Human Rights in Palestine conference, ANU, Canberra

Final session

Several Archive volunteers recently attended the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Occupied Territories conference and related events at the Australian National University in Canberra.  We had a great time catching up with each other and old friends, and making lots of new ones.  Some of us also attended the annual National Palestine Advocacy Solidarity Gathering hosted by Australia Palestine Advocacy Network the day after the conference.

Being back at ANU reminded us of other conferences we've attended there.  I think I've presented on Palestinian issues at about seven, but my all time favorites were:

• presenting "Symbolic defiance: contemporary Palestinian issues of culture, identity and nationalism"  at Carolyn Turner's extraordinary "Art & Human Rights" Conference. It was such an honour to even make the program of that event
• presenting "Commemorating Palestine: Diasporic Cultural Heritage / Identity Construction Within the Contemporary Palestinian Narrative"at the "Edward Said: Debating the Legacy of a Public Intellectual" conference convened by Debjani Ganguly and Ned Curthoys and sponsored by the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research.  Really great conference. 
• presenting "Thematic narratives of political protest, pain and death within contemporary Palestinian cultural expression" at ANU's Pain and Death: Politics, Aesthetics, Legalities conference. Fascinating conference, that one.

Now we were all back again at ANU for another human rights conference, but this one specifically related to Palestine. I first met it's convenor Dr Victoria Mason in 2002 at the First World Congress of Middle Eastern Studies in Mainz, Germany, where we were both presenting and where the Archive was displaying "Symbolic Defiance: Palestinian costume and embroidery since 1948".   She very kindly wrote a review  - as this was the traveling exhibition 'lost' in transit at LAX on it's way to it's next venue (at the MESA conference in 2003) Dr Mason's review is one of the few this important exhibition received and we treasure it on our website to this day.

Here's some details from the human rights conference's website:

"On the 11th and 12th September 2013 The Australian National University will host a groundbreaking conference on Palestinian human rights.

"The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories has impacted both the civil and political rights (CPR) and economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) of Palestinians. Yet in line with the broader marginalisation of ESCR within the international human rights field, very little of the literature on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories addresses issues specifically from the ESCR framework.

"The impact of the occupation on Palestinian ESCRs has been considerable: including restrictions on movement (as a result of the ‘Security/Separation Wall’, checkpoints, curfews  and closure policies) and the resultant impact on the Rights to Education and Health; de-institutionalisation of the Palestinian economy; expropriation of Palestinian land and resources (including water); forced evictions and house demolitions; and destruction of land and property.

"This conference will be a world first by bringing leading international experts together to discuss ESCRs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Over the two days, panels of these experts will address the following issues within the OPT:

The Right to Health (including access to adequate medical services and treatment)
The Right to Education
The Right to Adequate Water and Food Security
The Right to Adequate Housing (including issues around house demolitions)
The Right to Work
The conference will examine these issues through focusing on:
Human rights obligations enshrined in international law
Duty-holders of these obligations (including the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority)
Evidence of violations
Mechanisms for complaints and other forms of remedy for violations
Practical steps for implementing and monitoring ESCRs

Professor Jeff Halper speaking

It was a very interesting couple of days.  The conference was fully subscribed, so there was a good crowd.  Lots of great presentations, you came away really feeling you'd learned something about each topic and an honour to meet the speakers.  Lots of informal discussions, in part facilitated by having attendees sit at round dinner tables.   

Here's the transcript from an SBS journalist who attended the second day and really picked up on things that mattered:

Reviewing the state of Palestinians' human rights by Thea Cowie, SBS Radio  Transcript from SBS World News Australia Radio 13 SEP 2013 

"Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have resumed and fighting has died down, but human rights experts say life for Palestinians is harder than ever.

"International academics and activists have gathered at the Australian National University in Canberra for a wide-ranging conference on the state of human rights in the Palestinian territories.  Direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians resumed late in July, after a three-year stalemate in the negotiations. No-one is expecting any quick breakthrough.  

Professor Jeff Halper speaking

"Israel-based Nobel Peace Prize nominee Professor Jeff Halper says life remains uncertain for the four-million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. He says Israeli occupation of the territories restricts all manner of rights - civil, political, economic, social and cultural. 

"Professor Halper says his work to defend Palestinians' rights to housing is ongoing. "I've talked to many Palestinian women who say to me 'the first thing I do when I get up in the morning is I look out the window to see if there's bulldozers and soldiers and if the coast is clear I get dressed and wake up the kids and start making breakfast.' And in fact the family lived in their home for five years and one day in the middle of the day they're having lunch and there's a knock on the door.

"Saleem answers the door, Rami says to him 'is this your house?', Saleem says 'yes it's my house', he says 'no it isn't, it's our house now. You got ten minutes to get all your belongings our we're going to demolish it'. Here's where the soldiers literally kick in. Saleem was beaten and kicked out of his home. In the commotion Arabia managed to slam the door shut and she called us. So the soldiers broke the windows of the home, threw in tear gas to flush out the family, she was carried out unconscious, the kids screaming and yelling in all directions." 

 Dr Sarah Roy in the final session

"Harvard University senior research scholar Doctor Sara Roy says the absence of violence with the Israelis does not mean the absence of difficulties for Palestinians.  She believes the new peace talks will become just the latest in a series of failed discussions which have seen Palestinian rights gradually eroded since 1993.

"They've faced growing constraints. In fact what many people don't understand about this so-called peace process is that it diminished, and weakened and contracted Palestinian life rather than the opposite." 

"Dr Roy and her colleagues argue the Israeli occupation compromises Palestinians' access to adequate medical services, water, education, food, housing and work. She says tasks like collecting groceries or going to school are exponentially complicated by more than 600 fixed and flying checkpoints dotted across the territories.  

