The violent disruption of life in Palestine and the tearing of its social fabric in 1948 are continuing phenomena that impact on all aspects of the intellectual and artistic work of its people, both in their land and in the diaspora. Stories such as “Returning to Haifa” by Ghassan Kanafani and works of art such as “Broken Weddings” by Amer Shomali highlight a key dimension of the Nakba; namely, how Israel has advanced the legitimization of its colonial project through destruction, Elimination, expropriation and appropriation of the Palestinian cultural heritage.
Palestinian artist Amer Shomali presented his monumental work, “Broken Weddings,” at the 12th edition of Art Dubai in 2018. It consists of six panels with 9,639 colorful embroidery reels mounted on aluminum and wood bases. One of the panels is part of the Institute for Palestine Studies’ Keyword: Palestine II art exhibition, held in Washington DC and in an online format. Each panel represents a traditional Palestinian embroidery motif (tatreez) from a specific village, which was depopulated during the Nakba. The artwork was inspired by the sale of an unworn, embroidered wedding dress at an Israeli auction in 2017. That piece was auctioned by the son of a member of the Haganah who claimed to have found the dress in an “abandoned” Arab house in 1948.
Another example of art as a means for the expression of political conscience is the novel “Returning to Haifa” by Ghasaan Kanafani, published in 1969. The story, a fictional version of a historical account, features a Palestinian couple fleeing during the Nakba and, in the midst of chaos, leaving behind their five-month-old son. The couple returns to their old home after the 1967 war and find it inhabited by a young man dressed in an Israeli military uniform, who turns out to be their grown-up son, Khaldun. Kanafani highlights an episode in his novel where the Zionist forces confiscated Said’s books. Book thefts were a common practice during the Nakba, where Israel National Library workers accompanied soldiers as they entered Palestinian homes and collected as many books as they could.
Along with the destruction of lives, property, villages and urban centres during the Nakba, material traditions and culture have also been threatened by the dispersal and dispossession suffered by the Palestinian population. Cultural artefacts and expressions have often been removed or appropriated by the Israeli state in an effort to “recontextualize” and “institutionalize” Israeli museums, which amounts to cultural genocide. A quick review of the Israeli museum landscape sheds light on the implications and consequences of the Palestinian cultural genocide during the Nakba.
Battle for the representation
In 1938, the Palestinian Archaeological Museum opened its doors, built during the British Mandate. It contained excavations that demonstrated the presence of indigenous people in the territory for centuries. In 1967, when Israeli forces seized East Jerusalem, the Israeli Antiquities Authorities moved their offices to the museum, whose exhibition began to be administered by the Israel Museum. The Archaeological Museum of Palestine was renamed the Rockefeller Museum, in honor of John D. Rockefeller Jr., the American philanthropist who financed its construction.
Not only “Palestine” was erased from the name of the museum, but also the Palestinian people were erased from its history. A brochure published by the museum in 2006 visibly avoids the term “Palestinian” throughout its text, denying that the artifacts on display were representations of the different peoples and ways of life that inhabited the territory before Israeli colonization. In addition, the pamphlet refers to the well-known Palestinian family Al Khalili, from whom the Mandate government bought the land to build the museum, as “aristocrats of Hebron who settled in Jerusalem in the seventeenth century”. Deliberately fails to recognize the family as Arab and/or Palestinian.
An examination of other smaller museums in Israel, such as the Etzel Museum or the Haganah Museum, also highlights the political elimination of Palestinians from the Israeli national narrative. The Palestinian community represents more than 20% of the population of Israel, but is unable to place its own history within the Israeli museum landscape.
Rethinking the future
Despite the challenges posed by the occupation and the diasporian condition of a large part of the population, the Palestinian people have been able to reject the “recontextualization” of their culture through the practice of various forms of cultural resistance.
Poetry, for example, has survived cultural genocide, defying the numerous and repeated restrictions imposed by the occupation authorities on cultural and political expression. It occupies an important place in the Palestinian cultural resistance because of the long-standing importance of this literary form for Arabic-speaking peoples in general. Palestinian poems by Mahmoud Darwish, for example, are recited throughout the Arab world and elevating the Palestinian narrative beyond the realm of political debate.
The effort to rebuild, preserve and communicate Palestinian memory has transcended the geographical boundaries of historical Palestine. This collective drive to safeguard cultural memory is evident in prominent artistic and literary works, as well as through the recent consolidation of the professional sector of public museums in Palestine. Several cultural and artistic establishments have also opened in the Western Hemisphere in recent years, such as the Palestine Museum in Connecticut, USA and the People’s Museum of Palestine, in Washington DC.
Many diaspora-based associations have begun to mobilize internationally, helping to encourage debates around Palestinian identity. In 2019, the Club Unión Árabe Palestino, founded in 1954 in Peru, organized its second edition of “Taqalid” (“traditions”, in Arabic), a four-day cultural event in Lima that brought together more than three thousand people from the Palestinian community in the diaspora, from a dozen other Latin American countries. For a long weekend, a suburb of Lima was the epicenter of the Palestinian diaspora in the western hemisphere. Various cultural activities, including a fashion show tatreez, daily dabke performances, sports competitions, academic conferences, Dining experiences and a craft market allowed Palestinian families to celebrate their identity and reconnect with their roots.
The efforts of Palestinians and their allies continue to challenge the impact of the Nakba, securing the future of Palestinian cultural identity at home and abroad. Hope is found in memory.
Odette Yidi David
Researcher and professor at the Colombian University
