is only when one is aware of the restrictions imposed on references to the flag in previous decades that Hourani’s seemingly frivolous flag design is understood as entirely earnest. The work displays an acute awareness of the history of the flag and the censorship of its four colours in previous decades. Hourani’s contribution therefore reminds us of a time of austere repression of Palestinian nationalism and takes us back to an era when artists like

Suleiman Mansour were not permitted to even paint a watermelon.624

Figure 46. Khaled Hourani Watermelon, 2007

Hourani’s Watermelon is evocative of a climate of severe political censorship and repression that was capable of rendering even the most trivial of objects into icons of nationalism. Although seemingly mindless to the representation of nationalism, the work is anything but indifferent. The initial sense of absurd humour in the work is redolent of the absurd Israeli paranoia towards depictions of Palestinian nationalism.

624 Suleiman Mansour cited in Murphy, “The Intifadah and the work of Palestinian artists,” 24. 299

Understanding this, the use of humour might be said to puncture the dichotomy between mindfulness and mindlessness towards nationalism. The humour of Hourani’s

Watermelon displays a mindful approach towards a nationalist iconography that although censored and repressed, was one that was deliberately constructed. Forging a self-critical bridge between Palestinian art history and nationalist iconography, the work broadens the scope of signifiers of national identity while engaging laughter to self- critically challenge nationalist essentialism.

The other nationalist icon to come under scrutiny in contemporary art and film is that of resistance fighters. The use of humour towards these symbols of Palestinian nationalism marks a radical departure from the revolutionary identity that prevailed in previous decades but also puts the relationship between resistance and nationalism under scrutiny. In effect, the humorous representation of freedom fighters probes the ways in which they were deliberately constructed as symbols of national identity. This construction deliberately framed revolutionary fighters as void of any everyday concerns and behaviours, as though the sole purpose of their existence was to liberate the homeland. This essentialised perception of the revolutionaries forms the humour of

Monther Jawabreh’s As Once Was Known series (Figure 47). Jawabreh’s paintings subvert common representations of fighters by depicting them engaged in everyday activities such as playing cards or reading a book. 625 The disconnect between

Jawabreh’s paintings and depictions of fighters in militant cinema or revolutionary art elicits a humour that functions by defamiliarising the familiar.626 Jawabreh’s paintings

625 Raed Khoury and Leena Odgaard, “Palestinian Artist Shows Human Side of the Struggle,” Al Monitor: The Pulse of the Middle East 26 September 2012. 20 January 2013. < http://www.al‐ monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al‐monitor/palestinian‐artist‐shows‐human‐s.html>. 626 Critchley, On Humour 65. 300 effectively humanise revolutionaries by removing them from their heroicised status within essentialist nationalist imagery.627

Figure 47. Monther Jawabreh As Once Was Known, Series, 2012 Oil on Canvas

Ihab Jadallah’s 2009 short film The Shooter (Figure 48) also uses humour to question the representation of the Palestinian resistance struggle and the heroisation of

Palestinian resistance fighters.628 The Shooter playfully questions Palestine’s staging for sensational news stories and suggests that Palestinians are faced with another form of occupation; that of the media lens. The film centres on a news report about Palestinian resistance fighters and depicts both a Palestinian fighter (the protagonist) and a news journalist covering the Palestinian resistance. As the protagonist of the film becomes active, he is seen to break away from the predetermined script and staging of the news

627 Another film to explore the everyday lives and to scrtutinize popular perceptions of resistance fighters is Hany Abu Assad’s 2005 film Paradise Now. The first Palestinian feature film to deal directly with suicide attacks, Paradise Now explores the everyday lives of suicide bombers and the internal pressures they face in Palestinian society. 628 The Shooter, dir. Ihab Jadallah, Idioms Films, 2009. 301 coverage that surrounds him. The film’s revelations about the staging of resistance for the camera lens unveils the ways in which Palestinians ‘perform’ the dramatic newscasts expected of them and also enact a performance of revolutionary identity. By deconstructing the representation of resistance and by parodying the Palestinian revolutionary identity, Jadallah’s film uses humour to self-critically analyse the nationalist emphasis on resistance and revolution.

Figure 48. Ihab Jadallah, The Shooter, Short Film (7mins), Film Stills. 2008.

The appreciation of the humour of Ihab Jadallah’s film and Monther Jawabreh’s paintings is contingent on a familiarity with the role of resistance fighters within the nationalist narrative of Palestine. Works such as The Shooter, the As Once Was Known series and indeed Hourani’s Watermelon hold the images used to establish a nationalist visual vocabulary as their direct target of humour. Importantly, these icons were instrumental in coalescing a sense of ‘Palestinianism’ and it is the saturation of these symbols in the history of Palestinian cultural output that has leant them a certain stability. It is this saturation and ideological stability that perhaps gives license to contemporary Palestinian practitioners to use them as targets of humour.

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However, one important clarification remains. Although the increasing use of humour has been seen to target deliberate constructions of ‘Palestinianism’, the same cannot be said of humour in regards to the event responsible for ‘Palestinianness’. There is little (if any), evidence of humour directed at the experience of the Nakba in art and film, despite the fact that the event is responsible for collective identification with the experience of exile. It is perhaps still too soon to broach the subject of the Catastrophe with humour. As the event responsible for the continuing experience of exile, the Nakba is of course known among all Palestinians, however it arguably has not achieved the same representational stability that characterises the revolutionary movement. Evidence of this continued instability can be witnessed in the continued urgency with which texts are published about the event, each recounting oral history and disseminating documentary evidence of what occurred. Adding to the urgency of the discussion and documentation of the Nakba is the threat of time, as the generation who were adults in

1948 have either died or are now in their old age.