"And she says sometimes it's what people living elsewhere would regard as simple things that highlight how restrictive life is for Palestinians. "I have friends who live in Ramallah in the West Bank. The wife is from Gaza. Now Gazans are restricted from entering the West Bank and have been for a very long time. My friend has had two children they're now 12 or 13 years old. Their grandparents who live in Gaza have never seen their grandchildren and you're talking about distances that you can measure in the tens of miles. It is easier for Palestinians to go to the United States than it is to travel between West Bank and Gaza." 

"PhD Candidate at Queens University Belfast, Lucy Royal-Dawson has conducted interviews with Palestinian students about their lives. 

 Lucy Royal-Dawson Queens University Belfast 

"She says Israeli occupation has become so normalised that Palestinians don't realise the barriers they face. "The last question I asked in a lot of the interviews was 'and so how does the occupation affect your education?' and people would say 'no, no it doesn't. It used to but not any more.' And you think 'wow, that's how deep the normalisation has become that people can no longer see it, it's only represented by acts of violence.'" 

"Despite the ongoing difficulties, academics like Sara Roy do see glimmers of hope. Like earlier this year, when a three-year-old Jewish boy fell from the fourth floor window of his home in Israel and was later declared brain-dead. His parents decided to donate his organs to a Palestinian boy.  

"Dr Roy says she's heard other similar stories - not many, but some. "In the final analysis people are human beings and I truly believe, and I've seen many examples of this in my many years over there, that when you bring people together and you allow them to see each other as human beings, as monthers, as fathers - that often, not always, but often - people can sometimes break down these terrible political barriers that have been erected for them and this is one powerful example of that." 

"Professor Jeff Halper, an American Israeli, has been arrested numerous times defending the rights of Palestinians. He's a co-founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, which helps Palestinians to replace homes destroyed by Israeli authorities in the occupied territories. Professor Halper says the committee's work shows Israelis and Palestinians can work together. "We've built 187 homes in the last 12 or 13 years which isn't much in a humanitarian way. But if you think of it as 187 joint acts of resistance of Israelis and Palestinians then it really means much more than that." 

"The conference at the ANU has been criticised by Jewish community leaders who say speakers lacked academic credibility, and that it amounted to blatant anti-Israel advocacy."

We won't give that criticism further fuel, other than to say we totally enjoyed our time amongst "fringe conspiracy theorists and ideologues", and "scholars [with] no academic credibility" :).   But if you are interested we recommend a quick read of our favorite response: Middle East Reality Check's post Anatomy of a beat up.   It was a pleasure to be sitting next to George Browning while he drafted this response to The Australian:

"In a democratic society, debate about human rights should be the most protected of all debates. Why is the topic of rights important everywhere except the occupied territories? Surely the effect of occupation of Palestinian land and control of the lives of Palestinians is essential information to Australians who support the activities of Israel in the occupied lands. In the mix of tensions that are the reality of the Middle East, any light on factors that contribute to those tensions should be encouraged. George Browning, president, Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, Canberra"

More info:

• Human Rights in Palestine, ANU
• Reviewing the state of Palestinians' human rights by Thea Cowie, SBS Radio  Transcript from SBS World News Australia Radio 13 SEP 2013 
• The Australian - Samah Sabawi letter (edited)
• Samah Sabawi on Facebook - full letter
• Middle East Reality Check - Anatomy of a beat up 
• ABC - Rethinking Foreign Occupation - Philip Adams with Richard Falk and Jeff Halper 
• Workers Bush Telegraph - ANU Palestine conference threatened

All photos: J Allenby

Hussein Ibish's "Fetishizing nationalism"

Hussein Ibish is senior research fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine. He blogs at www.Ibishblog.com. We've been discussing one of his many interesting blog posts. This one is on a topic oh so very familiar to the Palestine Costume Archive.

Have a read.  Good stuff.

Fetishizing nationalism
By Hussein Ibish, August 16, 2011

"For those in the grip of its authority, a clearheaded understanding of how nationalist ideology actually operates seems extremely difficult. 

"All contemporary nationalisms are based on constructed and imagined narratives about history, geography, culture, ethnicity and religion. Such narratives invariably involve a great deal of what can only be described as fiction. In particular, reading the past—whether real or imagined—as a justification for present-day political projects is, by definition, intellectually treacherous territory. 

"Last week I wrote about a new book tracing the history of Palestinian traditional dress in which I ruminated on the development of contemporary Palestinian national identity. Only a lingering degree of naïveté can account for my genuine surprise at the outpouring of outrage the column produced. I haven’t written anything this controversial in years, though all I did was assert that a new book helps demonstrate that Palestinian nationalism—while a contemporary, 20th-century phenomenon—is deeply rooted in broader Arab and ancient traditions and civilizations, and has its own distinctive cultural styles. 

"I had not taken into account the existential need some nationalists have to deny every aspect of a rival’s authenticity. The pro-Israel voices objecting to these virtually self-evident observations seem unconcerned with defending the Israeli national identity, but obsessed with attacking the invocation of any heritage or tradition on which Palestinian nationalism can draw. 

"The impulse to negate the other seems overwhelming. It appears much more powerful than any imperative to define, defend or interrogate one’s own nationalist identity, which is taken for granted. 

"These critics assume all aspects of Jewish and biblical Hebrew mythology, traditions and history automatically legitimize the Israeli national project. However, such claims were highly controversial among the Jews of the world for many decades, and are again being subjected to significant interrogation 

"The traditional Zionist narrative holds that only the present-day Jews of the world are the genetic, religious and cultural heirs of the biblical Hebrews and ancient peoples of the “holy land.” Everyone else is a Johnny-come-lately at best, with the Palestinians usually ascribed no deeper origins than the arrival of Islam in the area (a mere 1,200 years ago)—and in many cases much less than that. The idea that they too, and perhaps even more than Jewish Europeans, might have genetic, ethnic and cultural ties to the ancient and biblical peoples of the land—including the ancient Hebrews—has been rarely considered. 

