Nine weeks into Khader Adnan’s hunger strike, solidarity activists spray paint a stencil of Adnan’s face on Israel’s apartheid wall. Adnan was violently taken from his home near Jenin on December 17, 2011, and has since been held under administrative detention without being charged and without being allowed to exercise his right to a trial. Today marks his 65th day without food.
This photograph merits its own post. Palestine’s graffiti culture is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Typically, pieces commemorate social or political heroes: the newly-wed neighbor, Palestine’s martyred children, an Italian activist who put his neck on the line for Palestinian human and civil rights, or, in this case, a baker whose only “crime” was growing a beard, being Palestinian, and refusing to break.
The stencil on the left says “Free Khader Adnan” in Arabic. The one on the right was adapted from the popular banner icon made by @shishibean displaying Khader Adnan’s mouth as a lock.
In due time, when Israel’s apartheid wall is knocked down, I hope whoever is in charge of taking down this particular slab of concrete looks deeply into Adnan’s eyes and recognizes that his persistence and strong will played a overwhelming role in collapsing Israel’s institutionalized discrimination against Palestinians.
The photograph was originally found in an article about Randa Adnan and her support for her husband.
Silence: The Turnover at PennBDS
Guest contribution by Bayan Founas
In preparation for the National BDS (Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions) Conference that took place last weekend at the University of Pennsylvania, there was much controversy regarding the ethics of BDS and its implications of being hosted on the University’s campus. With frank judgment, I anticipated an anti-BDS or pro-Israel type demonstration on campus. Driving there I imagined all sorts of scenarios and confrontations and how I would respond yet only to be dumbfounded by their silence when I arrived to Penn. This shocked me considering how fast media coverage grew as the PennBDS conference approached. I was at least expecting to see a small gathering marked by Israeli flags, but no such activity commenced.
On the second day of the conference we were later informed of anti-BDS advocates present at the conference. Their presence was evident but their attendance was marked by silence. Martin Himel, a Zionist filmmaker, registered as a media attendant later to be discovered posing as a journalist from Canada’s CBC. Himel uses this mask in an effort to gain an insider’s perspective of the conference, attempting to justify the criticisms PennBDS has received. Another presence was marked by StandWithUs, an anti-Palestine group, at Ali Abunimah’s keynote address. When Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, asked the audience if there were any StandWithUs attendees, the crowd was marked by silence. Himel’s alias and StandWithUs’s silence depict such proponents as cowardly and simply pathetic for creating such negative buzz surrounding the conference to only result in no action. Ironically enough, StandWithUs is notorious for working with Israeli officials to muffle those of the Palestinian cause yet self-silenced themselves here. [Read more...]