The Writing On The Other Side Of The Wall

In November, it was reported that a US-based group called Artists 4 Israel (A4I), modestly calling themselves ‘New York’s finest urban artists’, had attempted to enter Bethlehem to paint over some of the ‘anti-Israeli’ graffiti that appears on Israel’s illegal separation wall, a wall that cuts 10 km deep into the Bethlehem governorate. According to reports, a group of Palestinian men approached the A4I posse – who, incidentally state that art should speak for people, not politics – and asked them to take their so-called ‘artistic siege’ elsewhere.

Days before, the same A4I team had visited families in Sderot, just north of Gaza, to paint words and images of solidarity with the Israelis who live there under the threat of rockets from besieged Gaza. They also expressed solidarity with the Jewish Israeli residents living illegally in the Ariel colony in the heart of the Palestinian West Bank. Ariel had made headlines weeks before that, when a few dozen Israeli artists decided to boycott performances beyond the Green Line, and in particular at Ariel’s new cultural centre, as a political statement. A4I worked with locals in Sderot and Ariel to paint drab bomb shelters into ‘soaring works of beauty’, according to its executive director, Craig Dershowitz (apparently a ‘distant’ relative of Alan). Writing about Ariel on A4I’s blog, Dershowitz describes Ariel in one entry (‘An accidental settler’) as ‘that controversial community within Samaria (or what the papers mistakenly refer to as the West Bank)’.

A4I’s mission statement says that A4I ‘is a community of creative individuals working together in an ongoing, collaborative project expressing Israel’s right to exist in peace and security’.  Images on its website show young Israeli soldiers doing their duty in the occupied territories, often photographed with kids and the colonist, Jewish citizens whose ‘rights’ they are upholding in breach of international law and international humanitarian law, over the rights of the occupied Palestinian population – an occupation that has meant systematic colonisation for 42 years now. Skimming through A4I’s website and blogspot, it is immediately evident that Dershowitz and the organisation are part of a desperate pro-Israeli PR counteroffensive. The extraordinary number of contradictions and distortions of reality make it difficult to take Dershowitz seriously – and it seems that only self-deluded Israelis and ignorant, unthinking individuals would be duped by their offensive, pot-holed propaganda (www.artists4israel.org).

Having documented the Western graffiti and artwork painted, stencilled and glued onto Israel’s illegal wall over the past few years, it is telling that there is virtually no graffiti on the ‘other’ side of the wall (one can’t call it the ‘Israeli’ side as 85% of the wall is or will be built on unilaterally annexed Palestinian land, illegally appropriating 10% of the West Bank. It is the side visible to Israelis, were they to look at it). Graffiti is predominantly used by the dispossessed, the marginalised, as a means of expressing socio-economic-political commentary and undermining authority. Whereas in places like Bethlehem and occupied East Jerusalem and its suburbs there is barely any unused space available to graffiti (including graffiti by a few Israeli artists sympathetic to the Palestinian cause), on the other side there is very little graffiti – and where there is graffiti, little of that is political.

Just down the hill from the Mount of Olives, the Zeitun (‘olive’) check point and wall separate occupied East Jerusalem from Bethany (el Ezariya), Abu Dis and towns beyond them in the West Bank. In 2008 someone had painted in huge letters ‘NOTHING TO SEE HERE!’, a brilliant, pithy statement that captures the attitude of most Jewish Israelis and our international leaders who support Israel’s legal and moral impunity. Apart from this there were elaborately painted but uncontroversial tags by ‘Zion’ and four pleasing landscape paintings by someone named ‘Arnold’, who added his mobile phone to this makeshift gallery. I called and spoke to his wife, who told me that Arnold does commissions and painted beauty on the wall to promote peace. In one other place on this section of the wall, a huge area had been recently buffed by Israeli officials, presumably because the graffiti was political, perhaps even ‘anti-Israeli’. (One is reminded of Brian’s comical Romanes eunt domus graffiti ordeal in Mony Python’s ‘The Life of Brian’.) I assume the same can now be said of ‘NOTHING TO SEE HERE!’.

But its spirit lives on. If one drives along the Israeli toll motorway (Road 6), in places where it runs closely parallel to West Bank areas one doesn’t see the wall – rather, one sees a grassy slope decorated with trees and bushes. In other areas, like the stretch of motorway (Road 443) between Modi’in and East Jerusalem, the side of the wall that Israeli motorists have to see is not an oppressive grey but more pleasing and ‘natural’ sandy hues – camouflage for the conscience.

For Israelis who take offence to the wall being called an open-air prison by the likes of Banksy, they should not mistake Israel’s Ofer prison - also by Modi’in on Road 443 - as a section of Israel’s separation wall imprisoning yet another Palestinian community. The company that makes the concrete slabs and sentry towers seems to have built this notorious detention centre. Presumably the walls inside the prison have plenty of moving, heartfelt graffiti scribbled on them by Palestinian detainees.

In and around Bethlehem and Jerusalem, more and more brilliant graffiti and artwork has replaced the weathered iconic images by Banksy, Blu, Swoon, JR, Ron English and others. Same with the countless words by countless, nameless individuals demanding justice and expressing humour, humanity and solidarity with Palestinians. The sentiments remain the same, just done with different creative flourishes and with fresher paint.

However much money Dershowitz, A4I and the Israeli PR machine throw into positive spin for Israel, the writing is already on the wall.

William Parry is the author of “Against the Wall: The Art of Resistance in Palestine” (Pluto Press, ISBN: 9780745329178)

About this article

Published on 04 January, 2011
By William Parry