This article was downloaded by: [University of Arizona]On: 05 October 2014, At: 11:13Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Social Dynamics: A journal ofAfrican studiesPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsdy20

Photo Essays: A Way Through:Understanding Modern PalestinianNarrativesSama Alshaibi a b & Marvin Gladney ca Photography Department , University of Arizona , Tucson,USAb Columbia College, Chicago and the University of Colorado ,Boulderc Chicago State University, the School of the Art Institute ofChicago and the University of Denver ,Published online: 11 Aug 2008.

To cite this article: Sama Alshaibi & Marvin Gladney (2007) Photo Essays: A Way Through:Understanding Modern Palestinian Narratives, Social Dynamics: A journal of African studies,33:2, 204-223, DOI: 10.1080/02533950708628768

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SOCIA L DYN A M IC S 33 .2 ( 2 0 0 7) : 2 0 4 - 2 2 3

A Way Through: Understanding ModernPalestinian NarrativesSarna Aishaibi and Marvin Gladney

Without PapersEssayist and novelist Edouard Glissant defines the plantation, the fundamentallocation of the institution of slavery, as follows: 'An enclosed place: eachPlantat ion was defined by boundar ies whose crossi ng was strictly forbidden;impossible to leave without written permissi on' (Glissant, 1997: 64; ouremphas is). His definition points to the key dynami c of North Americanand Car ibbean slavery, a system essentially designed to prevent the freemovement of human beings. At th e same time, he points to a key appara tusof slavery: the written word. Escaping the borders erected by the plantation'smaster was often a matt er of having the proper documentation, or passableforgeries. Without prop er papers, escaped slaves' only options were to stayout of sight and find unmonitored routes, while the only communicationth ey could engage in would have to be cland estine. Consequently, writingpresented American slaves with an occasionally effective means of escapefrom the plantation in th at it could enable them to forge, and manage, officialpasses or manumissio n cer tificates . Writ ing, moreover, could be used to stirsentiment agains t th e institu tion of slavery.

Th e modes of oppression and resis tance th at cur ren tly beset th eOccupied Palestini an Territories resonate with tho se crafted under chatte lslavery. Like th e slave plant ation, the Occup ied Palestinian Territories are'enclose d placers]; defined by the so-ca lled 'Separation Barrier' that wallsthem in. Israeli borders and check points are similarly enforced by writte ndocuments th at regulate and prevent movement. Palestinians are forced tolive within fixed borders imposed upon them by Israel, borders against whichthey rebel in the pu rsuit of a livelihood and the maintenance of communaland familial ties.

Dubbed a secur ity fence by the Israeli government, 1 such a descriptionfails to accura tely descr ibe the reality of its actual featu res. It is not a single

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SA M A A LSHA I BI A N D M AR VIN G LA D NEY 20 5

'East Jerusalem-Divided' , Sama Alshaibi, 2007

The w all cuts through villages and neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, separat ingfamilies and cutt ing social and economic ties.

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206 A WAY THR O UGH----------------------------

wall dividing th e West Bank or Gaza from Israel. It isn't even a wall orborder that encircles th e West Bank, enclosing its residents and preventingterrorists from escaping into Israel. It does not, therefore, as claimed, prevent'terrorism: As Jeff Halper, director of the NGO Israeli Committee AgainstHouse Demolitions, points out, the barrier:

incorporates into Israel the major settlement blocs (plus a half-millionIsraeli sett lers) while carv ing the West Bank into a number of small,disconnected, impoverished 'cantons' - hardly the basis for a viable state.It removes from the Palestini ans their richest agricultura l land and allthe water [... and] also creates a 'greater ' Israeli jeru salem over the entirecentra l port ion of the West Bank, thereby cutting the economic, cultural,religious and histor ic heart out of any Palestini an state. It then sandwichesthe Palestini ans between the Barrier /bo rder and yet another 'security'bord er, the jordan Valley, giving Israel two eastern borders. Palest inianfreedom of movement of both people and goods is thus prevented intoboth Israel and jord an but also internally, between the variou s cantons[...J. Virtually no element of the Occupation - the establishment of some300 settlements , expro priation of most West Bank land , the demolition of12,000 Palestin ian homes, the uprooting of a million olive and fruit trees,the construc tion of a massive system of highways to link the settlementsinto Israel pro per or the tortuous rout e of the Barrier deep in Palestinianterritory - can be explained by security. (Halper, 2006)

When the wall is completed, less than 12 percent of historic Palestine willremain for Palestinians, making th is the largest annexation of Palestinianland since the 1967 war (Ano n., 2003).

