Santa's Ghetto, Bethlehem 2007 - kennardphillippskennardphillipps

Santa’s Ghetto, Bethlehem 2007

we’re still smoking the jordanian ‘rizlas’ johnny got us from the local shop – their the purest smoke, no glue! anyone know how to import them? We haven’t put up any pictures of our palestinian friends here for fear that they’d get hassled by the israeli authorities – but we think of you lot a lot!

some of our prints next to Sulheiman Mansour’s sculpture of cracked mud – we met Sulheiman, he’s a beautiful artist, done some radical work, he told us of a teahouse he opened for a day in the threatened and abandoned heart of Hebron where the palestinian citizens are terrorised by the young soldiers of Israel and the now present israeli settlers who have been ‘settled’ in the centre of the major palestinian city of Hebron. The palestinians shops and houses are still there but abandoned, under threat from israeli’s, and down there in the heart of the old city Sulheiman and a band of artists opened a teahouse to sit drink tea and discuss anything with regular citizens, israeli troops and israeli settlers. He described it as a successful attempt to start dialogue between whoever came along. Sulheiman is a driving force at the Arts Academy in Ramallah.

We walked down those streets in the heart of Hebron, the palestinian people had to erect cages to cover their streets to protect themselves from missiles being dropped by israelis who occupy the upper floors of the buildings.

checkpoint at exact centre of Hebron to stop palestinians from freely accessing their mosque on the other side

the mosque. This is where the israli occupation of Hebron began, about 10 years ago a group of israeli settlers entered this mosque and shot dead more than 40 palestinian worshippers. From that point on the state of Israel declared it an no go area, state of emergency and encircled it with 4000 israeli troops, after a year Israel lifted the no-go status but left the soldiers in place and began placing israeli settlers in surrounding houses, the state invited the settlers to use the mosque as their place of worship which they do. The Israeli settler population that inhabit the area around the mosque number only 150 people but they have a school. Many choose to sleep outside the city in neighbouring settlements but dutifully bus in every day under military escort in order to occupy the area. 4000 soldiers provide ‘security’ for this little group of families. The palestinian citizens who had houses and shops in the area have been harassed by the soldiers, which is severe, to a point where most dwellings belonging to them lie deserted. The Palestinian Authority runs an incentive programme that allows free electricity and water and low rent to any palestinian willing to live in these streets, only the very desperately poor take up the offer. Palestinians are allowed to use a small part of the mosque at certain times if they are willing to face the checkpoint that surrounds it.

the mad military aesthetic of the israeli settlement. we would see this one from Bethlehem on our walk home from the Ghetto each night. it’s been built in the last 10 years