Since 1955, the Press Photo of the Year award has gone to the most telling of photographs, the ones that capture, contain, and organize the most reality and raw emotion in a rectangular field of pixels. Each photograph presents a narrative of the human condition and is oftentimes the strongest visual representation of an era of importance. They catalyze change by attracting the world’s visual attention.
Of the fifty-four photographs honored with the distinction, three feature Palestinians as the subjects. Three. The first shows Palestinian refugees fleeing from their homes again in 1976 during civil war in Lebanon. The second, from 1982, reveals the aftermath of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. The third, taken in 1993, shows Palestinian children raising toy guns as a sign of defiance at the close of the First Intifada. You’d think, then, that giving the world three opportunities to witness the realities lived by Palestinians would prevent the perpetuation of such injustices, no?
Here are the photographs with brief captions.
1976
Palestinians flee the La Quarantaine district of Beirut, Lebanon in January 1976. What makes this photograph especially moving is the context behind it, the fact that these refugees were remade into refugees. The father likely experienced the same rocking explosions almost three decades ago when he was a child, and now his children get to follow in his footsteps. (Photo by Françoise Demulder) [Read more...]
A brief deconstruction of “Sh*t People Say About Israel”
Pro-Israel students, under the guidance of The David Project, recently joined the “Sh*t [people] say” internet craze on YouTube with their own video, “Sh*t People Say About Israel”. Filmed at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the film clearly takes aim at supporters of the Palestinian cause and patronizes them as ignorant and misinformed. But the video fails on so many levels. Let’s see what kind of “Sh*t” these student hasbarists have to say.
1. Israel doesn’t even want peace.
If it did, it probably wouldn’t be incarcerating children or building concrete barriers through Palestinian villages or preventing Arabs from marrying Israelis or arming fanatical settlers colonizing the West Bank or demolishing homes or tearing through olive tree groves or shooting high velocity tear gas canisters at the faces of unarmed demonstrators.
2. I heard everyone there is in the army.
In Israel, military service is compulsory for all citizens above the age of 18. Recruits serve between two and three years and are given the opportunity to extend their service. Clearly, not everyone in Israel is in the military at any given moment, but the mandatory service means that most adult citizens have, at one point or another, served as an active military unit involved in the maintenance of a condemned and illegal occupation of Palestine.
Mind you, there does exist a refusenik subculture in Israel, but unless these individuals refuse to join the military for religious reasons, they are often stigmatized and prosecuted under Israeli law. Maya Wind, for example, spent forty days in a military prison for refusing to join the Israeli military on the basis that she could not agree with the military’s illegal activity towards the Palestinian people.
[Read more...]