(Rouwposter van Juliano Mer Kamis in Jenin, daags na de moord)

Prachtig stuk van Amira Hass, hier.

fragmenten:

Juliano was lucky. He was born Palestinian and Jewish, Jewish and Palestinian. This angry man was beset by conflicting yet complementary identities. He was the long shadow of an imagined binational community from the 1950s. Like a Peter Pan who refuses to grow up, Juliano embodied the potential of a shared life (ta’ayush in Arabic ) while striving for equality. The son of a Jewish mother and a Palestinian father, he was born to two cultures, and chose to live in both. He saw no need to explain.

Juliano was angry. His rage was the kind that only a Jew like him, who was born on the left and craved equality until the end, can allow himself to express as a way of life. Palestinians must conquer the anger, mellow it; they must tame it, repress it, sublimate it. That’s the only way to stay both alive and sane (without getting arrested, wounded or killed ) under the conditions of physical and non-physical violence dictated by Israel.

Let’s hope that the killer will be found, and then we’ll know if a Palestinian artist was killed because of his courage to live in a way that disrupts the order, or if a Jewish artist was killed because he gave himself permission to overtly criticize a society that is not his, according to some, or if a left-winger was killed because he was disrupting the norm. Or perhaps all three together. Even if he was killed for some other reason, Juliano was still an artist and a Palestinian, a left-winger and a Jew.

Mooi interview met Juliano Mer Khamis op Electronic Intifada. Vraag van de interviewster, Maryam Monalisa Gharawi: waarom niet meer Israëli’s dachten zoals zijn moeder, Arna Mer.

That’s a very interesting question. I’ll give you just the framework in which I can analyze this process of history that enabled Israel to confiscate, to settle and to colonize Palestine and not go through the path my mother chose. The reasons are many but the main reason you must understand is that since the Zionist movement was created, it manipulated the history of the Jews, especially the Holocaust period, and used forces around it to create one of the most successful colonies in Palestine. And since then, the victim philosophy or victim theory or victim policy of Jews and Israelis used all means and all aspects in their history since the pogroms — what they call the persecutions in Russia during the Czar period — till the announcement of hundreds of suicide warnings coming to Israel. From that to here, we see a policy of fear, a ghetto mentality, a policy that distracts the average Israeli from the truth. Frightened and victimized people can justify any crime they do and it enables them to live with their conscience in a very comfortable way like most of the Israelis. Once you are a victim, it’s very easy to create dehumanization and demonization of the other, and this is the success of the first Israeli propaganda in the Zionist movement.

Lees ook in het interview hoe hij heeft moeten marchanderen om zijn dode moeder, die geen religieuze begrafenis wilde, in Israël begraven te krijgen. Hij kreeg een aanbod om haar te begraven in Jenin – een eer vonden de Palestijnen dat, dat ze bij hun martelaren zou liggen. Een bezwaar was er wel: als in de toekomst nog eens Israëlische archeologen haar botten op zouden graven, en beweren dat dat joodse botten waren, zou dat weer een gelegenheid zijn om de begraafplaats tot joods bezit te verklaren, want zo doen ze dat.

Juliano Mer Khamis diende nog in het Israëlische leger, maar verliet het na anderhalf jaar, toen hem werd bevolen om familieleden van zijn Palestijnse vader tegen te houden bij een checkpoint van het leger. Dat was de druppel die de emmer deed overlopen, zei hij.

It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. But I was boiling since I tried to disguise myself. The outfit could not fit, you see? I could not fit the outfit. And it blew up in my face that certain day in the checkpoint, but I was boiling for years.

Hele interview: hier.

Filmpje waarop je hem kunt zien spreken, en uitleggen waar zijn Freedom Theater voor stond: