Subscribe to Print Edition | Wed., October 29, 2008 Tishrei 30, 5769 | | Israel Time: 19:45 (EST+7)
Haaretz israel news English
web haaretz.com
  Back to Homepage
Haaretz Toolbar
Diplomacy
Defense Jewish World Opinion National
Print Edition
Car Rental
Books Haaretz Magazine Business Real Estate U.S. election 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  
 
Livni ahead in polls
Netanyahu loses lead he has held for two years, while Labor heads for election debacle.
The frozen chosen
In staunchly Republican Alaska, a Jewish Democrat may take state's lone seat in Congress.
  1.   A Fifth Column 04:33  |  Elly 18/04/08
  2.   Fabricating history.... Pffff! 08:05  |  Yid 18/04/08
  3.   A Distinct Israeli-Palestinian Identity 19:37  |  ARTH 29/10/08
 Read & React
Joe the Plumber: A vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel
Responses: 324
Syria demands UN action against U.S. over raid
Responses: 92
IDF soldiers protect Palestinian olive farmers from settlers
Responses: 61
Aluf Benn: Americans must worry first about America, not Israel
Responses: 45
L.A. Times defends decision not to release clip of Obama with Palestinian critic of Israel
Responses: 99


More Headlines
19:33 Lieberman says Mubarak can 'go to hell'; Peres issues official apology
18:33 Netanyahu rebuffs Shas bid to control Education Ministry
18:13 Barak to officials: Step up restraining orders against rightist activists in West Bank
16:03 IDF troops kill Palestinian farmer, 68, near Jenin
12:57 U.S. may close Damascus embassy in wake of Syria strike
17:18 Court approves right-wing march through the heart of one of Israel's largest Arab cities
10:51 Protest boat arrives in Gaza, despite Israel's vow to block it
18:07 Jewish group gets green light to build museum on ancient Muslim cemetery
14:22 Joe the Plumber: A vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel
10:52 4 Palestinians claim descent from Jews forced to convert
08:46 Arab peace initiative has Barak backing, but Livni still cautious
14:04 L.A. Times defends decision not to release clip of Obama with Palestinian critic of Israel
13:37 VIDEO / IDF soldiers protect Palestinian olive farmers from settlers
04:41 Hamas tunnel uncovered by PA near Hebron was arms training site
05:30 Gravesites of rabbinical sages mean big business for peddlers
05:42 Gov't firm for WW2 survivors allots funds to non-Holocaust groups
Previous Editions
Special Offers
Advertisement
Fattal Hotel Chain
Perfectly located hotels on best resorts of Israel.
Living in Israel Studying in English
Click & Meet our students from all around the world
Dial 013 for your long-distance calls
and get all your money back
US CITIZENS
Vote for real change. Request your ballot today!
Eldan Rent a Car
Israel's leading car rental company offers you a 20% discount on all online reservations
Jewish Singles Personal Ads
Find the love of your life on JDate.com
Israel's Premier Real Estate Website
www. israel-property.com
Hebrew Summer courses
From $39.95
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 | Travel to Israel with Haaretz | Hotels Israel | Restaurants Israel | Tourist attractions Israel | Shops Israel
birthright Israel | Search engine marketing
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