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| Artist Frans Al-Salmi was murdered this morning by Israel when the IDF bombed a beautiful seaside cafe in Gaza |
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Art by Palestinian Frans Al-Salmi : Palestinian-American journalist (1971–2022) |
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| Art by Palestinian Frans Al-Salmi |
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| Art by Palestinian Frans Al-Salmi |
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| Art by Palestinian Frans Al-Salmi |
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| "We remember everything" 2025 Keys to Return painting by Palestinian artist Irina Naji |
https://www.facebook.com/irina.naji
Palestine Heritage Traditions Culture Art
"All my paintings are pages of my life in Gaza" Irina Naji
https://www.instagram.com/irina.naji
https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/1-irina-naji?tab=about
- An acrylic on canvas painting by Palestinian artist Irina Naji, named
Dream, displayed at an art exhibition in the West Bank city of Ramallah (2014 photo credit :AP/Nasser Nasser) 
Irina Naji "Dream" painting from 2021
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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 |
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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] |
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
ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO
READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP
SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and
conversations) THAT EMPOWER
DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE &
PEACE... and hopefully
Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies]
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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. |
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 |
TATREEZ motif library
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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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
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 |
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.
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 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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| West Bank Wall graffiti art in Bethlehem: Handala and Liberty as "Pietà" |
Handala's age – ten years old – represents Naji al-Ali's age in 1948 when he was forced to leave Palestine and would not grow up until he could return to his homeland:[6] Al-Ali wrote that:
Handala was born 10 years old and he will always be 10 years old. It was at that age that I left my homeland. When Handala returns, he will still be 10 years old, and then he will start growing up.
His posture, with his turned back and clasped hands, symbolises the character's "rejection at a time when solutions are presented to us the American way" and as "a symbol of rejection of all the present negative tides in our region."[4] His ragged clothes and standing barefoot symbolise his allegiance to the poor.[4] Al-Ali described Handala as "the symbol of a just cause":
He was the arrow of the compass, pointing steadily towards Palestine. Not just Palestine in geographical terms, but Palestine in its humanitarian sense—the symbol of a just cause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handala | ||
| He argued that it was OK to combine the Star of David and swastika symbols because, he said, the star is used not only as a religious symbol, but a political symbol. It is found on the Israeli Air Force insignia. |
"The swastika, to me, is equivalent to the Star of David," Atta said.
Atta also disagreed with the concept that Jewish residents could feel threatened by the mural. He said he thought Jewish people "should be able to relate" to how painful a genocide is for a population."
2024: The mural is posted on a building at North Holton and East Locust streets owned by Ihsan Atta, a Palestinian-American landlord who is the registered agent for the property management company.
The mural replaced one on Breonna Taylor that was well-known to those in the area. Taylor, a Black woman, was shot and killed in her home in 2020 by Louisville police during a botched raid. The police killings of Taylor and George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked nationwide protests about police violence. Another prominent mural of Floyd on a building also owned by Atta remains at the corner of East North Avenue and North Holton Street. Milwaukee
".... Whipping up hatred against symbols of Palestinian identity has dangerous consequences. Last November three Palestinian college students in Burlington, Vermont were shot; it’s thought that they may have been targeted because they were wearing keffiyehs. Around the same time, a British-Indian man living in Brooklyn was attacked in a playground while with his 18-month-old, because he was wearing a keffiyeh. A woman called him a terrorist, threw her phone and a hot cup of coffee at him and said she hoped that “someone burns your child in an oven”.
Cowardly though it may be, the anti-Arab atmosphere in the US has made me afraid of wearing my own keffiyeh out of the house. Particularly, as I recently had a very unpleasant interaction when wearing my watermelon sweater (the same one Ben Affleck’s daughter was criticised for wearing). Still, being worried about getting harassed on the street is nothing compared with what people in Gaza and the West Bank are dealing with. Please don’t let hate-mongers try to distract you: it’s not keffiyehs or protesting university students that you should be outraged by, it’s children being starved to death."
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| Protesters at University of Michigan in the US, this month. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images |
[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]
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| Artworks using these four colors were banned by Israeli law in the 1980s. This ban ended in 1993. |
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| Early 1900's photo of watermelon vendors in #Gaza #Palestine! |
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Watermelon market outside Jaffa Gate at the base of the Citadel walls, #Jerusalem, #Palestine...Circa 1900's     |
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| Protest for Palestine |
After Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, it banned the Palestinian flag, which was lifted after the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993. They are routinely confiscated by the Israeli police.[5] Israel's restriction on the Palestinian flag were criticized by Amnesty International as an attempt to legitimize racism, adding that the Palestinian flag has been used for the past decades as "a symbol of unity and resistance to Israel’s unlawful occupation".
The use of the watermelon as a Palestinian symbol has appeared in the wake of Israel's restrictions of Palestinian flags.
,%20a%20Palestinian-Jordanian%20artist%20in%20England,%20depicts%20a%20slice%20of%20watermelon%20on%20a%20Hebron%20plate.%20.jpg) |
| Beesan Arafat (@beesanarafat on Instagram), a Palestinian-Jordanian artist in England, depicts a slice of watermelon on a Hebron plate. |
The use of the watermelon as a Palestinian symbol has come as a response to Israel's confiscation of Palestinian flags.
Some people have a country they live in. We have a country that
lives within us. This collection of essays is a journey into the heart
and soul of a Palestinian who shares personal stories, reflections, and
feelings about Palestine and the diaspora. Through these writings, you
will discover a country that is not just a place on a map but a living
presence in the minds and hearts of its people. A SEED IN THE FRUIT OF PALESTINE ESSAYS BY MIKE ODETALLA
Thanks Mike!