"In the decades immediately preceding 1948, the word “Israeli” was totally unknown and meant nothing, and the word “Palestinian” meant many things, but certainly not what it means today. Both of these national identities—the Jewish Israeli and the Arab Palestinian—are contemporary constructs born of recent history. They are largely grounded in their encounter with each other. They also embody deep cultural memories, traditions, myths, legends and tendentious narratives that at least to some extent retrofit the past to privilege their own national projects. 

"But all of this is entirely beside the point. Neither the Palestinian nor the Israeli national identity is more or less “authentic” or “legitimate” than the other because both are self-defined nationalisms adhered to by millions of people. The extent to which they are based on imaginary constructs—as all modern national ideologies ultimately prove largely to be—is meaningless in practice. Objecting to these mythologies is the political equivalent of complaining about the rain. 

"Systematized discrimination or exclusion is, of course, unacceptable for any decent society. But modernity dictates a healthy respect for both the human rights of individuals inherent to their status as human beings and the rights of self-defining national collectivities to self-determination. Contemporary political and national identities, including the Israeli and Palestinian, are invariably based on a confused mélange of myth, legend and history. But that is politically irrelevant. They are what they are, say what we will. 

"The deployment of myth, legend, history and tradition in the service of contemporary and modern national projects is, at least at a certain register, intellectually and philosophically invalid. Yet nationalist agendas can help people secure their individual and collective rights, achieve self-determination, overthrow colonial domination and serve other useful purposes. 

"Indeed, no sizable group of people can function successfully in the world of modernity without participating in some national structure. Hence the urgent need to end the virtually unique statelessness of the Palestinians, who are not citizens of Israel or any other country. 

"The analytical challenge is to recognize that while not all nationalist claims are necessarily equally valid (they may speak on behalf of very few people, for example, and not really have the constituency they claim), in some important senses they are, however, all equally invalid. Championing one’s own nationalism as self-evidently “authentic” at the expense of a well-established, deeply-rooted and much-cherished rival identity is a particularly lowly form of self-delusion, chauvinism and fetishism."

Some things never change....

(Middle East Children’s Alliance)

Why does this story / issue seem oh so familiar to everyone at the Palestine Costume Archive lol:

Gaza children’s images of war censored under pressure from US Israel lobby

Nora Barrows-Friedman
The Electronic Intifada
13 September 2011

Pro-Israel organizations pressured an Oakland children’s museum to cancel an upcoming exhibition of drawings made by Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip. Community leaders say the shutting down of the exhibition is the result of a disturbing — and well-funded — campaign to silence Palestinian voices across the US.

On 8 September, just two weeks before the exhibition was set to open to the public, the board of directors of the Museum of Children’s Art (MOCHA) announced that they had canceled “A Child’s View of Gaza.” The board shut down the show due to pressure from “constituents,” according to a statement made by Randolph Bell, the board’s chairman, in the San Francisco Chronicle (“Oakland museum cancels Palestinian kids’ war art,” 9 September 2011).

The show was curated in partnership with the Berkeley-based non-profit group Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), which has been working for 23 years to advocate for Palestinian, Iraqi and Lebanese children’s rights. Barbara Lubin, MECA’s executive director, told The Electronic Intifada that it was “upsetting and infuriating” that the show was canceled, but she wasn’t surprised.

“Anybody who knows this issue knows that the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs have launched a multi-million dollar project to combat what they call the ‘delegitmization’ of Israel,” Lubin said. “They try and suffocate the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and censor Palestinian cultural initiatives. What they’re doing is financing the work of silencing and shutting down anyone who wants to talk about what’s really happening to Palestinians.”

The Chronicle also reported that the board of directors at MOCHA vaguely cited the “inappropriate nature” of the content of the children’s drawings in their decision to shut down the exhibit. Some of the Palestinian children’s illustrations show tanks, guns and explosions, but the board’s assertion that these images are “inappropriate” enough to censor is clearly selective.

In years past, MOCHA had successfully exhibited strikingly similar artwork by children in Iraq who drew from their personal experiences of war following the 2003 US-led invasion and subsequent occupation. Another exhibition several years ago showed artwork by children made during the Second World War that “featured images of Hitler, burning airplanes, sinking battleships, empty houses and a sad girl next to a Star of David,” the Chronicle added.

Lubin said that the difference in this context is simple: “The pro-Israel groups are afraid that people will start understanding what’s really going on with Israeli policy through seeing exhibits like the one we put together. They don’t want people to know that Palestinian children are suffering. They’re afraid of us hearing that other side. For 63 years we’ve heard one side in this country and around the world, and it’s time for the other side to be heard.”

Stretching Israel’s siege from Gaza to Oakland

The censored drawings were created through local children’s mental health initiatives in Gaza immediately following Israel’s attacks in the winter of 2008-09, during which approximately 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 300 children, were killed.

Ziad Abbas, associate director of MECA, told The Electronic Intifada that several art-based organizations in the Gaza Strip began working with traumatized children in an effort to help them channel their fears, anger and trauma through artistic expression. Those drawings resulted in the collection of artwork that was to be showcased at the children’s museum.

“The art projects were born out of a necessity to try to reduce the impact and effects of the attacks which killed hundreds of children in Gaza. These drawings came from that kind of therapy to express their feelings,” he said.

Abbas added that the child artists were thrilled that their work had “broken Israel’s siege on Gaza” when the drawings made their way to a museum halfway across the world.

“It was important for these children to know that their voices were going to be heard in Oakland. However, they didn’t expect the siege to stretch all the way from Gaza to California, which is essentially what happened when MOCHA canceled the exhibit due to pressure from these groups,” Abbas said.

