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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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href="https://truthout.org/articles/santa-fe-denies-permit-for-mural-art-depicting-plight-of-palestinian-children/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=mashshare&utm_campaign=mashshare">https://truthout.org/articles/santa-fe-denies-permit-for-mural-art-depicting-plight-of-palestinian-children/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=mashshare&utm_campaign=mashshare</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Santa Fe Denies Permit for Mural Art
Depicting Plight of Palestinian Children</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Jeff Haas - January 27, 2020<br>
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<p>The stucco wall on Santa Fe’s Old Pecos Trail is now
papered with images of Israeli soldiers terrorizing
Palestinian women and children. This art was created by
Navajo artist Remy at the request of Santa Feans for
Justice in Palestine (SFJP), of which I am a member. For
the past six years, we have been creating art depicting
the conditions of Palestinians under the Israeli
occupation. Guthrie Miller, the owner of the wall where
the art has been located since 2014, has supported this
effort. His wall abuts one of the main thoroughfares
leading into Santa Fe, and is also on the cross street
leading to Museum Hill, where Native American Art and
history are displayed in several prestigious museums.</p>
<p>Our art began with wheat-pasting the names, photos and
biographies of 12 children killed in the Israeli
bombings of Gaza in 2014. More recently, the photos
contain images of unarmed Palestinians murdered by
Israeli snipers during Gaza’s March of Return and photos
of midnight raids by <span>Israel Defense Forces (</span>IDF)
soldiers blindfolding, jailing and terrorizing
Palestinian children. The images on our signs have been
routinely desecrated and vandalized, some after two
weeks and some after two months. Our most recent sign in
December displayed five 6-year-old Palestinian girls in
winter coats with the caption, “<a
href="https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/pro-palestinian-art-appears-on-old-pecos-trail-wall/article_b28226ba-30a5-11ea-a755-9375ab21b64f.html">These
Palestinian Children Are Just Like Yours</a>.” This
graphic, like those preceding it for the past three
years, was confined to one panel of the wall and most
recently to a 3’ x 5’ sign, authorized by the city. The
nonthreatening photo of the Palestinian girls was torn
apart within 72 hours.</p>
<p>In response, on January 5, Navajo artist Remy
wheat-pasted to six of the large 9’ by 6’ stucco wall
panels life-size images of IDF forces, arresting,
threatening, intimidating and pointing gun and tank
barrels at Palestinian children, some of whom had been
killed. There is a large caption in a middle panel
reading “End Military Aid to Israel.”</p>
<p><span>The images are jarring and meant to awaken the
public to what our tax dollars are doing and get
support for the Congressional bill to stop funding
Israel’s use of military courts</span>, judges and
soldiers to threaten, intimidate and, in some instances,
torture Palestinian children. Remy also pointed to how
the art reminds us that Israel’s actions mirror the
atrocities committed by the U.S. against its own
Indigenous population. He stated that the images of
armed Israeli soldiers and tanks confronting Palestinian
women and children show “the similarities when you look
at the Indigenous struggle of this continent and the
Indigenous struggle there.</p>
<p>The <em>Santa Fe New Mexican</em> and the <em>Albuquerque
Journal</em> have written stories reproducing the
images, and the comment section has mirrored the
conflicting reactions. The<em> New Mexican</em> reported
that the local Jewish community was “<a
href="https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/pro-palestinian-art-appears-on-old-pecos-trail-wall/article_b28226ba-30a5-11ea-a755-9375ab21b64f.html">sharply
divided</a>.” Not surprisingly, a local rabbi has
labeled the wall art as “anti-Semitic” — a term he and
many others inaccurately apply to exposures of Israel’s
shameful treatment of Palestinians. This is part of a
conscious effort to suppress the dialogue and provide
Israel with immunity from criticism of its deadly
policies. (<a
href="https://truthout.org/articles/the-dangers-of-conflating-anti-zionism-with-anti-semitism/">As
many Jewish critics have pointed out</a>, conflating
critique of Israel with anti-Semitism is a dangerous
game.) Meanwhile, the Santa Fe and Albuquerque chapters
of Jewish Voice for Peace and The Red Nation have
actively supported and defended the art as a reminder of
the injustices perpetrated against Palestinians and
other Indigenous people.</p>
<p>In the face of this controversy, we maintain that it is
important for us to display this art in public. Why?
