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<div id="reader-header" class="header" style="display: block;"
dir="ltr"> <font size="+1"><b><span><span itemprop="startDate">Tuesday,
May 9</span></span></b><b> at </b><b><span>6:30 PM</span></b><b>
- </b><b><span>9 PM</span></b></font><font size="-2"> </font><b><font
size="+1">- 518 Valencia Street</font></b><font size="-2"><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.facebook.com/events/276228436161112/">https://www.facebook.com/events/276228436161112/</a><br>
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<font size="+2"><b><span class="_5gmx">Life and Prison in
Palestine: Mohammad Sabaaneh in the Bay<br>
______________________________________________<br>
</span></b></font><font size="-2"><br>
<a id="reader-domain" class="domain"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/mohammad-sabaanehs-dangerous-cartoons/20366">https://electronicintifada.net/content/mohammad-sabaanehs-dangerous-cartoons/20366</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Mohammad Sabaaneh's dangerous cartoons <br>
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<div id="reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr" style="text-align:
left;">May 4, 2017 - <span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/marguerite-dabaie"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label
skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Marguerite Dabaie</a></span></div>
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<p>Palestinian culture is in itself a dangerous act, a
reason to be caged.</p>
<p>So suggests a cartoon in a new anthology of work by
Mohammad Sabaaneh.</p>
<p>The panel shows a group of men and women in traditional
dress dancing the folkloric <em>dabke</em> while
shackled together. A checkpoint cuts through the line
dance, and Israel’s wall stops them short.</p>
<p>Here, the message seems to be, even celebrations are
fraught with obstacles brought on by the Israeli
occupation.</p>
<p><a
href="http://justworldbooks.com/books-by-title/white-and-black"><em>White
and Black: Political Cartoons from Palestine,</em></a>
published by Just World Books, offers a rare opportunity
for English-language readers to become familiar with
Sabaaneh’s stark black and white images, printed in
newspapers across the Arab world.</p>
<p>These political cartoons are foremost a form of
solidarity with ordinary Palestinians in their daily
struggle for survival and ongoing battle for justice.</p>
<p>Most of the cartoons are saturated with action and
iconography.</p>
<p>One features the Palestinian flag prominently in a
number of ways. A woman sews a flag with a sewing
machine, while a man removes the same flag from a
flagpole. Another man wears the flag as a tie, and three
men pull the flag into three separate strips below him.
People hold flags in the background, a kite bearing the
flag flies in the air, and a man cradles a child
(perhaps dead) draped in the flag.</p>
<h2>Pregnant with meaning</h2>
<p>The result is almost claustrophobic. It is certainly
dense: every tiny detail is pregnant with meaning.</p>
<p>Sabaaneh said such density is a reflection of
Palestinian life.</p>
<p>“This crowded cartoon reflects our lives in Palestine,
the limited land, and our limited city,” he told The
Electronic Intifada. “My blank paper looks like
[Palestinian] cities surrounded by limits and I should
put everything in this limited area.”</p>
<p>The cartoons in <em>White and Black</em> were created
under exceptional circumstances.</p>
<p>According to Sabaaneh, he conceived of the book in 2013
while in solitary confinement in an Israeli prison.</p>
<p>Sabaaneh had been charged with <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/jailed-israel-his-cartoons-mohammad-sabaaneh-speaks-out/12924">collaborating
with Hamas</a> after his brother, who Israel has
accused of being a member of the party, wrote and
published a book on Palestinian political prisoners that
included some of Sabaaneh’s art. He was imprisoned for
five months.</p>
<p>Sabaaneh <a
href="https://worldvoices.pen.org/session/water-as-weapon/">made
an appearance</a> at this year’s Pen America World
Voices Festival. The timing is noteworthy: this is the
first festival since PEN America <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/pen-america-drops-israel-sponsorship">dropped
Israeli government sponsorship</a> for the event. The
appearance is one of many Sabaaneh is making during a <a
href="http://justworldeducational.org/mohammad-sabaanehs-us-tour-calendar-2017/">US
tour</a> concluding in mid-May.</p>
<figure id="file-47196" class="media
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alt="" title="" moz-reader-center="true"></figure>
<p>“The seeds, the idea of this book came from inside an
Israeli prison and that’s why I must support [the] 1,500
Palestinian prisoners [on] hunger strike,” Sabaaneh told
The Electronic Intifada, referring to the open-ended
mass hunger strike launched in Israeli jails on <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/palestinians-launch-mass-hunger-strike">17
April</a>.</p>