Major donors: “Funding was not jeopardized”

Upon investigation, it emerged that those “constituents” who got the ear of MOCHA’s board chair included pro-Israel public relations institutions with extraordinarily large budgets and organized community outreach programs. In the Bay Area, these organizations include the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), a subsidiary branch of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA); and the local chapter of the Jewish Community Federation (JCF), which operates under the umbrella of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA).

The JCRC and the JCF both receive substantial funding from the Walter & Elise Haas Fund, which has also funded MOCHA.

The fund, based in San Francisco, is a major donor to arts, science, social justice and Jewish organizations around the Bay Area across the political and cultural spectrum. MOCHA received $30,000 in grants from the Haas fund in 2011 (Recent grantmaking: The Arts,” Walter & Elise Haas Fund website, accessed 9 September 2011).

However, a program coordinator with the Walter & Elise Haas Fund told The Electronic Intifada that their staff had talked to the museum about possible public concern with the exhibit, but that the art show “was their decision and their funding was not in any way jeopardized with their doing it.” Pam David, the executive director of the Haas Fund, declined to comment for this article.

John Patchner, communications director for the East Bay Community Foundation — which has awarded tens of thousands of dollars in grants to MOCHA over the years — told The Electronic Intifada that they had “not been contacted by anyone in connection with the cancellation of the exhibit and we’re currently seeking additional information from the Museum of Children’s Art.”

But there are many other foundations that support MOCHA. And in August at least one pro-Israel online campaign encouraged the general public to directly contact MOCHA funders, and published a list of various foundations, in a bid to cancel the children’s art exhibition.

“No fight is too small” for pro-Israel groups

Whether or not MOCHA’s funders were directly intimidated by pro-Israel groups in the Bay Area, it’s certain that top leadership from groups such as the JCRC had a hand in shutting the exhibit down. The JCRC has repeatedly thwarted art and cultural initiatives in the Bay Area which highlight the Palestinian struggle, and has used the guise of “fighting anti-Semitism” to censor alternative voices.
At San Francisco State University in 2006, a proposed mural in honor of the late Palestinian-American intellectual Edward Said was attacked by the JCRC, which helped convince the university administration that the mural sent a “chilling” and threatening message to Jewish students and therefore should be blocked (“SFSU president keeping Jews safe with mural censure,” Jewish Weekly, 6 October 2006).
In 2007, the JCRC also worked hand-in-hand with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), one of the largest and most influential Israel lobby organizations in the US, to force the San Francisco Arts Commission to exert pressure on a local grantee of theirs, an organization for at-risk youth in San Francisco. A mural, planned and painted by Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth (HOMEY), depicted symbols of Palestinian struggle and resistance, including a Palestinian woman with a kuffiyeh (the traditional checkered headscarf) and a crack in the wall that resembled historic Palestine.

The JCRC and the ADL put pressure on the Arts Commission to make the artists omit or modify some of the images after claiming that the symbols were anti-Semitic and “out of touch with the overwhelming majority of Jews,” as reported in the San Francisco Examiner (“Controversial mural to be altered in S.F.,” 20 September 2007).

The two organizations also worked together to stifle free speech on college campuses in the Bay Area, censoring academic lectures by attempting to conflate criticism of Israeli policy with anti-Semitism. Other pro-Israel groups, backed by the ADL, have pressured faculty boards to deny tenure to university professors who openly criticize Israeli policies.

Following MOCHA’s cancellation of the exhibit, Rabbi Doug Kahn, executive director of the JCRC, admitted to the online blog Muzzlewatch (a project of Jewish Voice for Peace) that he was “working closely with the Jewish Federation of the East Bay [which is part of the JFNA]” and “shared with the leadership of MOCHA our concerns about the inappropriateness of this exhibit given the fact that MOCHA — an important and valued community institution — serves very young children” (“Oakland children’s museum cancels Palestinian children’s art exhibit under pressure from local Jewish groups,” 10 September 2011).

Rabbi Kahn refused to respond directly to The Electronic Intifada’s questions via phone, but emailed a statement from the JCRC on 12 September. Entitled “Jewish Community Applauds Children’s Art Museum’s Decision on Exhibit,” it alleges that the art show “contains violent images that dehumanize an entire ethnic and religious population.”

The JCRC adds that MOCHA’s leadership “recognized the negative effect that this inflammatory exhibit would have on young children, Jewish and non-Jewish alike,” adding that the drawings could “potentially create an unsafe atmosphere for Jewish children.”
However, nowhere in the children’s drawings are there anti-Semitic images or phrases. The only Stars of David that are drawn are the ones that Israel itself has put on its flags, F16 bomber jets, tanks and soldiers’ uniforms — ubiquitous Israeli national symbols that any Palestinian child living under Israeli military occupation would see on a daily basis, especially during times of wanton attacks.

The cancelation of the children’s exhibition was celebrated as a victory by pro-Israel groups. On 7 September, the day before MECA was informed by the museum’s board of directors that the exhibit had been canceled, the Jewish Federation of the East Bay (JFEB) had already received information that the show was shut down — and boasted about the cancellation of the exhibit on its official twitter account.
JFEB (@JFEDeastbay) tweeted: “Great news! The ‘Child’s view from Gaza’ exhibit at MOCHA has been canceled thanks to some great East Bay Jewish community organizing.”

Pro-Israel groups to “pressure civic leaders” in new $6M initiative
The timing of Kahn’s determination to pressure the MOCHA board is significant. Just eleven months ago, the JFNA pledged to invest $6 million in a new, three-year initiative they call the “Israel Action Network.”

Working alongside the JCPA — of which the JCRC, Kahn’s organization, is a subsidiary — the Israel Action Network “is expected to serve as a rapid-response team charged with countering the growing campaign to isolate Israel as a rogue state akin to apartheid-era South Africa — a campaign that the Israeli government and Jewish groups see as an existential threat to the Jewish state … The network will monitor the delegitimization movement worldwide and create a strategic plan to counter it wherever it crops up” (“Federations, JCPA teaming to fight delegitimization of Israel,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 25 October 2010).

