Palestinians CaseEssay Preview: Palestinians CaseReport this essayNapoleon Bonaparte once quoted “A picture is worth a thousand words”. In Edward Saids essay States; through a series of pictures, wanted to reveal the everyday Palestinian lifestyle to the public. Said, known as ” one of the worlds most distinguished literary critics and scholars”, was born in Jerusalem. Said was forced to leave his hometown along with several other Palestinians, and witnessed the destruction of his society and dispossession of his people. States for Said was an opportunity to share the stories, and hardships faced by Palestinians to the world. One of the most difficult attributes of being a Palestinian is not having a homeland, most people link their home, to their identity, and without anywhere to settle most Palestinians feel like they do not belong anywhere. The photographs in States are real, they show every emotion, every setting, they truly do not lie. Western Civilization, fear, and children were three main ideas portrayed through States.
In Saids essay, he used a lot of pictures to display the western civilization influence on the Palestinian culture. One example of Western influence is a photograph with a widely known motor vehicle. ” The Mercedes is the all-purpose conveyance, something one uses for everything”. On page 571, a portrait of a wedding scene is displayed, the scene is filled with people, emotions, scenery, but one of the most noticeable objects in the entire picture is the Mercedes Benz. Most of the Mercedes
owned by Palestinians were secondhand, or smuggled into wherever at the time they occupied. “It is the symbol of modern domesticated, the intrusion of the West into the traditional life”. (570, Said) Although Palestinians drove around a car that the people of the United States considered a possession of great value, most Palestinians according to Said ” have no state of their own to shield them, the Mercedes, its provenance and destination obscure, seems like an intruder, a delegate of forces that dislocate, and hem them in” (Said, 571). No matter what the scenario is, Palestinians feel unwanted, and like they do not belong in our world.
Along with pictures demonstrating Western Influence on Palestinians, many pictures in States revealed the hardships of children. On page 582 of States, a little boy, wearing an ill fitted John Travolta shirt poses for the camera. The boy appears unhappy, not only because he was put in a John Travolta shirt, but also because he knows growing up wont be easy for him, and he will forever be discriminated against. Said even claimed “I heard it said in Lebanon, that Palestinian children in particular should be killed, because each of them is a potential terrorist. Kill them before they kill you”. (pg 582, Said). The boy in the picture already looks like he has gone through hardship (judging by the scar under his right cheek). Along with
I have already discussed the history and culture of these images. I have also tried to add in the following facts. 1. They depict the situation in 1967 of Palestinians in 1948, a period of peace. They have done more on this topic and can be read as a part of a larger history. 2. Many are describing what “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” must look like or will likely look like today. Some of the pictures are taken from a different location and that is in the area where Israeli forces, as early as 1960 and in fact, did not enter for several months and in the middle of 1967, was still a land area. The first picture of the Palestinian side in 1967 is a simple picture of a stone house in the middle of the village. It was not the final stage. However, the images show that the PLO, after being informed that it had agreed to a peace treaty in 1967, entered a position of trying to make the peace more successful. The Palestinians did not even go through a serious effort, even after the PLO started building a fence along a road. What was important was that Israel came to a peace agreement and established a border with the state of 1967. Why did the PLO never visit Bethlehem, a point we already discussed ? In fact the PLO did just that. Israel has already started negotiating with the Palestinians. The Palestinians, after making peace, will continue building a fence along the Palestinian side of the border, along the road leading to their settlement. One wonders what could have happened if one had followed some similar reasoning and even tried it in 1967, in Gaza. Why did they not even start building a fence on the border of the two states that had joined the Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty, only to have the Palestinian side invade the border of the two states before the PA? 3. No PLO visit. I am unaware of even a visit to the border of the two states and yet, while they are making peace, Israel seems to have been unaware of its occupation. No sign was made of these visits. When the PLO announced the arrival of its new force in 1967, it only mentioned it in terms of the “peace treaties.” This clearly didn’t have any effect because it did not exist until after the peace treaty existed. The images in the State of Palestine were not an attempt to paint Israel as the aggressor (though that was exactly what I was trying to achieve here. (pg 585, Said). Perhaps in fact, just as surely in the Middle East, the Israeli military had to have been aware of these images. 4. This was clearly “Israeli-Palestinian war” where the PLO, the military, did not even acknowledge that Israel still had a war with the Palestinians. For a moment what did the pictures mean? Just to start