Subscribe to Print Edition | Sat., April 19, 2008 Nisan 14, 5768 | | Israel Time: 01:35 (EST+7) web haaretz.com   Back to Homepage Rosner's Domain Diplomacy Defense Jewish World Opinion National Print Edition Advertising Books Arts & Leisure Business Real Estate Easy Start Travel Week's End Anglo File

Last update - 22:18 17/04/2008 Through the Palestinian looking-glass By Esther Zandberg Tags: Umm al-Fahm, Palestinians  The color photograph shows Hadara Hassan Agbaria and her husband, Ahmad Khalil Agbaria, at their home in the Wadi Ara village of Musharrafieh. They are wearing traditional garb, their hands are interlocked and they are looking straight at the camera of Shai Aloni, a member of Kibbutz Geva. Aloni captured these members of "the stooped generation" standing upright and looking festive. Aloni persuaded Hadara Hassan to come out and be photographed, as opposed to hiding behind the scenes, as is the Palestinian woman's custom. He also persuaded the couple to wear traditional garb, "because in regular clothing they look like kibbutzniks, and I wanted to stress their special, authentic identity." The couple also agreed to Aloni's request to hold hands, a somewhat forced agreement to judge by how their fingers are placed. This is one of 50 captivating photographs of "community elders" in Wadi Ara's Arab villages. This project by Aloni will be part of the first major archive documenting Palestinian society in Israel. Advertisement The archive, which is still in its infancy, is currently local, but its initiators hope "it will be the nucleus for a nationwide project writing and formulating a collective Palestinian historical narrative," says historian Dr. Mustafa Kabha, a history and communications lecturer at the Open University, and the director of the planned Umm al-Fahm museum. Foundations The archive was initiated by Umm al-Fahm Art Gallery director Said Abu Shakra, and it lies at the heart of an ambitious plan to establish an Arab art and culture museum in the city. A blueprint for the museum is set to be chosen shortly. "We want to let people observe their past," he says. "And these are the foundations." Work on the archive began about a year ago. The person responsible for the archive, Mahmoud Abu Anas Agbaria, the son of Hadara and Ahmad, lives in Umm al-Fahm. Thousands of items have been collected, scanned and catalogued so far. They will soon be posted online. The first items in the archive will go on exhibition at the end of May, in the Umm al-Fahm Art Gallery. They will be accompanied by current photographs commissioned from Jewish and Arab photographers, including the pictures from Aloni's project and videotaped interviews with dozens of Wadi Ara residents who are more than 75 years old. "This is a journey to save memories," says Abu Shakra. "We have nothing other than the memories of people, and they are starting to die. That is why we went first to the oldest people, before it becomes too late." Up until a year ago, the Wadi Ara area Arab settlements, including Umm al-Fahm, had no photographic history, says exhibition curator Guy Raz. "That is to say, the photographic history had not been compiled into an archive or book, nor had it been shown in an exhibition. Said and Mustafa's enterprise is a very complex project. To curate an exhibition like this without an archive means creating from scratch the first visual historical memory of a 100,000-person region. This is an endless task, and I constantly am finding new materials," he says. It is not by chance that obtaining materials for the exhibition and the archive is so difficult. This is a political matter. "The Palestinian narrative suffers from a lack of documentation both because of the 1948 Nakba (disaster), which totally destroyed the Palestinian cultural and historical heritage, and because Arab urban centers sustained physical damage," says Kabha. "In this way, the urbanization processes necessary to create an informed modern society with a memory were halted. The chasm in which the Palestinian people have lived since 1948, their refugee status and marginality, make it especially difficult to maintain a unified narrative based on a collective memory." The trauma after 1948, Raz adds, and the Palestinian public's feelings of unease and fear, created "a lack of awareness regarding the importance and preservation of heritage." Kabha hopes the archive can fill in the missing visual sources of memory so that a collective Palestinian narrative can be formed. "As a historian, I do not have pretensions of building a complete narrative," he cautions. "If one is built, that's fine. But I am first and foremost interested in building a reservoir of raw materials. The two narratives, the Zionist and the Palestinian, are currently in different stages of development. The Zionist narrative is developed and institutionalized; naturally, a revisionist stream developed within it, the new historians. "On the other hand, the Palestinian narrative has not yet been cemented and we are contributing to its design. As an optimist, I believe that in another generation there will be new Palestinian historians who are more critical and less committed to the cause." 'Arab with a donkey' Ever since photography was invented, "the holy land" has been photographed non-stop by pilgrims and visitors, Christians and Jews, archaeological teams, occupiers and "liberators." It was photographed generally from a romantic-colonialist-Orientalist or a Zionist-nationalist viewpoint. "For them, the natives were part of the scenery and not of interest," Kabha says. "They were called 'Arab with a donkey' and so forth." And these things have already been researched. The Wadi Ara area was not documented as well as the holy places, Raz says. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, most of the photographers have been Jews, who documented events such as Wadi Ara villages being handed over to the Israeli military government in 1949 or the events of October 2000, he explains. The exhibition, one of the first stages in the archive's establishment, was therefore designed to start a visual database in an Arab-Palestinian-Israeli context that would serve as the museum's foundation. Pictures were collected from official archives in Israel, Britain and the United States; from the homes of residents - which required a lot of persuasion, Raz says; from private photographers, films and television; and from the current project by Jewish and Arab photographers. These pictures, which will be exhibited for the first time, include pictures from the archives of the Megiddo-Ramot Menashe region kibbutzim, some of which were set up on deserted Arab villages; photographs documenting the establishment of the Solel Boneh neighborhood in Umm al-Fahm in 1967, which has disappeared into the urban landscape almost without a trace; photographs of Route 65 being widened between 1959 and 1975; and current pictures of houses, businesses, military road blocks and the separation fence. A long list of Arab and Jewish photographers have contributed to the archives and the exhibition, including Azaria Alon, Miki Kratsman and Ahlal Basul. Videos of the village elders will also be screened at the exhibition, and their stories will be told in Arabic. As Mahmoud Abu-Anas said, many of the stories converge around the Nakba. Nevertheless, Abu Shakra says it is purely coincidental that the archive's establishment comes as the State of Israel is celebrating its 60th anniversary, and that the exhibition's opening ceremony falls close to Independence Day and Nakba day. "When we founded the archive," he says, "I knew that the moment we exhibited it, the issue of clashing narratives would arise. I felt a certain reluctance about delving into history. But in establishing this archive and exhibition, we are not marking a special event. This is a political event, but it is politics-free. I don't need the Nakba or 60 years of the state in order to justify establishing the archive. The archive is strong enough on its own. It is an existential necessity." Bookmark to del.icio.us   A gentleman's word Olmert tells Haaretz he knows Iran won't have nuclear capacity. Farewell to arms B'Tselem says IDF must ban wide-range shell that killed civilians in Gaza.   1.   A Fifth Column 04:33  |  Elly 18/04/08   2.   Fabricating history.... Pffff! 08:05  |  Yid 18/04/08