Among the wall's implications is that Palestinian life is now chieflycharacterised by th e navigation of a dizzying array of checkpoints and wallsaccompanied by an array of strict rules enforcing their physical movement.Becau se the borders imposed upon them often restrict their movement tothe extent that th eir ability to enable their own survival is compromised,Palestinians who might otherwise comply with the borders and laws dict atedby the Israeli government are often forced to resist the limit s placed upon themin order to perform even the most mundane tasks. Global communicationtechnology is increasingly utilised to respond to the limitations that definethe politic al reality of the Occupied Territories, as both weblogs and cellularcommunication provide interfaces through which Palestini ans can bear

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SA MA A LSHA I BI AND M AR VIN G LA D N EY 2 07

'Demolished Home in front of the Wall- East Jerusalem', Sama Alshaibi, 2007

The Halawani home demoli shed, displacing four families. Its proximity to the wall prevented apermit for residence. The building permit laws for Palestinian families are especially punishing,even for th ose w ith Israeli cit izenship such as the Halawanis. Unscrupulous real estate agentstarget such families, in this case, destroying their life savings. They were given 20 minutes to leavetheir home before demoliti on began, even though the Halawanis were sti ll following the appealprocess in court.

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208 A WAY TH RO UG H

witness to their realities, and can communicate instantly with one another,and the world, in ways that transcend the walls that isolate them.

Thus, like the authors of African-American slave narratives, manyPalest inians have harnessed new communicative technologies to producenarratives that reveal the conditions they endure and catalyse readers toimaginatively engage with the fundamental assumptions at work in thecreation and maintenance of a colonial situation. As Kimberly Rae Connorhighlights in her discussion of slave narratives, the imaginative facultiesinvolved in reading such narratives are crucial to understanding the humandimensions of oppression:

Arti sts who participate in the slave narr ative tradition give readers animaginative road to travel toward seeing what they otherwise cannot seeand hearing what the y otherwise cannot hear, thereby providing uniqu eaccess to the circumstances and conditions from which emerge constructsof identi ty. (Connor, 1996: 38)

In response to Connor's ideas about the importance of provoking theimagination, the second part of this essay attempts to lend narrative shape tothe lived experience of Palestinians, which expresses itself not in the languageof violence and hate , but rather finds eloquent and baroque expression in theever yday aspirations and actions of ordinary people.

The Way ThroughOur latest journ ey to the West Bank couldn't have come at a moretumultuous time. ' The last few weeks of 2006 saw a spike in the escalatingconflict between Hamas and Fatah parties who couldn't reach an agreementon a unity government. The sanctions imposed by the European Union,the United States and Israel cut off millions of dollars in humanitarian aid.Government workers - including teachers, doctors, sanitation workers , civiladministrators - had been working without pay for nearly nine months.Gaza was in the midst of its sixth month of Israeli incursions and fooddistribution blockades. People were suffering deeply: impoverished, withoutwork and facing the winter months without the ability to pay for heat andother basic necessities. Israel and the US had dug in their heels: there wouldbe no lifting of sanctions until the Hama s government renounced terrorism,accepted previous Palestinian agreements and recognised the right of Israel

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SAM A ALSHAIBI AND MAR VIN G LA D N EY 2 0 9

'Contested Land Series(East Jerusalem)', Sama Alshaibi, 2007

View from Mount of Olives of EastJerusalem. The w all encircles the holy city, and the sett lercolonies around it.

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2 10 A WAY T H RO UGH

to exist (even though Israel has never recognised Palestine's right to exist).All concessions on Hamas's part (i.e., the acceptance of a two-state solution)failed to ease the mounting financial and humanitarian crisis in the OccupiedPalestinian Territories."

