Symbols of Palestine
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| This piece by Egyptian artist Dai Abbas evokes symbols of solidarity with Palestine, featuring a watermelon held up by a community of people.Dai Abbas |
The keffiyeh explained: How this scarf became a Palestinian national symbol
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Although keffiyehs are worn across the Middle East, in recent decades they have come to be identified in particular as a symbol of Palestinian identity and resistance. At pro-Palestinian protests across the world amid the Israel-Hamas war, demonstrators have sported the scarves around their necks or used them to cover their faces.
Originally worn by shepherds and nomadic farmers, the keffiyeh “has become an iconic piece of clothing globally worn by .. Read More https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/28/style/style-palestinian-keffiyeh-explained/index.html
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| Palestinians pick olives during a ceremony marking the start of the olive harvesting season last year in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip [File: Said Khatib/AFP] |
‘Our hearts burn’: Gaza’s olive farmers say Israel war destroys harvest
Since the start of the Israeli offensive on October 7, farmers have been unable to access their farmland and crops.
She can no longer tend to those trees or tomatoes: The 40-year-old was displaced with her family and is living in a United Nations-run school in the centre of Khan Younis due to near-continuous Israeli bombing since October 7.
“I have no idea what state they are in. I just want to reach my land to see what has become of it,” she says.
It’s a sentiment echoed by farmers across Gaza.
The months of October and November, when olives are harvested, hold special significance for Palestinians, who consider the harvest a national occasion that celebrates their relationship and connection with the land.
Farmers pick olives with their extended families and friends. Folk songs create a festive atmosphere. Meals are cooked and eaten under the trees... READ MORE https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/11/6/our-hearts-burn-gazas-olive-farmers-say-israel-war-destroys-harvest [AS
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| The olive tree has deep historical and cultural roots in Palestine, and its branches have been associated with peace and prosperity for centuries. |
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| The art of Palestinian embroidery, or tatreez, is a decorative needle and thread practice passed down through generations of Palestinian women. |
UNESCO
The art of embroidery in Palestine, practices, skills, knowledge and rituals
Inscribed in 2021 (16.COM) on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
The art of traditional embroidery is widespread in Palestine. Originally made and worn in rural areas, the practice is now common in all of Palestine and among members of the diaspora. Women’s village clothing usually consists of a long dress, trousers, a jacket, a headdress and a veil. Each of these garments is embroidered with a variety of symbols including birds, trees and flowers. The choice of colours and designs indicates the woman’s regional identity and marital and economic status. On the main garment, the loose-fitting dress called a thob, the chest, sleeves and cuffs are covered with embroidery. Embroidered, vertical panels run down the dress from the waist. The embroidery is sewn with silk thread on wool, linen or cotton. Embroidery is a social and intergenerational practice, as women gather in each other’s homes to practise embroidery and sewing, often with their daughters. Many women embroider as a hobby, and some produce and sell embroidered pieces to supplement their family’s income, either on their own or in collaboration with other women. These groups gather in each other’s homes or in community centres, where they may also market their work. The practice is transmitted from mother to daughter and through formal training courses.
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| © Zahara Hamad, Palestine, 2019 |
https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/the-art-of-embroidery-in-palestine-practices-skills-knowledge-and-rituals-01722
TATREEZ motif library
Choose Your Tatreez Journey
https://www.tatreeztraditions.com/motif-library?category=Patterns
The Tatreez Institute (TI), also known as Tatreez & Tea, was founded by Wafa Ghnaim in 2016 to preserve, document, and research Palestinian, Syrian, Lebanese, and Jordanian embroidery, dress, and history in the United States.
Committed to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage and preventing cultural erasure, the TI stewards a growing collection of over 180 traditional dresses and headdresses, rescued from dumpsters, estates, households, and vintage shops worldwide.
https://www.tatreezandtea.com/
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The flag of Palestine, colored in the Pan-Arab colors of red, green, white and black, had been banned in Israel in certain situations, leading to the locally-grown and similarly-colored watermelon taking its place in Palestinian iconography as an alternative for decades. Following the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel banned the display of the Palestinian flag and its colors in the occupied Gaza Strip and the Wast Bank with the Israeli Army arresting anyone who displayed it.