The JFNA stated that this new campaign would seek to influence “civic leaders,” and said that it would be fully staffed and “up and running” by 1 January 2011.

According to their recent tax forms, the JFNA’s investment of $6 million in this new campaign should not be a financial burden — they listed more than $197 million in total assets between June 2009 and June 2010 (Return of organization exempt from income tax, 2009, 2009-2010 [PDF]).

The fact that these enormous, well-funded Israeli advocacy organizations have turned their attention to a singular, modest children’s art exhibition in Oakland highlights the Israeli lobbies’ tireless efforts to silence Palestinian expression. Deborah Agre of MECA agreed, saying that “no fight is too small” for these groups.
MECA’s Barbara Lubin added that the attack on this children’s art show is just one in a long line of such campaigns.

“But this is particularly saddening to me because these are voices of children,” Lubin said. “And as I said to the head of the board of directors at the museum, MECA loses, MOCHA loses, but more importantly, the children from Gaza lose the most. They’ve always been the ones to lose the most. Not only do they have to live through these bombings and the siege, but then when they try to express their experiences through art, they’re shut down.”

“There’s only one winner in all of this,” Lubin added, “And that is the Zionist lobby who intimidate, harass and do everything they can to make it impossible for people to have these kinds of exhibits.”

The child artists in Gaza are upset that their work has been censored, according to MECA staff.

MOCHA’s board of directors: supporting all children, or just some?
According to its tax documents, accessed from public records, it is clear that MOCHA is a grassroots organization highly dependent on funding from outside grants and foundations. MOCHA listed just over $700,000 in contributions and grants in 2009 — whereas salaries and employee benefits accounted for approximately double that amount. Their fee-based children’s art programs bring in additional revenue of just under $1 million for that year.

If pro-Israel lobbyists indeed placed threatening calls to foundations that support MOCHA, it is understandable that they could feel frightened by the potential loss of money for the next fiscal year and would therefore bend to pressure by these outside groups. But MOCHA may have violated its own mission statement in doing so. On its tax forms, MOCHA states its mission is “to ensure that the arts are a fundamental part of the lives of all children.

Ziad Abbas said that it’s wrong for the board of directors to put conditions on that support. “Do they really support all children, or just certain ones? Certainly, in this situation, the Palestinian children who made this artwork are not being supported at all,” he remarked.

The Electronic Intifada asked whether the children in Gaza had been informed that their exhibition was shut down, and what their reaction was to the news. Abbas explained that he had just received a call from one of the young artists in Gaza who saw MECA’s press release on the Internet that explained that the show was canceled.

“He was extremely disappointed, and the other children were obviously shocked and sad as well,” Abbas replied. “It’s upsetting to them to hear that a children’s art museum across the world decided that their personal [narratives] are offensive, and then silenced their voices and artwork. When you hear about an art museum that has violated its own mission to censor children’s artwork and children’s artistic expression, it’s extremely disappointing.”

Community support is out in force

Following Thursday’s announcement by the MOCHA board of directors, MECA has been flooded with phone calls and emails from supporters not only just across the Bay Area but worldwide who are appalled at the shutting down of the children’s art show. And Lubin said that while outrage at the museum is understandable, the institution is not the enemy.

“MOCHA is very dear to our hearts,” Lubin emphasized. “We love this organization and respect the work they do. It’s an essential institution in the Bay Area. Our anger is not at the people who work at MOCHA; rather, our anger is at the board who do not have the courage to stand up to this kind of intimidation from the pro-Israel groups. We’re asking people to direct their anger at the board and at the Zionist organizations who do this kind of muzzling. But certainly not at the organization itself.”

MECA has started an email action campaign in an effort to counter-pressure the board of directors with support and gratitude for hosting the Palestinian children’s artwork. They are also asking people to come to the gallery on 24 September, on the planned opening day of the exhibition, in a show of support for the show even if it remains canceled.

Meanwhile, Lubin and the MECA staff are busy figuring out alternative venues for the exhibition. “We’re not sure where the show will be yet, but we’ll continue to work on seeing that these voices are heard and that these pictures are shown. People want to do something, and have been offering space in their homes, shops and even in schools,” Abbas said. “They won’t shut down these children’s voices.”

Nora Barrows-Friedman is an award-winning independent journalist, and is a staff writer and editor for The Electronic Intifada. She also writes for Inter Press Service, Al Jazeera, Truthout and other outlets, and regularly reports from Palestine.

The power of Rachel Corrie's words..

My Name is RachelCorrie

(Megan Dodds, London)

"I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now,
and I still have very few words to describe what I see ...
You just can't imagine it unless you see it. And even then
your experience is not at all the reality . . . [due to] of course,
the fact that I have the option of leaving"
Rachel Corrie, Gaza Strip 2003

"I have been back in Gaza two weeks now ... it's impossible to
describe what I'm seeing ... I dream of escaping [home] but you
just somehow have to survive so you can provide witness to others"
Jeni Allenby
Palestine Red Crescent Society, Gaza City 2000

PalCast recently reminded us that Rachel Corrie's words are again causing controversy:

"Voice of America reports on the controversy over the play “My Name Is Rachel Corrie” at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. This program was produced by the Voice of America for July 23, 2007"

Click here to play.

Which again reminds us here at the Palestine Costume Archive, of the power of Rachel Corrie's words.