Though contemporary cultural output refrains from laughter centred on the

Nakba, there is also a paucity of documentation and research around the humour of the generation who experienced the Nakba and those who preceded them. Although it is perhaps likely that the generation of the Catastrophe would have engaged with humour towards the event as a form of psychological self-defence against trauma, without any active attempts to record this humour it will be lost under the weight of history and exile. This is deeply regrettable because the humour of the period would undeniably lend insight into Palestinian culture and society prior to occupation. The lament over a lost humour resonates with the nostalgia towards life prior to the occupation. This

303 resonates with Simon Critchley’s observation that ‘the sweet melancholy of exile is often rooted in a nostalgia for a lost sense of humour’.629

Figure 49. Elia Suleiman, The Time That Remains, Film Still, 2009

Elia Suleiman’s most recent film A Time That Remains from 2009 (Figure 49) explores the Nakba with an occasional light touch. Although engaging laughter in scenes depicting subsequent decades of Palestinian history, the film refrains from any over-incitement of laughter when dealing with the events surrounding 1948. Although this might initially suggest a hesitation towards employing humour to an event characterised by its re-telling through oral history, Suleiman’s wider oeuvre is indicative of the filmmaker’s determination to problematise national narration and a sense of Palestinianism. Rather than attempt to narrate the story of Palestinian history or to use film to satisfy a nationalist agenda, Suleiman explains that ‘for me, there is no

629 Critchley, On Humour 68. 304 homeland. There is only memory’. 630 Memory subsumes national narration in

Suleiman’s films and becomes a vehicle of self-criticism of Suleiman himself as well as of Palestinian nationalist ideology more broadly.

Suleiman’s use of humour to destabilise national narration is most clearly evidenced in the ways the director parodies national signifiers. Divine Intervention is notable in this regard, particularly in its climactic ninja scene.631 When considered alongside the work of Jawareh, Jadallah and Hourani, Suleiman’s humour towards national signifiers is indicative of how laughter can puncture the Palestinian mindfulness and reverence towards national identity.632 The mindfulness of nationalism coupled with the apparent ‘mindlessness’ of humour does achieve something of considerable import: humour both reveals nationalism as an essentialist ideology and strips it of reverence. As a consequence, laughter can be said to test the boundaries of nationalist ideology and national identity. By probing the boundaries of nationalism laughter illuminates and reinforces a pluralist understanding of Palestinian identity and experience.

By challenging the boundaries of national identity and by scrutinising

Palestinian nationalism, humour problematises the idea that there is a set combination of national characteristics that gave rise to the Palestinian people. Rather than articulate a sense of national identity, humour can be said to be a manifestation of the ‘general will’ of Palestinians. Former PLO representative and academic Karma Nabulsi explores the Palestinian general will by utilising the theoretical model set out by Jean-Jacques

Rousseau. For Nabulsi, the general will of Palestinians is said to be distinct from

630 Gertz and Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema 177. 631 For further discussion of Divine Intervention see Chapter 7. 632 However, it is striking to note that all examples of humour centered on national signifiers have emerged at a time when statehood seems both unreachable (with the failure of the peace process) but also perhaps distantly recognizable (as evidence by the successful bid for UN non‐member observer state status). 305 nationalist ideology and is argued to be a social contract that is the glue that keeps

Palestinians together, giving them a sense of shared purpose and expression.633 Despite its merits, the general will is a potentially troublesome term because it is not empirical and is difficult to analyse, survey or classify. This is a difficulty also shared by expressions of humour.

Further correlations can be drawn between the concept of the general will and manifestations of humour. As Nabulsi explains, general will is emphatic not ethnic, and

‘it is neither based on language, custom, religion, race or on the nation’.634 Rather, general will usurps all of these characteristics and determinants while avoiding a reliance on any of them in isolation. This is because the general will is never static, it moves and grows and changes. Like humour, it is both relational and unquantifiable.635

The general will is an apt model for which to consider the Palestinian relationship towards humour in contemporary cultural output. It is fitting because it reveals how humour is a form of shared will and understanding which, although related to many determinants, evades didactic nationalist framing and reductionist understandings of the determinants of shared identity.

Humour’s ability to shift and grow alongside social and political change means that it shares an important characteristic with cultural identity; namely, that it is diverse and never static. It is here that one must remember that diversity and dynamism are key indicators of established cultural identities, for a diverse people can be said to be a real people. Humour is indicative of the diversity of Palestinian experience and the complexity of Palestinian identity. For this reason humour can undermine the static and

633 Karma Nabulsi, “Being Palestinian,” Government and Opposition 38.4 (2003): 479. 634 Nabulsi, “Being Palestinian,” 479. 635 Nabulsi, “Being Palestinian,” 479. 306 reductionist efforts of nationalist ideology while reinforcing a general will or collective identity.

Although the laughter incited by cultural output lends insight into how humour can coalesce a shared Palestinian identity, it is also imperative to consider the laughter of non-Palestinians towards contemporary art and film. It is useful here to return to

Bergson’s discussion of laughter as being that of a group. If we are to concede that laughter towards humorous cultural output is demarcated by two closed circles, we must remember that the laughter of Palestinians only makes up the narrower of the two. The broader of these two circles is made of up the laughter of non-Palestinians. Although these circles occasionally overlap, an analysis of the circle of humour made up of non-

Palestinians engenders two vital questions: Who is laughing? Why are they laughing?