In 1980, the IDF shut down an art gallery in Ramallah. According to the exhibit organizer the IDF explained that the rules forbade Palestinians from displaying red, green, black and white, and watermelon is an example of art that violated the Israeli army's rules.... READ MORE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon_as_a_Palestinian_symbol
NPR: How watermelon imagery, a symbol of solidarity with Palestinians, spread around the world
Over the past three months, on banners and T-shirts and balloons and social media posts, one piece of imagery has emerged around the world... READ MORE https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/how-watermelon-imagery-a-symbol-of-solidarity-with-palestinians-spread-around-the-world
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Demonstrators shout slogans and hold up an image of Handala, a symbol of Palestinian struggle, on Jan. 27 during a protest in Madrid in support of Palestinians and to demand a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war. Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images |
Who is Handala, the barefoot, spiky-haired boy who symbolizes Palestinian resistance?
RAMALLAH, West Bank — His hair is like a hedgehog, his feet are bare, his clothes are rags and his back is to the world always. His name is Handala.
A character created by Palestinian newspaper cartoonist Naji al-Ali in 1969 — two years after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war — the boy known as Handala is a symbol of the Palestinian struggle and resistance to occupation to this day.
Who is Handala?
Handala is forever 10 years old — the age that Ali was when his family was forced to move during the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948 when the state of Israel was formed. Palestinians and their supporters refer to that displacement as the Nakba, or Arabic for "catastrophe."
Ali's refugee boy character shares his name with a resilient, bitter plant that grows in the Middle East called handal. It has deep roots and will always grow back even if it's weeded out.
"This character represents insurgency, refusal and struggle," says Egyptian columnist Nadi Hafez of al-Qabas newspaper, where Ali worked for a long time. "And it satirizes the politics around the Palestinian cause, or the politics of the Arab world, or indeed international politics when it comes to the Palestinian cause."
Handala didn't turn his back to the reader until 1973, after the Yom
Kippur War, when a coalition of Arab countries led by Egypt and Syria
fought Israel in October of that year. At the time, there was a push by
countries including the U.S. for a settlement of the conflict. By
turning Handala's back to the world, Ali was expressing his rejection of
solutions from foreign nations imposed on Palestinians.... READ MORE https://www.npr.org/2024/02/06/1228097975/handala-naji-al-ali-cartoon-palestinian-symbol
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| Key- Universal Declaration of Human Rights & every refugee's inalienable right of return to original homes & lands |
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...Universal Echo |
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Mahmoud Darwish 1941—2008 |
In the 1960s Darwish was imprisoned for reciting poetry and traveling between villages without a permit. Considered a “resistance poet,” he was placed under house arrest when his poem “Identity Card” was turned into a protest song. After spending a year at a university of Moscow in 1970, Darwish worked at the newspaper Al-Ahram in Cairo. He subsequently lived in Beirut, where he edited the journal Palestinian Affairs from 1973 to 1982. In 1981 he founded and edited the journal Al-Karmel. Darwish served from 1987 to 1993 on the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In 1996 he was permitted to return from exile to visit friends and family in Israel and Palestine.
Mahmoud Darwish’s early work of the 1960s and 1970s reflects his unhappiness with the occupation of his native land... READ MORE https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mahmoud-darwish
Poet Naomi Shihab Nye commented on the poems in Unfortunately It Was Paradise: “[T]he style here is quintessential Darwish—lyrical, imagistic, plaintive, haunting, always passionate, and elegant—and never anything less than free—what he would dream for all his people.”
Mahmoud Darwish died in 2008 in Houston, Texas.