The best place to read about the evolution - and ongoing controversy - of Rachel's words is at the website of the same name and at the Rachel Corrie Foundation, both of which document each attempt to stage My Name is Rachel Corrie. We are sure none of our readers need to be reminded of Rachel's fate, but in case you are not familiar with the play, My Name is Rachel Corrie was created by British actor/director Alan Rickman and journalist Katherine Viner (The Guardian) who composed a 90-minute monologue from Rachel's letters home, e-mails and journal entries while living in the Gaza Strip with a Palestinian family.

That a journalist and an actor / director ("the terrorist in Die Hard” we read with amusement in one review) came together to produce such a play is a wonderful story in itself. Alan Rickman has said, re devising the play:

"I first read Rachel's emails in The Guardian in March 2003. They were so vibrant that they kind of demanded to be read out loud. I took them to Ian Rickson [the Artistic Director of The Royal Theatre] which then lead to a meeting with Rachel's parents, Elyse Dodgson and Katherine Viner. Ian then took a big brave jump and said "alright, I'll do it". Almost a year later, we got the 187 page document which contained many of Rachel's journals, letters and poems which had been typed up very bravely by Rachel's sister Sarah Corrie ...

"My biggest challenge was that Rachel's words were not written to be staged. We had to create a kind of narrative and progression so that you could feel her mind alive and changing and growing..."

You can purchase the script of My Name is Rachel Corrie via Amazon.com if you'd like to read it, or even stage it.
The play had a very successful run in Britain, premiering at London's Royal Court Theatre, with an award-winning, sold-out run, before transferring to the West End. It was nominated for an Olivier Award, and won the best new play prize at the Theatregoers' Choice Awards in London. The Guardian observed: "theatre can't change the world. But what it can do, when it's as good as this, is to send us out enriched by other people's passionate concern".

Perhaps theatre CAN change the world - at least for Palestinians who rarely have a public voice. Rachel's parents, who wrote a wonderful post after seeing the play, immediately recognized that:

"Theater can reach people in a different and deeper place than reading a news article or listening to a speech: there is an emotional aspect that for some people can be more long-lasting and motivating.

"The play ... is not just about how Rachel died, even if that is why she is known and remembered. It also illuminates her humanity, tracing her evolution from typical teenage self-exploration through to her search for a political voice.

"Clearly, our daughter has become a positive symbol for people. Her story and her words seem to motivate others to do something..."

My Name is Rachel Corrie
(Megan Dodds, London)

Getting it staged in the US was of course more of a problem. Controversy dogged the production (see PalCast above) as Eleanor Clift noted in Newsweek:

"the play opened in Shepherdstown, W.Va., in July amidst much consternation over how it would be received. The Contemporary Theater Arts Festival housed at Shepherd University is the brainchild of producer-director Ed Herendeen, and he stood his ground in the face of the uproar. One board member resigned, but fears that the controversy would hurt ticket sales proved unfounded"

This is typical of pretty much every North American production. Interestingly, the experiences of organizers echo those of the Archive: if you can just wade through the controversy and get the damn play / exhibition / film / Palestinian whatever up on front of the public, then public response is usually excellent. But you have to really respect Alan Rickman and others involved with the production, for giving it a try.

Brian Clover, in his terrific review of the play wrote:

"Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner have subtly devised the play from Rachel's own writings and what we have here, as far as one can tell, is her truth. And what a writer she was! What a career she could have had ...

"This is what the theatre is for. Now we need a play about the man who drove the bulldozer: I suspect that's what Rachel would have wanted..."

Well, actually there is one. Because Rachel Corrie's words have inspired more than one play.

In Australia Henry di Suvero utilized Rachel's words as the backbone for his play The Ballad of Rachel Corrie, the second in his Palestinian trilogy, which opened at the Belvoir Theatre in Sydney in 2005. Several Archive staff attended.

We also attended the opening of de Suvero's first play, Crescent Moon, Yellow Star, which begins with the delightful concept of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon arriving in hell. 'An impressive writing debut by de Suvero ... who largely steers clear of the polemic that such subject matters can stir", observed Gary Smith in the Daily Telegraph, "it is undoubtedly a controversial and brave work that has already ruffled the attentions of some interested parties". It certainly did. Di Suvero writes of his trilogy:

"My first play really asks the question: why do the Palestinians have to keep on paying for the Holocaust? This play moves on and asks: what is the utility of non-violence? The third play, which is about refuseniks [not yet staged but shortlisted for the 2005 National Playwrights Competition] asks the question: where are the good Jews today?"

Di Suvero is well aware these are tricky issues, but he doesn't believe theatre should be an entirely comfortable experience:

"Some of what passes as political theatre these days is really museum theatre," he says. "[Sydney Theatre Company artistic director] Robyn Nevin used this term 'difficult plays', saying: 'We can't program for difficult plays.' So they'll do Brecht or Shaw and then struggle to find a contemporary reference."

Di Suvero acknowledges the realities of putting on "difficult plays":

"a sponsor would never touch a play like this ... I want to change people's minds. I want to see people change their perception of Palestinians," he says. "A lot of plays will depict victims and say: 'Look how horrible this is.' It isn't enough just to say it's awful, to think: 'It's in the past and in a far away place.' I want people to think, 'Well, what are we gonna do now?"'

Along with organizers of My Name Is Rachel Corrie, here at the Archive we certainly agree with him about the difficulty of getting sponsorship for Palestinian issue / cultural productions (we can't remember the last time the Archive had an exhibition sponsor!). After Rachel's death di Suvero found himself "horrified. Just absolutely horrified", then started writing:

"The focus of the play for me is: what is the utility for using non-violent protest against a ferocious Israeli machine? Her life and death symbolised that"

Di Suvero presents Rachel's words - to great effect - within a partially fictionalized story of two families, one Israeli (the fictional "Cohens") and one American (Rachel Corrie and her parents), who's fates become tragically intertwined when the Israeli girl is called up to reserve duty and given the task of driving a bulldozer. If Brian Clover is right - in saying "what Rachel would have wanted [is] a play about the man who drove the bulldozer" - it would be interesting to see her response to this play. The identity (and sex) of the bulldozer driver who killed Rachel remains a mystery to the public, but in The Ballad of Rachel Corrie Di Suvero presents a provocative hypothosis, juxtaposing the similarities and differences of the two families, and of the two young women at the centre of his story.