The desperation of the times could be felt everywhere. The normallyfestive mood of the upcoming Christmas holiday and Eid ul-Adha wasdampened by demonstrations and strikes, eventually leading to internalfighting throughout Gaza , Nablus and even Ramallah. On the eve of Eidul-Adha, one of the two most important religious holidays to Muslims, wefound ourselves travelling from the Dead Sea back to Ramallah in a nightmaretraffic jam caused by the road closures and flying checkpoints that regularlyaccompany religious holidays and Friday prayers; Israel's de facto policy ofcomplicating or preventing the spiritual practices of Palestinian Muslims isespecially punishing.

We travelled with Haneen Rishmawi, a soft-spoken, 26 year old man .' APalestinian ID holder, Haneen currently works for Russia Today TV (RTTV)as a news editor and cameraman. He is also a volunteer ambulance driverin the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, a position he took in the wake ofthe second intifada when there was a desperate need for medical personnel.Haneen is never without multiple cell phones, pagers and walk-talkies, and itis rare to speak with him without having to deal with multiple interruptions.Taking calls is-neither considered rude nor distracting in Occupied Palestine,even during prayers at local mosques. Haneen, like most Palestinians wehave met, doesn't bother to apologise or even inform you he is taking a call.Palestinians, we found, slip effortlessly from their conversation with presentcompany into one with muted voices coming from the phone and back again .Often times, two cell phones are present, one a [awwal (the Palestinianwireless network provider) and the other an Orange (the Israeli counterpartthat has superior coverage in the West Bank). The cell phones (or 'mobiles'as they are called in the West Bank, with some symbolic significance) carrythe burden of the uncooperative structure of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict;they reflect the location of their respective clients while hinting at theirpolitical posture. Palestinian Iawwals can make calls to the Israeli Orangemobiles but at punishing international rates and the 'card' plans don't havecoverage service in Israel; Iawwal 'service' plans do have coverage in Israel ,but charges include roaming and international call rates (the problem here

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SA M A AL sHAIBI AND M AR VIN GL ADNEY 211

'Bethlehem Razor Wire ', Sama Alshaibi , 2005

Part of the wall 's 'buff er zone', which are layers of razor w ire, militar y patrol roads,trenches, security cameras and sensors.

'Bethlehem Stress 2005', Sama Alshaibi, 2005

Here, the wall is eight metres high, twice the height of the Berlin Wall, w ithwatchtowers. The mural graffitti seen here was painted by Mexican muralists andactivists w ho had to be surrounded by hundreds of 'human shields' inorder to painttheir prote st of the wall .

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2 1 2 A WAY THR O U G H

is that it's difficult to figure out when you are roaming; the boundaries canswitch depending on which side of the street you are standing in someareas); Orange mobiles work in both Israel and the West Bank (but withpatchier coverage in the latter) and can make calls to Iawwals, but at a higherrate. Many Palestinians ID holders, despite being unable to travel to Israel,carry both so that they are able to communicate with friends and family inJerusalem and elsewhere in Israel with their Orange mobiles, while relying onthe better and cheaper Iawwals for daily use within the West Bank and Gaza .Palestinians with Israeli citizenship carry the superior Orange mobiles unlessthe y travel regularly to the West Bank, in which case they carry both. Israelisettlers living in the West Bank usually use Orange or Cellcom mobiles ; theybuild towers near the settlements to improve service near their homes. It isoften hard to know which phone to use. Electromagnetic wavelengths oftendon 't respect the multiple and shifting boundaries of the 'apartheid' state.

Although an outsider quickly adjusts to frequent cell phone interruptions,it is particularly difficult when spending time with Haneen. He is theunappointed 'hook-up' man of just about every person we met in the WestBank, a facilitator of mundane, everyday tasks in an impossibly barricadedlandscape. While interviewing him, we find ourselves challenged by theclosure of Qalandia checkpoint, trapped and surrounded by hundreds of cars,and unable to turn around. Haneen gets out of the car to assess the situation.The 'Separation Barrier: a 25-foot concrete wall at Qalandia checkpoint,traps the melting snow, forcing Haneen to wade through a foot of water.He gets back in and moves us inch-by-inch towards the Qalandia RefugeeCamp, driving the little VW Golf over massive potholes, ice and debris . Weenter the camp, essentially a maze of homes and flooding, muddy streets justwide enough for one car to move through. Children line the streets offeringhelp to the cars who have chosen the camp as a bypass route into the cityof Ramallah. Every few feet, the 'road' makes a blind turn and offers severalpossible paths. Without the children, Haneen informs us, we risk taking thewrong one and returning to where we began. So with each turn, Haneen rollsthe window down and asks a child, 'Is there a way through?'