Because the opinions of people in the U.S. matter, when
it comes to Israel’s actions. Without U.S. military,
financial and diplomatic backing, Israel could not carry
out rampant human rights abuses such as home
demolitions, imprisonment of the entire population of
Gaza, and putting its people “<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-starvation-diet-gaza/11810">on
a diet</a>” to advance its apartheid objectives. Our
images are intended to get the onlookers to oppose
U.S.-sponsored Israeli state terrorism, just as the
iconic photo of the Vietnamese girl running from a U.S.
napalm attack shocked many into opposing the Vietnam
War. </p>
<p>On January 8, a representative from the Santa Fe
historic district came to the home of Guthrie Miller,
the property owner of the wall and informed him that if
he came to City Hall and applied for a permit, he would
get administrative approval for the wall art. Guthrie
met Lisa Roach, Historic Preservation Division manager
and Eli Isaacson, acting Land Use Department director on
January 10 and again was told that approval would be
granted.</p>
<p>By midday on Monday, January 13, <em>Santa Fe New
Mexican</em> reporter Robert Nott was also informed by
the land department that the permit would be granted.
Nevertheless, on Monday afternoon, Santa Fe City
spokeswoman Lilia Chacon announced that homeowner
Guthrie Miller “will not be receiving administrative
approval to keep the mural up because the medium
(papier-mâché) is not allowed in the historic district.”</p>
<p>In fact, the municipal code is totally silent about the
medium for wall art, neither allowing nor prohibiting
any medium, and Guthrie’s wall complies with
requirements for stucco walls. <a
href="https://truthout.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/santafeletterart.jpg">The
letter to Guthrie on January 14</a> offered the same
pretext for the denial as Chacon’s and was in fact
signed by Roach, who had never raised the issue of the
medium previously, nor had she objected to it in her
meetings with Miller.</p>
<p>One must conclude that the real reason for the denial
is likely the content, not the medium, of the murals.
Despite the fact that many young people, including many
young Jews, are more sympathetic to the Palestinians
than the Israeli government, many older people and
institutions — and the evangelicals and authoritarians
within the U.S. government — give uncritical support to
Israel and seek to silence its critics by labeling them
anti-Semitic. The wall art images contradict the
narrative of Israel as the victim. They are not intended
to be pleasant, because the conditions Palestinians face
in Gaza and the other occupied territories within Israel
are abhorrent, deadly and dehumanizing. The purpose of
the art is to confront and sensitize people about what
they and their government are facilitating, and the
devastating effects of funding the Israeli military. It
is to make these impacts known, so onlookers will be
morally outraged and oppose U.S. support of the abuses
of the Israeli military. The message is not just about
what the IDF is doing, but about our complicity. To
reject that complicity, we must demand that our country
stop funding the Israeli military until it complies with
international and human rights law.</p>
<p>There are concrete ways to take political action on
this issue right now. One is to urge our representatives
to support Rep. Betty McCullom’s pending <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-starvation-diet-gaza/11810">H.R.
2407</a> (“No Way to Treat a child”), which would cut
off U.S. funding to the Israeli military’s treatment of
Palestinian children. Thus far, our New Mexico
representatives have ignored this plea despite the fact
that Israel is the only country to apply military law to
juveniles.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, back in Sante Fe, wall owner Guthrie Miller
has appealed the ruling, which could ban all mural art
in the historic district because no permissible medium
is set forth in the code. Guthrie and SFJP believe the
current denial of a permit is a violation of the First
Amendment, which does not allow for banning free
expression based on the content being disagreeable to
some. Opponents of the art will argue it has no
relevance in Santa Fe. Many see military funding of
Israel as only a foreign policy issue, but it becomes of
domestic importance when candidates court Zionist and
Evangelical support and money by competing for giving
the most military aid to Israel. The appeal to maintain
the art points out that <a
href="https://public.tableau.com/shared/PH2HZC8H6?:display_count=y&:origin=viz_share_link&:embed=y">Santa
Fe’s contribution to funding the Israel military from
2009 to 2018 was $14,593,839</a> — which could have
funded hundreds of people seeking affordable housing,
green jobs training, early reading programs or primary
health care.</p>
<p>The sign and art wars will continue — as does the
struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom and
equality.</p>
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San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
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