It is pertinent to consider the distinction between the two circles of laughter as being based on the differentiation between intra- and intercultural humour. An investigation of intercultural laughter instigated by humour in Palestinian art and film illuminates the potential of laughter to implicate audiences in aggression, to fracture stereotypes and to demarcate the parameters of identity. It is useful here to again return to Bergson’s analysis of humour and in particular his observation that ‘laughter appears to stand in need of an echo’.636 Bergson’s observation of the echo of laughter reinforces his suggestion that laughter must always be that of a group. Superficially, this interpretation of laughter’s echo appears as applicable only to individuals of the same group; more specifically, only to those who share the same identity. However, the notion of laughter requiring an echo can be broadened to consider how humour functions within the intercultural exchange between groups of people of vastly different backgrounds and identities.

636 Bergson, Laughter 6. 307

It is imperative to remember that it is not just laughter that requires an echo; the same can be said of identity. Identity always exists in dialogue with others and is the background for our actions and interactions. Identity is thus always partly shaped by recognition and misrecognition and consequently it is like an echo that informs both our actions and our reactions.637 The laughter of non-Palestinians towards humorous art and film is therefore crucial to the demarcation of identity. Intercultural laughter is essentially one of recognition that reinforces Palestinian identity as one that is, like all identities, in constant dialogue with others. Although both humour and identity require an echo, they take on a different gravity when they converge with trauma, an experience that also requires an echo.

It is a long accepted view that the primary agent in the recovery from trauma is an appreciative audience who acknowledge the suffering and injustice inflicted on another.638 This acknowledgement is the echo of trauma that is vital to the facilitation of recovery. Despite appearing as counterintuitive, it must be argued that the laughter of non-Palestinians towards humorous cultural output is a signal of this acknowledging echo towards collective trauma. This is because laughter signifies an understanding of the traumatic themes explored through humour in Palestinian art and film. The inability to laugh at the black humour that characterises art and film might initially appear as an ethical decision to refrain from laughing at another’s suffering. However, it may also signal a failure to understand the way that humour has been used as a form of empowerment, lifting Palestinians outside projections of victimhood. Understanding this, the inability to laugh is therefore a failure to acknowledge trauma and to participate as its echo of affirmation.

637 Chris Taylor, ed., Multiculturism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994) 25. 638 Brison, “Trauma Narratives and the Remaking of the Self,” Acts of Memory 40.

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Ultimately the appearance of humour in Palestinian cultural output within international contexts raises questions about the ethics of laughter in the face of marginality, oppression and trauma. When considering the ethics of laughter in this context it is vital to acknowledge that much of the humour in art and in film is reliant on a performance of identity and indeed of marginality. Despite the Palestinian intracultural dialogue that is raised through humour in cultural output, ultimately this humour is geared towards intercultural exchange. This is because artists and filmmakers are aware that their work is destined for international audiences in exhibitions, galleries, cinemas and festivals. Within this globalised market and exhibition space, Palestinians artists and filmmakers employ humour with an acute awareness of an international gaze destined to look upon their work.

Performing their marginality through humour, artists and filmmakers take aim at dominant misconceptions and stereotypes surrounding Palestine and Palestinians.

Humour is an apt vehicle for the subversion of these misconceptions because ultimately it appears as a non-threatening mode of expression. This lends cultural practitioners the ability to express and represent issues of trauma and oppression in a way that appears void of didactic politicisation or ideological framing. Being connected to a perception of innocence, the humorous mode contrasts sharply with the serious issues of oppression explored in cultural output. As such, humour might be said to signal a serious strategy of non-violent resistance to oppression.639 If successful in inciting the laughter of others, the humour of Palestinian cultural output implicates audiences into this strategy of non- violent resistance, successfully recruiting them as participants in the struggle against

Israeli oppression.

639 Majken Jul Sorenson, “Humour as a Serious Strategy of Nonviolent Resistance to Oppression,” Peace and Change 33.2 (2008): 182. 309

Audiences are coerced into participation in this act of resistance through a manipulation of the perceived innocence of humour. By implicating audiences in an engagement with issues of Palestinian oppression, humour has the effect of dislodging the ongoing trauma fatigue in international audiences towards the Palestine/Israel conflict. Luring audiences into engaging with trauma by using the vehicle of humour, contemporary Palestinian cultural output thus facilitates an alternative encounter and window of understanding towards the Palestinian experience. In such a way, humour can be seen to nurture an intercultural exchange capable of facilitating a more nuanced understanding of Palestinian identity, and participation in non-violent resistance, all the while engendering empathy with the Palestinian experience.

In spite of this essentially positivist view of the intercultural potential of humour, there remains a body of scholarship which maintains that humour which draws upon cultural difference is one that cannot produce anything positive, but rather acts towards the detriment of cultural harmony and respectful social relations. At its essence, this debate around intercultural humour separates those who support humour as a tool of empowerment and those that view it as capable of inciting and sustaining prejudice while belittling those who are culturally marginalised or socially oppressed. Somewhat problematically, the scholarship around this issue inevitably relies on terms such as

‘ethnic’ difference, which in and of itself is a fluid and slippery term, prone to ambiguity.640 Adding to this, much commentary and scholarship on the topic also draws on the term ‘racist’ humour, which immediately predicates an association to ethically abhorrent views and beliefs.641

640 Rappoport, Punchlines: The Case for Racial Ethnic & Gender Humor, 5 Rappoport points out in his text Punchlines, that discussion of ethnic humour is difficult because both terms, ethnicity and humour, are prone to ambiguity and particularly when they are combined. 641 Rather than focusing closely on the specificities of who is behind the humour, those responding to it and the context in which it shared, taking issue with ‘racist’ humour closes off the discussion of the potential benefits of humour charged by cultural difference. Although humour engaged with cultural 310