This story line also deflects the "one side only" criticism leveled at My Name is Rachel Corrie. Although of course the play came under heavy fire, mostly from people who'd not seen it. Zionists especially enjoyed producing "ballads" and rhymes mocking the title of Di Suvero's play as well as Rachel herself. Here's an example we preserved for posterity in the Archive's library, by "Dave S" ("There once was a moonbat named Corrie, whose bromides were tired and hoary. She got squished by a dozer for media exposure Now her flattened ass looks pretty sorry ... The bint, she started burning flags, She cursed and spit and screamed But thanks to the folks at Caterpillar Corp, she was folded, pressed and steamed"). We practice all religions here at the Archive, but when we read things like these "ballads" we especially like to believe in the concept of karma. Oh, and the Buddhist concept of many thousands of hells....

Rachel Corrie's parents gave their permission for The Ballad of Rachel Corrie to be staged. The Sydney production was not perfect, but it had a profound effect on audiences. Archive staff often took part in discussions after the play. While it has not been staged since 2005, the script is available on OzScript where it can be accessed by secondary and tertiary students as well as amateur theatre companies.

Di Suvero and the actors who played the Cohens recorded an interview with Rebecca Henschke on SBS Radio about the production. Click below if you'd like to hear more.



Di Suvero anticipated some flack from the play, but he probably got off lightly compared to some of the pastings My Name is Rachel Corrie has garnered in North America, especially when New York and Toronto performances were postponed and / or canceled in 2006, triggering alarms about artistic censorship and intolerance. When the New York Theater Workshop indefinitely delayed its U.S. debut - the theatre citing sensitivities in the Jewish community in an “edgy” period of escalating Israel-Palestine tensions - Nobel playwright Harold Pinter and others angrily accused the theater of bending to pressure from hard-line supporters of Israel. Alan Rickman called it "censorship born out of fear". In Toronto, CanStage faced pressure from some of it's board members:

"not to alienate Toronto's Jewish community. While admitting he has neither read nor seen the script, CanStage board member Jack Rose said, "My view was it would provoke a negative reaction in the Jewish community." Philanthropist Bluma Appel, after whom CanStage's flagship theater is named, concurred. "I told them I would react very badly to a play that was offensive to Jews," she said".

This kind of censorship led supporters of Rachel Corrie, including her mother Cindy, to ask "why are people afraid of Rachel's words ... and how can we work together to ensure they are heard". The resulting Rachel's Words initiative:

"is intended to be a broad spectrum of groups and individuals who believe that Rachel?s words and her message of human rights and justice should be heard. We hope that Rachel?s Words will open the door for other equally important and silenced voices

"We resist the pervasive climate of fear and challenge to free speech that is increasingly prevalent in our society. Rachel wrote about issues that concern us all. People must have the opportunity to hear her message and decide for themselves what they think."

When the play finally opened in New York it was to mixed, sometimes savage, reviews. One of our "favorites" is by Wall Street Journal's reviewer Terry Teachout, who wins the Archive's Most Tasteless Headline of 2006 Award with his title "Bulldozed by Naivete: terror advocate dies in accident. Atrocious drama ensues".

And it just keeps getting worse from there:

"Politics makes artists stupid. Take "My Name Is Rachel Corrie," the one-woman play cobbled together from the diaries, emails and miscellaneous scribblings of the 23-year-old left-wing activist who was run over by an Israeli Army bulldozer ... It's an ill-crafted piece of goopy give-peace-a-chance agitprop--yet it's being performed to cheers and tears before admiring crowds of theater-savvy New Yorkers who, like Mr. Rickman himself, ought to know better.

"So why don't they? Because Palestine is the new Cuba, a political cause whose invocation has the effect of instantaneously anesthetizing the upper brain functions of those who believe in it..."

We spent an interesting ten minutes listing the words Teachout uses to describe the production ("incoherence", "crude" "blatant") as well as Rachel ("unattractive in the extreme, albeit pathetically so. Whimsical, humorless and--above all--immature" ... "prattling away like a baby robot").

Hard to believe this is the same "Rachel" about whom The Guardian reviewer wrote "you feel you have not just had a night at the theatre: you have encountered an extraordinary woman", or the Daily Telegraph, a "powerful, thought-provoking and deeply moving piece of theatre"!
Since then the play has staged in Scotland, in Seattle, in Shepherdstown, West Virginia (see PalCast above) and even a one off performance in Silver Spring, Maryland. After Seattle, a new website Rachel Corrie Facts was created to provide information and context to balance to what many perceive as a "one-sided, anti-Israel diatribe." But while critics continue to argue the play shows only one side, as Bruce Bramsey pointed out in the Seattle Times:

"[so] did the 1960 movie “Exodus,” which I saw as a kid. It told the Israeli side only, and in Paul Newman, put an American face on that side. For years, it was the only side Americans could see. The Palestinian side never had an American face. Now it does. It is a female face, an unthreatening face. Rachel’s face"

And this is such a powerful truth.

Enough Archive staff are mothers to know what Rachel Corrie's mother means, when she speaks of sometimes wanting to reclaim her daughter. But for as long as she wishes to share her daughter's memory with Palestinians, we thank and honor her. For Rachel's words continue to resonate worldwide in a way that our own words cannot. Her name (now the name of countless Palestinian new born girls) is evoked by those who speak out honestly, from Susan Sontag (when she presented the Rothko Chapel Oscar Romero Award to Ishai Menuchin of Yesh Gvul) to Israeli conscientious objectors. Rachel's name and words - and the words, the songs, the plays, the articles she inspires others to produce - create controversy, focus attention, encourage the possibility of dialogue ... and hope.

