GAZA, 8 July 2003 — A powerful symbol of defiance that fired the Palestinian uprising for statehood is being erased amid a ceasefire declared by militants. Municipal workers in Gaza City began whitewashing over anti-Israeli graffiti yesterday in a long-delayed beautification project that began following the June 29 announcement of a three-month suspension of attacks on Israelis.
Slogans such as “The blood of the martyrs will not be wasted - Hamas” and “Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades mourn their hero-martyrs” were painted over, much to the delight of many residents and shopkeepers. “It is better to keep the walls white and clean,” said Munir Al-Yazje, sipping a cup of coffee outside his store.
Osama Al-Aloul, a city official overseeing the campaign, told Reuters: “The current climate allowed the municipality to carry out its project of ‘Clean and Beautiful Gaza’.” But some Gazans believed the graffiti would soon reappear to chronicle the uprising that began nearly three years ago.
“We have the burning issue of Palestinian prisoners,” said a taxi driver, who gave his name only as Ali, a day after Israel disappointed Palestinians by agreeing to free only a few hundred of the 6,000-8,000 held in custody.
“We will not agree to Israeli criteria and they will not accept ours, and the fight will resume,” he said. “Then graffiti will return to tell about martyrs and to announce attacks.”
Setting terms on Sunday for a prisoner release, Israel said Palestinians with “blood on their hands” — meaning those who orchestrated or carried out attacks on Israelis — and members of militant groups would not be freed.
Palestinian political analyst Ali Al-Jarbawi said graffiti emerged as a symbol of Palestinian nationalism following Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East War.
“Palestinians saw it as a means to get their messages heard as it was one of few ways to express their political beliefs,” Jarbawi told Reuters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
More recently, Palestinians have used graffiti to vent their anger and frustration in the face of the current occupation, spray-painting calls for revenge for the killing of militants and civilians in the conflict with Israel. Jarbawi said wiping out the slogans was one thing, but changing Palestinians’ attitudes and perceptions towards Israel as peace efforts progressed would be far more difficult.
“The change should first be in people’s minds, not on people’s walls,” he said. Ismail Abu Shanab, an official of the militant group Hamas, one of three Palestinian factions that declared the ceasefire, said actions would ultimately speak louder than words. “Whether they wipe out graffiti or not, the uprising will remain,” he vowed.
Militants will resume attacks on Israelis at the end of the three-month cease-fire if Israel has not released all Palestinian prisoners by that time, a spokesman for the Hamas movement said yesterday.
“If Israel does not release all Palestinian prisoners during the three-month hudna (cease-fire), all Palestinian groups, including the Hamas, will consider themselves out of the truce and not committed to it,” Abdul Aziz Ranteesi told reporters.
In another development, Israel is putting pressure on the Palestinian Authority to tone down its West Bank summer camps for children that have been accused of stirring hatred, a senior Palestinian official said yesterday. “Israel asked us to put an end to what is going on with our media and in the children’s summer camps, saying they are responsible for huge incitement to violence,” Hani Al-Masri, director general of publications at the Palestinian Information Ministry, told AFP.
Masri was speaking after talks between Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr in Jerusalem for what was the first meeting of a joint committee on the prevention of incitement. Palestinian political sources told AFP the Palestinian Authority was under huge pressure to close down its political counseling department, a section responsible for publishing literature, giving political lectures to members of the security services, and for organizing summer camps.
This summer, the political department, which has around 400 employees, has organized 14-month-long summer camps for around 500 children between the ages of 12 and 16. The camps, which began on Sunday, are taking place in five West Bank cities: Nablus, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Hebron and Jericho.
“Israel did not mention these particular camps (at yesterday’s meeting) but they spoke about the camps in general and asked that we institute a change of policy at these camps,” one of the sources said. Following the Jerusalem meeting, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat placed a call to the department head to discuss the department’s future, he said. Israel views the political counseling department as a tool for both propaganda and incitement, the source added.