A useful distinction in this minefield of humour is drawn by Jerry Farber, who suggests that humour can be divided into two categories: derisive humour and empathic humour. Farber points out that although these two categories can arise from the same comic stimulus and can even co-exist, the two differ profoundly in the payoffs they provide.642 Addressing this subject directly in Comic Racism and Violence, Michael

Billig outlines the scholarly work and approaches on both ends of this debate around ethnic humour. Drawing attention to the fact that a ‘healthy sense of humour’ is now viewed as a virtue in assessment of character, Billing makes clear that is not always the case by addressing the more sinister and offensive possibilities latent in humorous interaction. Claiming that those who laugh at racist jokes are quick to deny that they hold racist beliefs, Billing reminds us of one of the most common phrases in the English language, ‘just joking’.643

The appearance of ‘just joking’ in effect marks the transition from a harmonious exchange to one that is at best marred by non-reciprocal sentiments, and at worst a transformation to a tense or even aggressive point of difference. As a signifier of not only our state of mind but also our social, ideological and political beliefs, the misfire of humour reminds us of our active role as audiences and recipients of humour. Our ability, or indeed inability, to laugh at something that draws upon cultural difference difference does in some instances undoubtedly run the risk of creating serious offence and furthering prejudice, it can also be argued that once it is removed from the frame of ‘racism’ it may provide a window for social empowerment, understanding and solidarity. Though it may be efficient to dismiss humour of this ilk as too risky a domain to endorse, to overlook its potential merits is to choose blindness toward the current trends in cultural output internationally. 642 Jerry Farber, “Toward a Theoretical Framework for the Study of Humor in Literature and the Other Arts,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 41.3 (2007): 72. Farber’s division of humour into these two categories is mirrored by the debate around ethnic humour that tends to separate manifestations of ethnic humour into those that encourage aggression and belittlement and those that motivate solidarity and understanding. 643 Michael Billig, “Comic Racism and Violence,” Beyond a Joke: The Limits of Humour, Sharon Lockyer and Michael Pickering eds., (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) 25. An expression we are all familiar with, ‘just joking’ tends to appear in tense situations where a laughter situation has been met with an icy reception, deemed inappropriate or offensive. The misdirection of an expression of humour makes for an awkward exchange and an accentuation of difference between those implicated in a social encounter. 311 reveals something about ourselves; specifically, whether we are willing to be implicated in an underlying argument of perspective concealed in the content we are presented with.

In the case of Palestinian art and film, a willingness to become complicit in the underlying argument or perspective of humour entails a participation in aggression that often directly targets at the Israeli state. The audience’s complicity in derisive humour that targets Israel signals a manifestation of laughter that correlates with both

Superiority and Relief theory. Laughter towards the Israeli state is essentially an act of mockery that relates to the superiority view of humour because it indicates a controlled form of aggression. As an act of mockery, the humour of Palestinian art and film suggests an eminence in those participating in the laughter it induces and an infirmity in those whom laughter targets.644 Although this laughter is derisive of the Israeli state, it is also empathic.

While the laughter produced by output is derisive of Israeli state practices, it also forges an empathic connection with Palestinians, lending insight into their experiences of the Israeli occupation. This circuit between derision and empathy reinforces Jerry Farber’s suggestion that although humour can be divided into the derisive or empathic categories, it is also possible for the two forms to co-exist.645 As much humorous Palestinian cultural output utilises the techniques of humour to make visible the effects of Israeli occupation, laughter towards this output serves as an acknowledgement of the codified points of reference in humour that target the occupation.646 The laughter of audiences may thus be argued to signal solidarity with

Palestinians against the oppression they face. If we accept Jacqueline Bussie’s

644 For further discussion on the history of Superiority Theory refer to the Introduction. 645 Farber, “Toward a Theoretical Framework for the Study of Humor in Literature and the Other Arts,” 72. 646 For a detailed discussion on how humour in Palestinian art and film explores issues pertaining to the occupation refer to Chapter 7. 312 suggestion that laughter of the oppressed functions to render the oppressor’s authority as suspect, then an audience’s echoing of this laughter only serves to further reinforce the suspicion directed at the oppressor; the state of Israel.647

Although the laughter targeting the Israeli state is one of derision and therefore appears to resonate with the Superiority Theory of humour, it is also useful to look to how this laughter is indicative of the Relief Theory of Sigmund Freud.648 Freud argued that jokes are centred on aggressive thoughts that would be censured if stated directly and laughter was an indication of relief that these thoughts had been aired.649 An expansion of Freud’s analysis of jokes to encompass humour more broadly reveals the potency of Relief Theory as a frame for which to look upon humour in Palestinian art and film. For decades Palestinian cultural output has in the Western world been deemed too critical of Israel. This critical approach to Israel is perceived as a form of political aggression that should be silenced and indeed censored.

Humour might then be understood as a way of directing aggression towards the

Israeli state while evading reproach or reprimand. The humour of Palestinian cultural output has ability to evade censure in two distinct ways. The first evasion is that of political censorship that has relentlessly targeted exhibitions and screenings of

Palestinian art and film for decades on the grounds that it demonised Israel. The second, and arguably more important, form of censure that it evades is that of individual audience members. As humour appears as non-threatening, it is able to evade the censure of audiences who look upon Palestinian cultural output with cautiousness for fear of being seen as complicit in the derision of the state of Israel. By evading these two forms of censure, humour catches audiences off guard, and if successful in

647 Bussie, The Laughter of the Oppressed 39. 648 For further analysis and discussion of the history of Relief Theory refer to the Introduction. 649 Oring, Engaging Humour 49. 313 encouraging laughter, indicates an acknowledgement and participation in the criticism of Israel and compassion towards Palestinian suffering under occupation.