Read & React Editorial: Israel can't demolish all of Gaza Responses: 124 Yishai to Carter: Tell Meshal that I want to discuss prisoner swap Responses: 39 IDF troops do nothing as Hebron settlers threaten German MPs Responses: 148 Rice: Syria 'most certainly an issue in nuclear proliferation' Responses: 60 IDF kills top militant wanted in plot to poison Ramat Gan restaurant Responses: 35 More Headlines 23:35 Qassam hits power lines in Sderot causing blackout 20:20 Israel: PA can reopen 20 police stations in West Bank 01:03 Carter meets Hamas leader, Syrian President in Damascus 19:38 Boim: 'Natural growth' reason for 100 new settlement homes 21:06 Iranian official: Asian traders make up for German sanctions 22:56 IDF: Reuters reporter risked his life by going to Bi'lin 23:25 Muslim preacher sentenced in Britain for supporting terrorism 19:55 Hamas: Shalit won't 'see light' until Palestinian prisoners freed 20:05 The Israeli 'settler' serving in Italy's parliament 20:04 Mayor to raise funds for E. J'lem Arabs to block Hamas 20:22 IDF kills militant leader wanted in plot to poison Ramat Gan restaurant 18:48 IDF troops do nothing as Hebron settlers threaten German MPs 08:57 Israel closes off West Bank and Gaza for duration of Passover Previous Editions Select Day 18 apr 17 apr 16 apr 15 apr 14 apr 13 apr 11 apr 10 apr 09 apr 08 apr 07 apr 06 apr

Special Offers Advertisement Learn Hebrew online with Israel's best teachers Sign up for a trial lesson today Pardes Institute Summer Sessions Study Jewish texts and issues in Jerusalem, Co-ed, All Levels Free the Palestinians from: Corrupt Kleptocracy, Tyrannical Theocracy, Abysmal Anarchy Fattal Hotel Chain Perfectly located hotels on best resorts of Israel. ISRAEL BONDS Build Israel Israel bonds - a multi-purpose way to celebrate Israel's 60th Eldan Rent a Car Israel's leading car rental company offers you a 20% discount on all online reservations Junkyard Junk a car - get free towing nationwide and a tax-deductible receipt

Home | TV | Print Edition | Diplomacy | Opinion | Arts & Leisure | Sports | Jewish World | Underground | Site rules |

Real Estate in Israel

Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.

© Copyright  Haaretz. All rights reserved