May Rachel Corrie continue to inspire artists, writers, musicians, children, mothers ... may hope endure.


References and resources:

Misha Bernson "Controversy follows "Corrie" to Seattle stage" Seattle Times
Julian Borger "Rickman slams "censorship" of play about US Gaza activist" The Guardian 28 Feb 2006
Eleanor Clift "Grief crosses all boundaries" Newsweek
Sunanda Creagh "Rachel's fate stoked the embers" Sydney Morning Herald 26 Oct 2005
Henry di Suvero The Ballad of Rachel Corrie and Crescent Moon, Yellow StarHenry di Suvero - interview with Rebecca Henschke on SBS Radio
Rachel Corrie Foundation
Rachel's Words
Phan Nguyen "Mother Jones Smears Rachel Corrie" Counterpunch
Alan Rickman - My Name is Rachel Corrie
Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner My Name is Rachel Corrie
Gary Smith, The Daily Telegraph, Jan 24, 2005
Terry Teachout "Bulldozed by Naivete: terror advocate dies in accident. Atrocious drama ensues" WSJ

(Photos:
My Name is Rachel Corrie from Rachel Corrie Foundation
Rachel, from Rachel-Corrie.com)

Pageants, doves and "national" dress

Miss Israel 2007

Sharon Kenett in the national dress parade

 of the Miss Universe pageant in Mexico City

Picture: AFP  source

 A friend brought this photo to our attention, in a post on Azadeh's blog, who commented:

"I was watching the photographs taken at the Miss Universe national costume parade published in Herald Sun. I was surprised by the very peaceful costume of Israel. Although I have so many problems with what Israel does in Palestine, this picture is carved in my mind as another aspect of Israel"

Oh, indeed. Although we are probably coming from this, from a very different angle to Azadeh.

We must admit, we don't often get the chance to gain much enjoyment out of all things Israeli - our entire mandate here at the Archive is simply trying to prove to a world that has been told otherwise by Israelis, that Palestinian heritage exists - but one thing we do enjoy each year is watching Israeli pageant entrant organizers struggle to come up with another design for Miss World or Miss Universe' "national costume" section.

Poor Israel. They have so much else. But not a national costume.

Don't believe us?! Until Ayala Raz published on this subject in 1998 there wasn't much around, but Raz is well worth a read. Her article - on fashion in Eretz Israel - will send Palestinians cross eyed, as she promotes the accepted Israeli line ("at the end of the 19th century ... the land was largely deserted and neglected") but her discussion of what the Jewish population of Palestine and later Israel, wore, is fascinating and well researched. As part of this wider subject she then raises the question of "national costume: fact or fantasy?":

"Is there a need for a national costume in Eretz-Israel?" This question arose frequently in pre-state newspapers, both in the fashion pages and in letters to the editor. Citizens sent in their suggestions for an original costume, and these were published widely in the press. ...

"The first practical step towards consolidating a national costume was taken at the Levant Fair of 1936. During the fair there was a competition, with prizes, for an original design for a Hebrew costume, "that amalgamates eastern culture with western culture and symbolizes the renewal of the Jewish heritage in Eretz-Israel".

Which in a round about way, is how we at the Palestine Costume Archive, came to be involved. Because one of the "national costumes" Israel tried out during the 20th century was Palestinian. It seems the ultimate irony but Israeli cultural appropriation is like that - you deny the reality of a people but help yourself to various aspects of their heritage (language / cuisine / dance / music / costume) in your search for a cultural heritage of your own.

Julia Auster first put the idea into words in her 1926 article in the Israeli women's magazine Laisha:

"The time has come for the Hebrew woman in Eretz-Israel to devote some attention to the style of dress. We, women of the east and also women who have decided to make their home in the east, continue to this day to copy the west. We blindly follow the fashions that come from Europe, without reflecting that these styles are not right for us, not for the climate of this country nor for its unique atmosphere."

Raz noted that Auster "suggested that the national dress be a high-collared, long-sleeved tunic, decorated with embroidery around the collar. She adds that the same dress can be worn, without sleeves, for a house dress or a party dress". Well by the 1970s that's exactly what many Israelis were doing - either wearing original Palestinian long sleeved and embroidered dresses or examples of contemporary garments with cross stitch embroidery in familiar designs and placements. You can see an example below - probably a Maskit dress featuring pre1948 traditional Palestinian cross stitch, worn with a pre1948 embroidered and coined headdress -  from Ruth Dayan's book "Crafts of Israel", bless her!

We have some very interesting Maskit examples preserved in our collection here. We also have photographs of similar garments designed for El Al air hostesses. And even a photo of Miss Israel "wearing national dress" greeting an American mayor - and yep. Miss Israel is definitely wearing a pre 1948 Bethlehem outfit. As our director writes in her forthcoming book on post 1948 Palestinian heritage:

"for Israelis, wearing early 20th century costumes - which were clearly old textiles - as well as later outfits featuring embroidered panels cut from these rare garments - evoked a sense of place and past, and of continuity of culture. The question was, of course, who's culture".

"This practice slowed after Palestinians reclaimed embroidery as a symbol of national identity in the 1980s. Perhaps it became a little difficult to claim the embroidery as your own when it featured the flag of another country, which you yourself had banned".

By the 1990s even Raz had to conclude:

"it is a fact that to this day there is no national dress and it is doubtful if there ever will be. A national costume is not the fruits of one persons or many peoples deliberate invention. It is not enough for some fashion designer to come up with an idea. The national dress of a people evolves through many generations".

Exactly. And after all, Israel is a very new state. But alas, none of this is going to help Miss Israel in Miss Universe's "national dress" section....