The terrain is hilly, and we often find ourselves slowed and sometimesstopped by steep, muddy inclines. Young men often emerge from theirhomes to help stuck cars. Haneen tells us this is what travelling throughth e country is often like. Palestinians, unable to use the highways reserved

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SA M A A Ls HA I BI A N D M AR VIN GLAD NEY 2 13

'Graff it i Wall- Paint ing Wind ows, Home Facades', Sama Alshaibi, 2007

Mo unt of Olives, East Jerusalem: here the graff iti art ist attempts to humanise thewall by paint ing a facade of home and w indows to look through. The position ofthe plants adds to the illusion of an everyday view. Ironically, this picture is taken afew yards f rom a large milit ary checkpoint.

'Mount Olives-Checkpoint', Sama Alshaibi, 2007

There are 538 Israeli cont rolled checkpoints and military obstruct ions in the WestBank. This is one of the 34 fortifi ed checkpoints.

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21 4 A W AY TH RO U GH

for Israeli settlers, are often forced to travel over agricultural land , or onroad s that are dangerous and indirect. One such path lies between Ramallahand Bethlehem. A trip that should take no mor e than 30 minutes on thesettl er highways or through Jerusalem, takes no less than two hours on thebypass system that covers miles of treacherous unpaved mountain path s.As American citizens, we can travel the route from Bethlehem to Ramallahwith our Palestinian lD-holding friends , but we are not allowed to do so inreverse. The same is true for them when it comes to Jericho. The very samecheckpoints the y can access to enter Jericho (a 30 minute trip) cannot beused to exit it; they must instead travel through dangerous mountain terrainwhen returning to their hom es in Rarnall ah , in a trip that takes no less thantwo hours. Even worse is travelling to cities in the northern West Bank .Haneen describes what should be a 30 minute journey from Ramallah toNablus that cannot now be don e in less than five hours , if at all, as anyonewishing to travel to the north must pass through one single checkpoint,Hawara Checkpoint.

Haneen creates a verbal map of the journey from Ramallah to the north:

It depend s on which checkpoint I want to leave Ramallah from, thesouth or the north. In the north of Rarnallah, the checkpoint is calledAttara . And in the south the check point is called Qalandi a ... It's betweenRamallah and Jerusalem. Nablus is north of Ramallah. Sometimes the onein the north. Attara, even though it's nearer to Nablus, is very difficult topass. Th ere are so many cars there, a lot ; stopped by the Israeli soldiers ...we know which checkpoint to use by stopping the taxis in the street andasking them if there is bad traffic there. If it is bad at Atta ra Checkpoint,we go to Qalandi a checkpoint ... For sure it's much more far than the othercheckpoint, but sometimes it's the best way. Then we travel by bypass road.. . sometimes there is what we call a flying check point; they stop the carsthere for many hour s. If there is no flying checkpoint, we dr ive this way for40 minutes, then we go to another checkpoint, called Zaatara checkpoint,it's before the village Hawara, there we are stopped usually between 20minutes to 40 minutes while they check us. Then we enter Hawara andbetween Hawara the village and Nablus, there is another checkpoint calledHawara checkpoint. This is the main probl em, th is Hawara checkpoint.Hawara checkpoint cuts the north from the south. It splits the West Bank.Everyone must pass through Hawara if they want to move from the southto the north and the oth er way around. Every car must be checked at

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SA MA A LSHA I BI A N D M AR VIN GL ADNEY 2 15

'West Bank Walls #2', Sama Alshaibi, 200 7

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2 16 A W A Y T HROUG H

Hawara, and they check everything. You take everything out of the car ;the soldiers go through our cars for a long time . It makes the lines solong . There are hundreds of peopl e there waitin g. It makes the soldiers sonervous. They can't take it. Many times the y start shooting for no reason,only because [there are] so many people and they get nervous. Many,

man y people die in this checkpoint.t

We continued to question Haneen in search of a rational explanation for theuse of one single checkpoint to allow access to every village, city and refugeecamp in the northern region of the West Bank. As always, his response is,'There isn't a logical explanation'; or, 'It's not an issue of security. All of theseareas are in the West Bank'; or, 'I told you already, there is no reason for it.Most of the occupation is used to harass the people . To make us want to leaveour country: The most common answer from Haneen, and others we havemet, is 'In this country, you don 't have to ask this question: "W hy?'"