This intercultural circle of laughter incited by the humour of art and film creates a group that momentarily stands in solidarity with Palestinians against the Israeli occupation. As laughter forges a social bond between its participants, it also engenders a joint aggression against outsiders. This circle of laughter therefore demarcates a line between insiders and outsiders. Those who remain ignorant of the cultural references that elicit humour are through their lack of laughter repositioned and reminded of their position as an outsider. Accordingly, the line forged by laughter both forms a bond and a division, reflecting negatively on those who remain outside the circle of laughter even if the laughter is no way directed at them.650

The position of outsider is perhaps most pronounced in works that elicit laughter by subverting stereotypes of Palestinians. By failing to appreciate the subversive humour, audiences not only reinforce their outsider status, but also reveal their own complicity in the maintenance of these stereotypes. Evidence of the consequences of failing to participate in laughter towards works that deal with stereotypes can be explored through an investigation of the 2009 video work by artist Sharif Waked entitled To Be Continued (Figure 50).

To Be Continued replicates the aesthetic codes and conventions of the martyrdom videos used to record the last words of suicide bombers prior to carrying out a mission. At first glance, the video does not suggest any departure from typical martyr videos, depicting a young man with a gun lying across a table in the foreground and with a green background from the Qu’ran with verse 78 from the Sourat al-Hajj written in white calligraphy. However, it is the face of the suicide bomber that provides the

650 Morreall, “Humor and the Conduct of Politics,” 66; Lorenz, On Aggression 284. 314 suggestion that the video is not ‘genuine’. Despite his unremarkable clothes and his convincing surrounds, most Palestinians audiences would immediately recognise the face of the martyr as being that of Saleh Bakri, the son of Palestine’s most celebrated actor, Mohammad Bakri.

As Bakri begins to speak and his words are translated into the English subtitles below, audiences are further prompted to acknowledge the work as distinctly different to ‘real’ documentary martyr videos. Speaking in a monotone voice, the words Bakri reads are not those expected. Rather than read a justification for carrying out an impending suicide mission, Bakri is depicted reading from the classic text of the Islamic

Golden Age, One Thousand and One Nights. Once the audience becomes aware of the text being read, the video becomes acknowledged as one that actively attempts to subvert our understanding of martyr videos, thereby calling into question our familiarity with these videos and their proliferation in the media.

Figure 50. Sharif Waked, To Be Continued, Video 41.33 mins, Video Still, 2009 315

To Be Continued thus presents two juxtaposed images of the Islamic world; the media spectacle of the suicide bomber and the rich history of the Islamic culture through the narration of One Thousand and One Nights. The work also creates another juxtaposition by co-locating the worlds of fiction and documentary. By bringing these two worlds together, the work creates a circuit that blurs the boundaries of documentary and fiction, creating an experience of defamiliarisation for the viewer.651 It is in this space of defamiliarisation and the blurred line between documentary and fiction that the locus of humour can be found in the work. The work’s ability to defamiliarise the familiar instigates laughter because of the incongruity with our expectations and familiarity with stereotypical images of suicide bombers. The video therefore indicates how humour is a form of critical anthropology that not only defamiliarises the familiar but also demythologises the exotic by inverting the world of ‘common sense’.652

The failure to acknowledge the humour created through this process of defamiliarisation would suggest an inability to understand Palestinians beyond their stereotypical framing in the Western media lens. The inability to recognise Waked’s subversion of these stereotypes in the work would thereby signal a complicity in the maintenance of a stereotypical view of Palestinians that pitches them as fanatical terrorists. To ignore Waked’s subversion would also indicate an inability to understand how To Be Continued dislodges conventional identifications with Palestinians. As

Kevin Strohm rightly observes, the transgression of identification in the work functions by disrupting ‘the regime of identification that assigns Palestinians a place in both time and place’.653

651 Kiven Strohm, “When Anthropology Meets Contemporary Art: Notes for a Politics of Collaboration,” Collaborative Anthropologies 5 (2012): 115. 652 Critchley, On Humour 65. 653 Strohm, “When Anthropology Meets Contemporary Art,” 116. 316

The destabilisation of time in To Be Continued is achieved through the ways in which the work engages with concepts of storytelling. It is useful here to remember the basic plot of One Thousand and One Nights. The story centres around the Persian King

Shahryar who marries a string of virgins only to execute each one the morning after their wedding to bypass any chance his wives might dishonour him. The King eventually marries a woman called Scheherazade, who on the night of their wedding, begins to tell the king a story. The king becomes curious about how the story ends and is forced into keeping his young wife alive. Knowing this, the young bride continues to tell the King stories to prevent her own death. One Thousand and One Nights is thus a story that conveys the notion that relentless narration may evade death. A line of correlation can be drawn between this aspect of One Thousand and One Nights and martyr videos.

The convention of martyr videos dictates that each martyr narrates their last will and testament and explains the impetus behind their forthcoming mission. Following the completion of the mission, the videos are circulated as both political fodder (for both sides of a conflict) and as a momento mori. Circulating only after death, the videos keep the image of each martyr alive. The wide circulation of each martyr’s video and personal narrative in effect allows the image to transcend the physical death of each martyr by encouraging and facilitating the memory of the martyr in others.654

To Be Continued’s ability to draw together the seemingly disparate texts of One

Thousand and One Nights and martyr videos serves to tease out the notion that narration is a tool that allows one to transcend death. This is also a theme that can be correlated to

Palestinian cultural output that has for decades been marked by a perceived urgent need to narrate Palestinian history. Although this process was undoubtedly informed by the

654 Arie W. Kruglanski, et al. “Fully Committed: Suicide Bombers’ Motivation and the Quest for Personal Significance,” Political Psychology 30.3 (2009) 336. 317 lack of awareness and archival presence of Palestinian history, it was also compounded by the Zionist claim that Palestinians did not exist. Edward Said repeatedly explained the incessant anxiety about the need to tell the Palestinian story, explaining that ‘the moment you stop telling the story, the whole thing will just disappear’.655 In other words, Palestinian history would not exist were it not for its continual narration.

