Middle East

Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar works with photography, video, and performance to interrogate the problematic situation in his native country, particularly the question of recognition of the State of Palestine and the militaristic discourse around this topic. The notion of state authority is a recurring concern: his project Live and Work in Palestine (2011-ongoing) saw the artist designing a seemingly official Palestinian passport stamp which was then offered to tourists arriving in Palestine. He had presented this project in 2012 during the Middle East Europe exhibition at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art and SPZ Gallery in Prague. In the summer of 2013, he showed at Ayyam Gallery London, where he built an imposing concrete wall extending across the width of the gallery, creating an allegory for the process endured by people crossing the apartheid wall in the West Bank in order to reach their homes in Palestine.

The Czech EU Presidency has evidently begun more abruptly than the Czechs ever wanted. At the very moment the country took up the “scepter” of the presidency, the conflict between Hamas and Israel in Gaza was in full blaze, and the Czech Republic immediately had to engage in one of the most closely-followed world conflicts ever. It later proved that Czech politicians were not able to adopt the EU diplomatic language as their own immediately. Unlike the majority of Western European politicians, who stressed the opinion that Israel’s reaction was disproportionate, the first statements by the Czech Prime Minister and the Czech Foreign Minister clearly labeled Hamas as to blame for the conflict.

After 23 days of fighting in the Gaza Strip, it is now possible to ask whether the moribund Middle East peace process can be successfully restarted and result in a solution to the decades of ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The peace process languished over many months prior to the intensifying of the conflict in Gaza. Israel continued to build settlements on the West Bank, one of the greatest obstacles to resolving the conflict. The Palestinian leadership was once again irreconcilably divided and the radical Hamas movement refused to respect the results of the negotiations led by the leading representative of the Palestinian Administration, Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah movement.

Abbas Djavadi is Associate Director of Broadcasting at RFE/RL, overseeing programs in Persian (Radio Farda), Dari and Pashto (Radio Free Afghanistan), Arabic (Radio Free Iraq), Tajik, Uzbek, Turkmen, Kyrgyz, and Kazakh.