The wall paintings show the Haram esh-Sharif (or Temple Mount), which became a symbol for the Palestinian longing for their historical capital. Situated in Jerusalem, it is only a few kilometers away from Bethlehem, but out of reach for Palestinians without a permission from the Israeli authorities. The photo was taken close to Bethlehem, in the Palestinian Refugee Camp Ayda. The writings most probably compare the German airstrike on Guernica during the Spanish Civil War in 1937 (the writing says 1936) to what Palestinians call Nakba (catastrophe): Before and after the foundation of the Isreali state in May 1948, about 700,000 Palestinians were expulsed and had to flee, many Palestinian villages were depopulated or even destroyed. Followed by the evictions that took place during the Six Day War in 1967, 1948 marks the first time Palestinians were made refugees on a large scale. The question mark symbolises the continuing occupation by the Israeli army and its consequences for Palestinians. The writing on the train in front of the wall says Train of Freedom (قطار الحرية), maybe as a reference to the US-American Freedom train (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Train) or to the Hejaz Train, which once connected Damascus with Medina, passing by Acre, Haifa (today Israel) and Nablus (today Palestinian Territories) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hejaz_Railway). More information about this symbol - espacially in the Palestian context - a more than welcome!
- Uploaded by : josefine| © josefine
- License :Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
- Date :03/05/2017
- Link :http://hawass.org/image/549