(Image: Ethan Heitner)
The above image is part of a protest Jewish Voice for Peace is planning tomorrow in solidarity with the Palestinian Freedom Rides. The artist, Ethan Heitner, explains in a post on the Just Seeds Artists Cooperative website how the images fit into the protest:
Jewish Voice for Peace asked me to make large images for a solidarity action that will take place on Tuesday, November 15th in New York City and hopefully other cities supporting a new phase of popular struggle in Palestine.
On November 15 Palestinian activists are going to assert their right to basic human needs: freedom of movement, access to their holy sites in Jerusalem, equality. In the tradition of the Freedom Riders of the American South, 50 years ago, who faced violent segregationists with the power of their bodies and their presence, they are going to attempt to peacefully board and ride settler buses.
Jewish Voice for Peace wanted to create a toolkit for a creative demonstration that could be held in front of, for example, bus stops around the country. Rabbi Alissa Wise, who is helping organize the actions, explained to me they were thinking about cantastoria, a very old human storytelling tradition of singing a story while gesturing to large illustrations.
See the rest of the illustrations, listen to the cantastoria, and learn how to get involved on the Jewish Voice for Peace website here.
I, too, protest restricted roads:
http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-know-when-youre-not-wanted.html
Would those who use the term “Palestine” care to educate me on the territorial space that term encompasses — at least in their view? What do they mean when they write or say, “Palestine”?
Are they referring to all the land from the Mediterranean sea to the Jordan river?
Are they referring to the land that has come to be known as the, “West Bank”? If so, is it accurate to refer to that area as “Palestine” when it is evidently clear that Israel does not intend for there to be an independent and sovereign Palestinian state?
I would truly like to learn what that term and its present day usage means for a wide variety of people, especially the good people who participate in solidarity and advocacy movements.
Not to put him on the spot, but would Ethan Heitner, for example, care to explain this to me?
thanks adam, i will be going to our local action tomorrow. and i’m taking my camera.