Knowing this, To Be Continued takes on a different pertinence. Drawing together a reference to martyr’s transcendence of death through the narration of their life story and

Scheherazade’s ability to evade death through storytelling, Waked reminds the viewer that Palestinians too are engaged in an act of perpetual narration. This narration sustains memory, keeps their identity alive and reminds us of their history.

Palestinian cultural output has always been marked by a narration of the

Palestinian story. At each critical junction of history, the form of narration shifted alongside changes in identity and political and social contexts. Although humour can be said to be the latest form of narration of the Palestinian story, it is able to achieve something that was closed off to other forms of visual communication. Humour has the unique ability to challenge our understanding of time through its idiosyncratic relationship to temporality. Simon Critchley explains that ‘humorous pleasure would seem to be produced by the disjunction between duration and the instant, where we experience with renewed intensity both the slow passing of time and its sheer evanescence’.656 In part, the instigation of laughter comes as a result of humour’s ability to fuse together the past, present and future. To Be Continued is evidence of this, consolidating Islamic history with stereotypical images of Palestinians as political

655 Edward Said, The Politics of Dispossession: The Struggle for Palestinian Self‐Determination, 1969‐ 1994, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1994) xviii. 656 Critchley, On Humour 7. 318 martyrs that have prevailed in recent decades bringing them into the contemporary international art context.

Humour not only changes our experience of time, but also allows us to reimagine and re-evaluate our perceptions of the past, present and future. It achieves this by defamiliarising our understanding of all three of these temporal spaces.

Palestinian art and film uses laughter to re-examine the history of Palestinian by looking at the construction of national identity. It challenges the present by revealing the absurdity and banal evil of the Israeli occupation and it looks to the future by imagining a Palestinian state that is yet to come to fruition.

Drawing together the past, present and future, humour exposes trauma, disappointment and disillusionment, while opening a window of aspiration and hope.

Laughter is said to be synonymous with both artistic freedom and hope and this may partly be the reason that humour is increasingly visible in Palestinian art and film. 657

Humour permits Palestinian practitioners the ability to self-critically examine their past and to challenge the authority of Israeli occupation; this allows Palestinian practitioners the artistic freedom previously denied to them from both the Israeli and Palestinian political apparatuses. Laughter enables hope, because humour is one of the few ways in which people can express their aspirations and dreams, even if they appear as though a chimera. Humour’s ability to express and engender hope can be witnessed in the

Picasso in Palestine project.

The Picasso in Palestine project was a two-year struggle by both the

International Academy of Art Palestine (IAAP) and the Van Abbemuseum in

Eindhoven to bring Pablo Picasso’s Buste de Femme (1943) to Ramallah from its home in the Netherlands (Figure 51). A remarkable feat, and a significant moment in the

657 Munder, “Humour: The Secret of Aesthetic Sublimation,” 16. 319 history of Palestinian art, the Picasso in Palestine project marked the first time a modernist masterpiece made the journey to the West Bank for the viewership of

Palestinian audiences.658 The Picasso in Palestine project was the brainchild of IAAP director Khaled Hourani, who claims that the idea for the project began ‘like a joke’.659

Figure 51. Pablo Picasso Buste de Femme, 1943 Oil on Canvas

Hourani’s proposition to the Van Abbemuseum they should lend the Picasso painting to the IAAP happened essentially on a whim.660 While visiting the Van

Abbemuseum for an unrelated project, Hourani was part of a group that met with the museum’s curators. After touring the Museum, the group of visitors and staff eventually sat down together in a conference room. While talking, a rhetorical question was raised by the Museum’s director as to what the visitors would do if they had access to the Van

Abbemuseum’s collection, which included works by Kandinsky, Chagall, Beuys and

Picasso. To this question Hourani answered ‘bring one of your Picassos to Ramallah’.

658 The struggle to bring the Picasso in the IAAP is captured in a documentary feature film by Rashid Masharawi named Picasso in Palestine (2012). The documentary chronicles all aspects of the project including insurance, the construction of a site‐specific gallery, transport etc. 659 “Khaled Hourani, Director of the International Academy of Art Palestine: Interview with bankleer 2010,” Youtube, 7 July 2010. 11 September 2012. < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d4hyZEovvU>. 660 Michael Baers, “No Good Time for an Exhibition: Reflections on the Picasso in Palestine Project, Part I,” e‐flux 33 (2012) March 2012. 20 June 2012. < http://www.e‐flux.com/journal/no‐good‐time‐for‐an‐ exhibition‐reflections‐on‐the‐picasso‐in‐palestine‐project‐part‐i/>. 320

Hourani’s suggestion was met with laughter and incredulity, and as the Museum’s director Charles Esche recalls, Hourani’s proposition ‘came up as a wild idea. And then it was laughed at [and] dismissed’.661

Esche would have continued to dismiss Hourani’s idea as mindless and mirthful if Hourani did not work mercilessly to convince the Museum, insurers and the PA to support the project. Despite the efforts of Hourani and many others, the Picasso in

Palestine project is an example of how humour can be used to say and suggest something that would otherwise warrant censure. By presenting his proposition for the project on a whim, with humour and perfect comedic timing, Hourani implicated the

