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ABSTRACT
This article considers how the representation of Palestinians in popular imaging has shifted from the nineteenth century to the current day. It will utilise a mixture of popular media, including photography, portraiture, film, political posters and television. This longitudinal study charts the relationship of Orientalism and biblification as imaging systems – and their respective connotations of familiarity and otherness – in delineating questions of indigeneity and transgression as they pertain to the Palestinian body. It will analyse how biblification and Orientalism have operated to effect transformations in the projection and reception of the Palestinian body, both in western and Palestinian authored imagery. This analysis is underscored with questions of class, urban-rural divides and modernity in Palestine. Analysing the continuities, contestation and transformation shaping the imaging of the Palestinian body, this article focuses on the figures of the fellah, the fedayee and the infiltrator. It argues the Palestinian body was transformed from an indigenous, biblified vestige to an orientalised outsider status, with continuing impacts on contemporary representations. It considers how the historical contestation of Palestinian bodies has continued to impact contemporary popular narratives.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For instance, Auguste Salzmann, Mendel John Diness, Francis Frith, Frank Mason Good, Francis Bedford and Frank Scholten.
2 For instance, Garabed Krikorian, Khalil Raad, Daoud Sabounji, Issa Sawabini, The American Colony, Karimeh Abbud, Zakaria Abu Fheleh and Gustave Dalman.
3 Interestingly, this image was used by Michael Rakowitz, an artist of Jewish Iraqi descent, in a similar gesture that upholds Arab over confessional identity in the exhibition Dar Al Sulh (Domain of Conciliation) 1–7 May Citation2013, Traffic, Dubai, in collaboration with Regine Basha and Dr. Ella Habiba Shohat http://www.michaelrakowitz.com/dar-al-sulh-gallery/pcrdj4fd3xhhy325g7e0l3wcm0hfo9.
4 One of these images, Palestinian Fighter Training in Beirut (1976) can be found in the collection of the Tate Collection, along with others from the period. See https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mccullin-palestinian-fighter-training-in-beirut-ar01217.
5 53 per cent of Jewish-Americans over the age of 65 say that caring about Israel is an essential part of their Jewish identity, but this number drops significantly to only 38 per cent for those in the 30s and 40s. See “A Portrait of Jewish Americans: Findings from a Pew Research Center Survey of US Jews”.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Sary Zananiri
Sary Zananiri completed a PhD in Fine Arts at Monash University in 2014. He has co-edited two volumes with Karène Sanchez Summerer European Cultural Diplomacy and Arab Christians in Palestine: Between Contention and Connection (Palgrave McMillan, 2021) and Imaging and Imagining Palestine: Photography, Modernity and the Biblical Lens (Brill, 2021), both open access, as well as numerous articles, book chapters on cultural histories of the Middle East. He is currently working on a monograph about the Frank Scholten photo collection. Sary is a Postdoctoral Researcher on the NWO funded project CrossRoads: European Cultural Diplomacy and Arab Christians in Palestine 1920-1950 and the Netherlands Institute for the Near East at Leiden University Frank Scholten collection at Leiden University.