Jerusalem the focus of first Palestinian Museum show

People stand next to an installation made up of soaps called “Palestine after Oslo” during a media tour ahead of the “Jerusalem Lives” exhibition at the Palestinian Museum on Saturday in the West Bank town of Birzeit, near Ramallah. (AFP)

BIRZEIT, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian Museum launched its inaugural exhibition Saturday with a highly political art show focusing on Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem.
“Jerusalem Lives” opened to the public on Sunday in the university town of Birzeit near Ramallah, the Palestinian political capital in the occupied West Bank.
The museum opened last May to great fanfare — but without any exhibits, sparking both bemusement and some criticism. Officials insisted at the time that they were merely inaugurating the building itself.
A press preview on Saturday of “Jerusalem Lives” displayed works ranging from the abstract to the overtly political.
In one room, a four-wall photographic panorama surrounds visitors with images of the ring of Israeli settlements around Jerusalem. In the garden, a green staircase climbs skyward from inside a mesh cage, seemingly referencing the confinement of the Palestinians by Israel’s occupation.
But the symbolism of the staircase, coming to a dead end in mid-air, is open to interpretation.
Curator Reem Fadda said the collection was meant to spark discussion of “cultural resistance” to the policies of Israel, which occupied east Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community.
The West Bank and Gaza Strip were occupied in the same year but not annexed, and their occupants need special — and hard-to-get — Israeli permits to visit Jerusalem.
Fadda said she had not been able to make the short journey over the past year, as she does not have such authorization. “The aim of this exhibition was really to provide a way for us to think in a creative way how can we resist this hegemony of Israeli occupation that is facing the city of Jerusalem through a cultural stance,” she told AFP in English.
Another goal of the show, she said, was to “present Jerusalem to the people of Palestine that can’t go to Jerusalem.”
The exhibition runs until December and admission is free. The organizers plan to bring groups of young Palestinians to the show, although those who are in Gaza or who are refugees in neighboring countries will mostly be unable to visit.
Fadda said she hoped parts of the collection could travel to countries where there is a significant Palestinian diaspora.
Jerusalem recently saw weeks of Palestinian protests over new Israeli security measures at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the most prominent symbol of Islam and Palestinian nationalism.
Israel installed new metal detectors after two policemen were killed by Israeli Arab attackers near the site, leading to daily protests until the devices were removed.
Mahmud Hawari, the museum’s director, told AFP that recent events had given the exhibition added relevance.
“The recent popular movement in Jerusalem has given us much more impetus and a context to the exhibition highlighting the hardships of Jerusalemites,” he said.
The idea for the museum dates back to 1997, four years after the Oslo peace accords established the Palestinian Authority and were meant to lead to an independent Palestinian state.
Exhibition organizers said they aimed to create a place of memory for Palestinians, who often accuse Israel of rewriting history to justify its policies — including the expansion of settlements.
The building cost about $28 million, financed 95 percent by Palestinians.
A national library
Palestinian officials are embarking on a project to transform a presidential palace into a national library near the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, the culture minister said Sunday.
President Mahmud Abbas and his cash-strapped administration had faced questions over the construction of the $17.5 million palace, which was initially intended as a presidential headquarters and location where foreign dignitaries could be received.
Abbas has now decided to transform the 4,700-square-metre complex into a Palestinian national library, Culture Minister Ehab Bessaiso told AFP.
The complex sits on some 27,000 sq. meters of land.
“The president believes the palace should be used for public benefit by turning it into a huge national library supervised by a board of trustees,” said Mohammed Shtayyeh, head of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction (PECDAR).
Construction on the palace in the village of Surda began some five years ago and is largely complete, but it was not clear how long it would take to create the library.
Its construction was paid for by the Palestinian Finance Ministry and PECDAR, an institution that handles donor funds.