Derleyenler : Aylin Kuryel – Begüm Özden Fırat 325 – 354
Çevirenler : Birkan Taş - Elçin Gen - Ayşe Boren

İsrail / Filistin ve Görünürlük Politikası* – Simon Faulkner
2015 İstanbul İletişim Yayınları

1980 West Bank Wall

“We are not allowed to paint in red, green, black and White, Palestinian flag is forbidden. And the colors of the Palestinian flag are forbidden”

In 1980, Israeli soldiers confiscated Mansour’s paintings from gallery in Ramallah.

“We had a meeting, like with the big (Israeli) officer there in the police station in Ramallah.  He was trying to convince us not to do any political art, like saying to us, ‘why do you do political art? Why don’t you paint flowers, nice flowers or nude figüre?’ It’s nice, I will even buy from you.’ 

At the end, he was serius an he said: look now I have several orders to tell you. You are not allowed to make an exhibition in the West Bank and Gaza unless you take a permission from the (Israeli Military Censor) I mean, you have to take the paintings to the military offices, and they will stamp each painting that this is good or bad. So artist Issam Badr asked the officer:  ‘Well if I paint a flower with these colors what will you do?’ So the officer said: ‘It would be confiscated’ and then he became little bit more serious.  And the officer raised his voice and said: ‘Even if you do a watermelon, it will be confiscated’  

So the idea of watermelon, it came actually from the soldier not from us !

Artist like Khaled Hourani took inspiration from Mansour’s story and began painting watermelons as a sign of resistance. And many others followed süit. In fact, young Palestinians in Gaza were once detained for holding up watermelon slices. Police still crack down on Palestinian flags in Israel and East Jerusalem. Mansour says his paintings are his way of expressing life under occupation. 

Mansour said: when you deny the existence of the people, it’s very easy to take their homes, to take their land, to throw them out, to put them in prison. So it’s much easier for the occupation to deny the existence of the Palestinian people. I’m doing my art for my people - the Palestinians- so this my audience. So I don’t care if the Israelis don’t like it.  I don’t care if the Americans don’t like it or the Europeans. Because my audence likes it. 

Sakinleri pencerelerinden Kubbet-üs-Sahra tapınağının manzarasını seyrediyor, gerçek hayatı yansıtan bir sahne. Sansour, " Filistinliler için kovuldukları gerçek evi gerçekten görebilmeleri oldukça duygusal… ama birçok Filistinli Filistin'in içinde sürgün ediliyor " diyor. "Kudüs'teki evlerini görebilirler ama dışarıda bir mülteci kampında yaşıyorlar ."