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| The Land and Love by Palestinian Ismail Shammout 1931-2006 |
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| Spring in Palestine by Ismail Shammout 1931-2006 |
Ismail Shammout was born in 1930 in Lydda – Palestine. During the Nakba of 1948, he and his family were forced out of their home during the assault of Jewish Zionist militant groups on their town. A long march on foot allowed them to settle in the refugee camps of Khan Younis in Gaza where he lived under very harsh conditions. In 1950 he managed to travel to Cairo to study arts from where he later earned a scholarship to study fine arts at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. After he finished his studies, he moved to Beirut in 1959 where he married his fellow arts student from Cairo, the Palestinian artist Tamim El-Akhal (born 1935). Both lived and worked in Beirut until 1983 then moved to Kuwait, then to Germany and finally to Amman in 1994. Shammout died on July 3 rd 2006.
Shammout, who himself experienced expulsion and
refuge and accompanied later the birth of the Palestinian Revolution in
the 1960s, became since the very early days of his professional live
along with his partner Tamam El-Akhal the “artistic face” of the
Palestinian Freedom Struggle. He has been long recognized as Palestine’s
leading modernist painter. His experience of dispossession and the
memories of beloved Palestine, the dreams of return as well as the
dignity and pride of his people formed the soul of his entire art. The
simplicity of the themes and his outstanding artistic skills let his
works enjoy a widely spread popularity which significantly shaped modern
Palestinian Art. https://ismail-shammout.com/
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| Palestinian Poppies by Tamam Al-Akhal |
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| Holy Family in an Olive Grove by Sliman Mansour |
Sliman Mansour is one of the most distinguished and renowned artists in Palestine. His style embodies steadfastness in the face of a relentless military occupation. His work — which has come to symbolize the Palestinian national identity — has inspired generations of Palestinians and international artists and activists alike.
Born in 1947, Mansour spent his childhood around the verdant hills and fields of Birzeit — where he was born — and later his adolescence in Bethlehem and Jerusalem. These experiences left a significant mark on his work, heightening a sense of gradual loss in Palestine, especially after the occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1967. His early experiences also presented him with the symbols and images he would later use to preserve and highlight Palestinian identity.
Using symbols derived from Palestinian life, culture, history, and tradition, Mansour uniquely illustrates Palestinians’ resolve and connection with their land. His pieces epitomize art as a form of resistance. With orange trees, he represents land lost in the Nakba of 1948. With olive trees, he represents land occupied in 1967. With women wearing traditional embroidered dresses, he represents Palestinian land and the Palestinian revolution. With the landscape of Palestine and its stone terraces, he represents the mark of Palestinian farmers on the land. With images of Jerusalem and the glistening Dome of the Rock, he represents the Palestinian homeland and the dream of return.
Sliman Mansour’s art
deftly reflects the hopes and realities of a people living under
occupation for the better part of a century. Since the early 1970s, he
has translated his experiences of isolation, displacement, community,
and rootedness using imagery and symbols that have contributed to
developing an iconography of the Palestinian struggle. Paintings such as
“Jamal al-Mahamel” (Camel of Hardships or Camel of Burdens) — with its
iconic porter whose heavy and precious load is the Jerusalem that all
Palestinians yearn for — were made into posters, cards, and stickers.
Such images were popularized in direct defiance of Israeli military
authorities, who frequently confiscated artwork and posters and closed
exhibitions and galleries. https://slimanmansour.com/about-the-artist-sliman-mansour/
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| An architectural marvel and a sacred Islamic site, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem signifies the religious and historical continuity of the Palestinian identity in the face of shifting global landscapes. |
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| Fact based maps |
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| Palestinian Cuisine https://www.tasteatlas.com/best-rated-dishes-in-palestine |
Olive oil, herbs, and spices like sumac and za'atar are staples in Palestinian cooking
The Key
The key is a poignant symbol of the right of return for Palestinian refugees. It represents the homes left behind during the Nakba, and the enduring hope of return to their ancestral homes and villages.
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| UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS |
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