Driving from town to town in the West Bank you begin to understandhow ephemeral the concept of a 'route' is. Different drivers will map theirroutes along a complex system that begins with an assessment of the car'schance of passing the checkpoints. Different cars have different degreesof freedom depending on their permission papers, which are usually tiedto the security history of its owner. If there are several drivers to choosefrom, those with Israeli plates are selected first, followed by Palestinianplates with the most permissions of access. Next follows a close scrutinyof the passengers. Each person's birth city, current address, religion, nameand passport must be taken into consideration when attempting to map aroute. Residents of the northern West Bank, or refugee camps, experienceunique complications; Christian Palestinians are favoured over Muslims ;and so on. But when American passport holders are thrown into the mix,drivers suddenly become willing to risk routes normally considered unwise.All kinds of psychological games are played in the Occupied Territories, akind of game of chess or musical chairs , trying to pass checkpoints that areusually impossible to penetrate by young , male Muslims from the 'wrong'city. No configuration of passengers and ID documents can guarantee access,as evidenced by the number of births taking place at checkpoints: accordingto the Palestinian Health Ministry Report of September 2006, since thebeginning of the second Intifada in 2000, 'sixty-eight pregnant Palestinian

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SA MA A LS HA IBI A N D MA RV I N GL A DN EY 2 17

'Separation Wall-Ramallah Side' (f rom 'Divided Land Series'), Sama Alshaibi, 2007

'Between The Homes', Sama Alshaibi, 2007

The wa lls and checkpoints enclose urban West Bank City-centres; travel betweenthem is analogous to crossing an international border.

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2 18 A WAY THR O U GH

women [have given] birth at Israeli checkpoints, leading to 34 miscarriagesand the deaths of four women' ORIN report, 2006).

Once on a route chosen by weighing up all of the aforementioned factors,the driver must remain fluid while navigating the terrain. They must remainalert to upcoming traffic jams and makeshift, 'flying' checkpoints, and mustalso be attuned to the political atmosphere of the moment. They often haveto rely on their negotiation skills, and must be able to communicate with thesoldiers. If turned back, or thrown off course by a failed negotiation withcheckpoint soldiers, the driver must adjust once again and re-assess his/herpossibilities.

Blogging Across BarriersIn response to their containment, Palestinians have been prompted to maptheir environment in creative ways in order to facilitate movement throughthe barriers placed before them. Often this creative mapping involvesrapidly evolving the potentialities of global communicative technology.Palestinians are transforming their lived experience into narrative formssuch as weblogs, which instantly communicate to other Palestinians, andthose wishing to travel to Palestine, ways of navigating barriers, whilecountering dominant perceptions of reality by giving voice to the otherwiserepressed experience of the oppressed. The blogs thus also serve as a witness;as many Palestinians realise, the key to improving the conditions they facelargely hinges upon raising global understanding of their plight. The blogsare particularly well suited to serving this archival, witnessing function inthat they are not physical artefacts to the same degree as manuscripts. Theirphysical infrastructure does not have to reside within Israel or the OccupiedTerritories, making it difficult for Israeli authorities to confiscate or destroythem (prior to the advent of remote storage servers, the only options forstoring the artefacts of occupation and archiving the Palestinian experiencewere personal memoirs and journals buried in the earth to avoid detection byIsraeli authorities). Blogs are thus particularly useful in that they defy beingconfiscated, ransacked or bulldozed."