<p>Sabaaneh insisted he is critical of all Palestinian
political parties, including Hamas, Israeli charges
notwithstanding. In 2013, after his release from prison,
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/jailed-israel-his-cartoons-mohammad-sabaaneh-speaks-out/12924">he
told</a> The Electronic Intifada that “Hamas hates me”
for a cartoon critical of Ismail Haniyeh, the former
Gaza leader of the Islamist movement.</p>
<p><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/palestinian-authority">Palestinian
Authority</a> leader <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/mahmoud-abbas">Mahmoud
Abbas</a> also ordered an investigation into Sabaaneh
after he was <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/cartoonist-once-jailed-israel-now-targeted-palestinian-authority">accused
of depicting the Prophet Muhammad</a> in one of his
drawings.</p>
<p>Sabaaneh, however, said that was just a pretext.</p>
<p>“The main reason was because I criticized some leaders
of the Palestinian Authority,” he told The Electronic
Intifada. “In my opinion, if you want to support Islam
and Muslims, you should talk about [Islamic] philosophy
and dig deep into Islam.”</p>
<h2>Prisoners’ daily reality</h2>
<p>Particular imagery is repeated throughout Sabaaneh’s
work. Israel’s massive concrete wall is a frequent icon,
as are caged birds, Dalí-esque melting clocks, and
photos of martyrs.</p>
<p>Palestinian sacrifice is also shown in a sympathetic
light. The liberation struggle, however, is not
glorified.</p>
<p>In many of the cartoons, Sabaaneh portrays prisoners as
mouthless. “That reflects the hunger strike,” he said.
“We don’t need to talk … we want action to liberate our
land.”</p>
<p>While Sabaaneh was in Israeli detention, he drew a <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/jailed-israel-his-cartoons-mohammad-sabaaneh-speaks-out/12924">series
of cartoons</a> about the experience; these are
showcased in a chapter of the book.</p>
<p>Sabaaneh portrays prisoners in their daily reality, as
opposed to romanticizing them.</p>
<p>These images are particularly visceral. In the
introduction to the book, Sabaaneh says he felt no
beauty while in prison, either through his jailers or
through those imprisoned with him.</p>
<p>The former, Sabaaneh notes in his book, could not be
drawn “aesthetically pleasing … even when I acknowledge
that in the process of exerting his political will, the
occupier is also occupied.” The drawings from this time
reflect this through depictions of lumpy, misshapen
bodies, dilapidated jail cells and terror-filled eyes.</p>
<figure id="file-47186" class="media
media-element-container media-figure file file-image
file-image-jpeg"><source media="(min-width: 72rem)"><img
class="media-element file-figure"
src="cid:part16.F05E62D7.30E350DF@freedomarchives.org"
alt="Mohammed Sabaaneh cartoon on Israel's wall
compartmentalizing Palestinian life" title=""
moz-reader-center="true"></figure>
<p>While centered on the Palestinian prisoner experience,
these drawings also speak to universal themes of
injustice.</p>
<p>One cartoon, ironically subtitled “Scales of
‘Justice,’” portrays the traditional set of scales
associated with the law. But here its column is sharply
bent at an angle and the scales on either side of the
beam are suspended in the air, implying a system in
which justice is impossible.</p>
<p>Another depicts an Israeli judge – signified as such as
he sits atop a lectern with the Scales of Justice
adorned with a Star of David – saddled and ridden by an
Israeli soldier, who chokes the judge with a set of
reins. The soldier controls the gavel in the judge’s
hand with a rope and waves it menacingly at a shackled
prisoner below. Military rule supersedes fair trial.</p>
<p>Sabaaneh’s work also taps into Palestinian despair with
the ongoing “peace process.”</p>
<p>An emotionally palpable drawing envisions Israel’s wall
truly as an open-air prison that separates Palestinians
into tiny, individual cells. People go about their lives
as best they can in each cell – a little girl holds
balloons, a man plays a violin, a woman breastfeeds her
child – and some even manage to reach over the walls and
hand a gift to their neighbors.</p>
<p>But these small acts of normalcy do not change their
fundamental lack of freedom.</p>
<p>Sabaaneh’s cartoons are a bold and searing look at the
lives of Palestinians and the collective burden they
bear and violence they suffer from Israel’s occupation.</p>
<p>They have also gotten the artist into a heap of trouble
– and that alone is reason to pay attention.</p>
<p><em>Listen to an extended interview with Mohammad
Sabaaneh on <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/stories-gazas-obliterated-families">The
Electronic Intifada podcast</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>All images by Mohammad Sabaaneh, courtesy of Just
World Books LLC.</em></p>
<p><em>Marguerite Dabaie is a Palestinian American
illustrator and cartoonist based in Brooklyn, New
York. Her work can be found at <a
href="http://www.mdabaie.com/">www.mdabaie.com</a>.</em></p>
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