Museum’s curatorial team in a circuit of laughter that called into question their assumptions about the art industry and about Palestine. The eventual success of the project is evidence of how humour can instigate an enquiry and call into question our complicity in maintaining the status quo (Figure 52). The humour that facilitated the project in its germinating stage is evidence of how humour can remind us that the future is never conclusive and that it is up to us to act to facilitate change.662

Figure 52. Picasso in Palestine, Installation View, 2011

661 Charles Esche quoted in Michael Baers, “No Good Time for an Exhibition,”. 662 Munder, “Humour: The Secret of Aesthetic Sublimation,” 24. 321

Laughter will always serve as a call to realisation. As has been shown, laughter can reveal our complicity in maintaining the status quo, our participation in sustaining stereotypes, and our understanding of the past, present and future. Although the laughter towards the Palestinian art and film can be differentiated between the two circles of inter- and intracultural laughter, humour always has the potential to teach us something about ourselves and about the world. For Palestinians, the laughter incited by cultural output serves to reinforce a shared understanding of the world and a ‘general will’ that comes together in collective identity. For non-Palestinians, the increased exposure to

Palestinian humour through art and film engenders a new encounter with Palestine and

Palestinians. This new encounter is marked by greater intimacy, solidarity and perhaps even empathy with Palestinians.

322

CONCLUSION

‘Perhaps I know best why man is the only animal who laughs: he alone suffers so excruciatingly that he had to invent laughter.’663 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power

The everyday lives of Palestinians around the world remain marked by the traumatic experience of exile. As the world continues to lay witness to the ongoing failure of the peace process and grows weary of the political rhetoric that surrounds it,

Palestinians wait. They wait for an acknowledgement of their suffering, they wait for their Right of Return and they wait for the fulfilment of the long overdue promise of a

Palestinian state. Most importantly however, they wait for a time when being born

Palestinian does not entail a life marred by violence and political oppression. Stuck in a perpetual limbo fostered by the Oslo Accords and the Roadmap to Peace, Palestinians nevertheless continue to exert their sumud and confront the fate that has been forced upon them. They rally against this fate with stones, hunger strikes and marches on the street, but also with images, texts and films. Most remarkably, Palestinians confront this fate with laughter.

Given the dire political situation faced by Palestinians today, one is often presented with the assumption that art, film, and indeed humour, may not be the ideal or

663 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, Ed. Walter Kaufman, Trans. Walter Kaufman and R.J Holingdale (New York: Vintage Books, 1968) 42. 323 appropriate aspect of Palestinian experience to place emphasis upon. Undoubtedly, the daily lives of Palestinians can be described as a real emergency. This state of emergency has meant that Palestine is often approached with a seriousness that verges on political and historical reverence. Often this reverence relegates art and film to the sidelines, focusing energy instead on facts and figures of the occupation. Humour, too, falls victim to this reverence, as it may appear the least appropriate vehicle for the discussion of the Palestinian experience. Yet, this perspective ignores the potential of humour and visual culture as tools for the comprehension of the world, thereby diminishing their importance in social understanding.

This thesis has shown how art and film allow for a more refined and complex form of Palestinian self-representation that destablises a representational status quo that pitches Palestinians as victims, ‘revolutionaries’ or terrorists. As forms of visual self- representation, Palestinian art and film shed light not only on the Palestinian present but also on their past. Bringing together art and film for the first time in a single and substantial scholarly text, this thesis has mapped the trajectory of Palestinian cultural output over the last century to reveal the ways in which art and film developed alongside international trends and developments in both mediums, but also more importantly, alongside the historical events that have shaped the collective Palestinian experience and in turn identity. These include the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the

Nakba, the battle of Al-Karameh, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the Oslo

Accords. Arguing that Palestinian art and film have been shaped by each of these critical junctions in history, this thesis has uncovered the ways in which these mediums function as vehicles for the construction of a Palestinian national consciousness, operating as a form of national narration throughout the Palestinian struggle for liberation.

324

In so doing, this thesis has established a historical contextualisation for both the contemporary Palestinian political context in which we live and contemporary

Palestinian cultural production. It was necessary for this thesis to establish the historical trajectory of Palestinian cultural output because this field of scholarly enquiry has only emerged in the English language in the last decade. This thesis bolsters this recently established scholarly field by further contributing to scholarship in the area of

Palestinian art and film and thus it consciously attempts to open the way for further scholarship in the area in the future. This is of particularly importance, given the ever- growing international profile of both Palestinian art and film. The contribution of this thesis to the area of Palestinian film is particularly significant, given that the medium experienced two historical ‘erasures’ in both 1948 and 1982. In the wake of Mohanad

Yaqubi’s 2011 discovery of militant cinema previously thought destroyed, one supposes that scholarship in the area will continue to grow and that the work conducted in this thesis may help nurture those endeavours.

Expanding the scholarship around Palestinian art and film, this thesis contends that Palestinian art and film should be considered through a frame of visual culture that allows for a diversity of discursive approaches. Of particular significance in this regard is the way in which this thesis has engaged with the discipline of humorology. By analysing the humour of Palestinian art and film using the combined approaches of visual culture and humorology this thesis marks an attempt to broaden the discipline of visual culture. It strives to achieve this by revealing the potential latent in the study of humour through an analysis of the meaning and consequences of humour in Palestinian art and film. In this regard, this thesis might be considered as a case study that substantiates the need for visual culture to embrace humorology. In such a way, the

325 enquiry here opens the way for further research into the humour of diverse cultures and their corresponding cultural production.

The departure point for this thesis was the suggestion that there is no such thing as a distinct ‘Palestinian humour’; but rather, that there are examples of humour in

Palestinian cultural production that are directly informed by Palestinian history and experience. By examining manifestations of humour in specific examples of art and film from the last two decades, this text has shown how the humour in Palestinian cultural production is idiosyncratic insofar as the events that have shaped Palestinian collective identity and experience are particular to them as a cultural group. By bringing to light the references that inform the humour of Palestinian art and film this work has shown how humour relies on a sense of a shared social world, where points of reference are mutually understood and played with.