A particularly illustrative example of Palestinian blogging in search of 'away through' the wall is Emily Iacir 's Amoula it Majnoona, which chroniclesa vanished bus route that her father used to take to work. She sets thescene by remembering herself in Bethlehem at age 13, two decades before,

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SA MA A LSHA I BI A N D M A RVIN G LA D N EY 2 19

'West Bank Walls #1 ', Sama Alshaibi, 2007

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listening to her fath er's uncanny premonition of the eventual settlementsencroaching Bethlehem. Iacir's nar ration of her family's personal loss ofhomeland is echoed in the photo essay that depicts towering walls andcheckpoints chopping roads and encircling homes. She attempts to retracewith photographs the no longer existing route of Bus No. 23 from Bethlehemto Hebron, and concludes, 'He was right. They have completely encircledus, not only by the settlements, but by the wall, and the by-pas s roads .Bethlehem is a ghetto' (Iacir, 2006a). Images and captions accompany thenarrative, starting with the Har Homa settlement on Jebel Abu Ghneim,once a forest of 60,000 pine tr ees. The images depicted the historic road toHebron stopped on all sides, and the cr isscrossing wall through the ruggedhills around Bethlehem annexing agricultural land, dividing the Palestiniansfrom their olive trees. She then passes through the main tourist checkpoint(which Palestinians cannot use) and shows the massive, ironic 'peace' posterdraped over the wall, compliments of the Israeli Ministry of Tourism. Iacirattempts to make it back on the correct 'road' once inside Bethlehem, butis again disoriented by the maze of walls. Homes are shown surrounded bywalls on three sides, their windows looking out on cement blocks . Severalimages of Rachel's Tomb, now annexed to Israel by the Barrier, reveal thatsettler families are building 400 family apartments, ensuring a volatilefuture for Bethlehem that will not be unlike Hebron, in which settlers liveinside the Palestinian city centre, trapping its residents into continual andbrutal negotiations with the occupying forces on the way to the markets andmosques. She takes pictures outside of Beit Iala (Bethlehem's sister-city),reflecting a peaceful scene of olive grove trees. The wall will be here nextyear; this will be the last photograph she can take of this view. Her eventualar rival in Hebron is captured in an image of the old city market, now anabandoned 'ghost town: She writes:

Th e city of Hebron is surrounded with checkpoints, road blocks andmilit ary barriers cutting roads leadin g to oth er part s of the city. The mostviolent settlers in the West Bank live in the cent er of Hebron in homes theystole from Palestini ans. They routinely attack Palestinians in an effort toget them to leave. They are heavily guarded by 2000 memb ers of the IsraeliArmy. (Iacir, 2006b)

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SAMA ALSHAIBI AND MARVIN GLADNEY 221

'Sunset in Abu Dis', Sama Alshaibi, 2007

Like may villages and cities in the West Bank, views of the sunset are now onlyseen along the wall's horizon.

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2 2 2 PLAYIN G FIEL DS: THE RULE S OF THE GAM E

Iacir's blog of the routes cut across by checkpoints and walls offers means ofvisioning the occupation. Like hundreds of other blogs, it is also a refusal tohave the Palestinian plight ignored or confiscated. Rather than bemoaningthe situation, it offers clues as to how one would route the journey intoHebron, and even prov ides access to organisations resisting its occupation.In essence, it enables her readers both to imagine the Palestinian plight andto resist it. As a tool that maps and defies, the .blog echoes the Americanslave narrative, promising ways of understanding the dynamics of the Israelioccupation and pointing to the creative and productive routes by whichPalestinians continue to resist the barriers that fragment their realities.

Sama Alshaibi is Assistant Professor of Art in the Photography Department at theUniversity of Arizona, Tucson , USA. Born in Basra, Iraq, to an Iraqi father andPalestinian moth er, her work negotiates the shifts between per sonal, familial andofficial history, creating a context to und erstand the impact of war and exile throughher family sto ries. Her creative research extends into areas of collective traum a andhow the role of memory containers (such as art) and memo rials are used as vehiclesto resist the effacement and obliteration of that histor y. She is co-founder of the6+ women's art collective. A multi-media artist , Alshaibi's photography, video andinstallations are widely exhibited internationally, includ ing in South Africa, the WestBank, Israel, Ireland, China, Jordan, Guatemala, Mexico, Colomb ia and the UnitedStates of America. Her art and essays have recently appeared in Nueva Luz, Frontiers:A Journal of Womens Studies and Refug e & Rejection. Alshaibi studied at ColumbiaCollege, Chicago and the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she completed herMaster's of Fine Art s in Photography and Media Arts.