By familiarising the reader with Palestinian history and the trajectory of

Palestinian art and film over the last century, this thesis has cultivated an understanding of the points of reference that inform the humour of the artworks and films explored throughout it. Accordingly, this thesis has framed the discussion of humorous examples of Palestinian art and film according to three key themes: the ways in which humour mediates and delineates the borders of Palestine and identification with the landscape, the ways in which humour deals with the ongoing Israeli occupation, and the way in which humour serves to coalesce a shared Palestinian identity.

Through an analysis of specific examples of humorous art and film from over the last two decades, this work has elucidated the ways artists and filmmakers reveal the

‘banal evil’ of the Israeli occupation. Drawing on the humorological theories of Simon

Critchley, Jacqueline Bussie and Paolo Virno, among others, Palestinian humorous art and film has been shown to destabilise the political status quo, to function as a mature

326 defence mechanism against trauma and to perform as an ‘anticipatory practice’ that takes on the role of the absent Palestinian state. This thesis has also revealed the ways that humour can teach us something about ourselves by reinforcing a shared understanding of the world. Expounding upon the theory of Henri Bergson, this thesis has shown how the laughter incited by Palestinian cultural production performs a social function by reinforcing a sense of Palestinian identity.

The vast majority of the artworks and films included in this discussion of humour are from the last decade. Indeed, some of these works were made as recently as

2012. As a result, the discussion in this thesis not only lends insight into the impetus and consequences of humour in cultural production, but also engages in analysis of works that are yet to be discussed in scholarly texts. In such a way, this thesis paves the way for future scholarship on contemporary Palestinian art and film that has entered the international exhibition and screening context but is yet to attract critical or scholarly engagement. The discussion that makes up this thesis will nurture future analysis of

Palestinian art and film and encourage it to engage with the important role of humour.

I have argued that the shift towards humour has come about as a consequence of the critical junction of the Oslo Accords. Oslo is described as the punchline of

Palestinian identity because it served as an iconoclastic gesture that destroyed the legitimacy of the Palestinian nationalist ideology that prevailed in previous decades.

Oslo was anticipated as an end to the experience of exile which would establish peace in the region and to facilitate the creation of a Palestinian state. The failure of the Oslo accords denied all these expectations and left Palestinians in the worst position that they had ever found themselves. Oslo thus created a situation in which the Palestinian experience became marked by tragedy in excess; something this thesis argues is responsible for the explosion of laughter in Palestinian cultural output. As an

327 iconoclastic gesture, Oslo pushed the Palestinian revolutionary identity and the popularity of militant nationalist ideology to the sidelines. This had the effect of delegitimising the authority of the nationalist icon of Yassir Arafat, who was forced to adopt diplomacy and to renounce terrorism when signing the peace agreement. Arafat shifted to a political position that stood in direct contrast with the nationalist ideology he had personally cultivated since the late 1960s.

Oslo stands as a critical junction leading to the era through which we are still living, and the effects continue to be acutely felt by all Palestinians. The Accords have nurtured a political deadlock that has forced Palestinians to live in a perpetual ‘interim’ period. In recent times, Palestinians have challenged the legitimacy of these plans for peace by breaking away from the codes of political conduct dictated by the peace process. It is too early to tell what the long term consequences of these actions are, or whether the political junction ushered in by Oslo is coming to an end or evolving. As speculation grows that Palestinians are entering into a third intifada, the situation in

Palestine/Israel may again soon change. In spite of these rumblings of change, the feasibility of an establishment of a Palestinian state seems far from likely in the near future.

For Palestinians to achieve the long-held promise of their own sovereign state, or indeed a one-state solution, two important conditions must first be put into place. The first is an acknowledgement of the injustice Palestinians continue to suffer under occupation and enforced exile. The second is an international understanding of

Palestinian history and culture that is removed from sensationalism, stereotypes and essentialism. For the second criterion to be met, the Palestinian story must be recorded and circulated. It is here that we might return again to the words of Edward Said, who consistently placed emphasis on the urgency of recording the Palestinian story, but also

328 expressed a disdain for the terminology that surrounds this narration; namely, the word diaspora.664 Thinking that the term diaspora drew parallels between the experience of exile faced by Jews and that of Palestinians, Said suggested that there is a need to create a new terminology and language to describe the Palestinian experience. Language is not limited to the normative forms of speech and text; it is of course also visual. It is here that Palestinian art and film finds its greatest significance. Palestinian cultural output is an articulation of a specific Palestinian language. It reflects and disseminates the

Palestinian story around the world, and as scholarship around it grows, it finds a more substantial and stable place in the historical archive.

By mapping the evolution of Palestinian cultural production alongside historical events over the last century, this thesis has revealed art and film’s ability to narrate the changes in Palestinian experience, the evolving collective identity of Palestinians and the construction of a modern Palestinian national consciousness. Drawing attention to the emergence of laughter in Palestinian art and film, this thesis has unveiled the potential of humour to destabilise both the political and representational status quo faced by Palestinians. This thesis thus adds to the efforts of artists, filmmakers, scholars, writers and activists around the world who have for decades concentrated their efforts on recording the Palestinian experience. My hope is that by further broadening the enquiry into Palestinian art and film, I will provide a greater understanding as to why it is necessary that we rally alongside the Palestinians for justice and for peace, and that we join with them not only in their tears, but also in their laughter.

664 Said, Introduction, The Politics of Dispossession xviii. 329

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