Marvi n Gladney is a native of Chicago, Illinois, USA. He has studied at Chicago StateUniversity, the School of the Art Institut e of Chicago and the University of Denver,where he completed his doctorate in Creative Writing. A performance arti st as wellas a writ er, Gladney's work has appeared in African-American Review, Warpland,Double Room and Tamaqu a and he has had his work exhibited at the Soap Factor y(Minneapolis), St. Lou is Arti sts ' Guild and the Denver Museum of Contemp orary Art.His research interests include African-America n literature of the past , present andfuture as well as the implications of modern not ions of intellectual prop er ty, a top ic onwhich he is currently writing poetry.

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SAM A A LS H A I BI AND M A RVIN GL ADNE Y 223

Notes

The Israeli government and Israeli Defence Forces have been consistent with theirofficial term of 'Secur ity Fence: In fact, the website , 'Israel's Security Fence' (put outby the Ministry of Defence), shows only images of the electronic fence, as opposedto the concrete barrier and the over 500 checkpoints within the West Bank (http://www.seamzone.mod.gov.il/Pages/ENG /purpose.htm) .

2 Sama Alshaibi has travelled to the region eight times over the past three years,working on various art project s, exhibitions, community workshops and conductingresearch for her own work , which explores art as a vehicle for non-violent resistanceand social change. The se trips have only become possible since Alshaibi became anAmerican citizen in 2002. On the last two trips she was accompanied by her husbandand co-author Marvin Gladney.

3 Th e diplomatic and economic isolation of Hamas has actually precipitated a broad­ening of support for Hamas within Gaza and , in June of 2007, Hamas seized controlof the government in Gaza.

4 Haneen Rishmawi has given the author permission to use his name in publication.

5 Interview with Hane en Rishmawi, Ramallah,West Bank, December, 2006.

6 See, inter alia , Alshaibi's own blog 'Ernails From Palestin e' (http ://halfpalestinian.blogspot.corn/): Palestinian Portal, which has links to many useful Palestin ian blogs(http:/ /palestineblogs.orgl); Laila Haddad, 'Raising Yousuf, Unplugged: Diary of aPalestinian Mother' (http:/ /a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/); Sahar, 'StandingWitness' ( http :/ /standingwitness.blogspot.coml); Matt Cassel, 'Just Image Blog'(http:/ /www.justimage.org /blog/index.php?archivelist= I) ; Electronic Intifada's'Diaries: Live From Palestine' (http: / /electronicintifada.net/v2/diaries.html) - nota blog purse, but many extremely useful witnessing, access and mapping informa­tion submitted by those with first hand experiences in the Occupied PalestinianTerritories.

References

Anon. 2003. Stop the Wall FAQs. 4 October. The Anti -Apartheid Wall Campaign http:/ /stopthewall.org /FAQs/33.shtml. Date accessed: 10 February 2007.

Connor, Kimberly Rae. 1996. To Disembark: The Slave Narr ative Tradition. AfricanAmerican Review 30: 35-57.

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Glissant, Edouard. 1997. Poetics of Relation . Tran s. Betsy Wing . Ann Arbor: Universityof Michigan Press .

Halper, Jeff. 2006. Countdown to Apartheid. The .Israeli Committee Against HouseDemolitions. 25 May. http:/ /icahd.org/eng /articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=266. Date accessed: 6 February 2007.

IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks). 2006. OPT: Pregnant Palestinians givebirthat checkpoints.6October.http:/ /www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=61867.Date accessed: 4 February 2007 and 10 August 2007.

Iacir, Emily. 2006a. For My Father - Amoula il Majnoona: Emily Iacir's blog from Ramallah .http://majnouna.blogspot.com/2006 /12 /for -my-father.html. Date accessed: 15 April2007.

-. 2006b. Bus No. 23 - Amoula il Majnoona: Emily [acir 's blog from Ramallah . http:/ /majnoun a.blogspot.com/2006 /12/bu s-no-23.html. Date accessed: 15 April 2007.

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