Nadi Abusaada
@NadiSaadeh
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Architect and Historian. د. ندي أبو سعادة
Joined April 2016
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New publication is now out in Architectural Theory Review (open access). Titled "The Profession’s Vanguards: Arab Architects and Regional Architectural Exchange, 1900–50". On the history of the professionalization of architecture in the modern Arab world.
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An entire nation in grief. Renowned Palestinian journalist
@ShireenNasri
, an icon for all of us who grew up watching her everyday on TV, has just been shot dead by Israeli forces. I still can’t believe the news.
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Europe’s short memory. The photo below is from WWII, of a Syrian woman “distributing food and clothes to Greek refugees” in Syria. Source: Huna al-Quds Magazine, 1942.
The Syrian refugee who inspired the recent Netflix film “The Swimmers” is on trial in Greece for helping other refugees.
Sarah Mardini and 23 other volunteers are on trial for carrying out refugee rescue missions off the Greek coast.
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Yet again, Palestinians are to pay the price for Europe’s heinous affairs. Overnight, 5,000 new settlers can decide to move to Palestine while millions of displaced Palestinians are denied the right of return to their homeland.
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This is quite something. I asked
@OpenAI
whether Palestinians deserve to be free. I was appalled by the convoluted answer. I then asked it the same question about Israelis. The answer was crystal clear. Explanation?
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Arrived in Palestine 2 days ago, and the situation is reminiscent of the Second Intifada. Israeli blockades on whole cities, checkpoints on every road, rampant settler raids on Palestinian houses, shops, and farmers. A 14 year old girl kidnapped and beaten by settlers in Hebron.
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I was walking in New York earlier today when I came across this mural. Only to later learn that it is an artwork by Palestinian artist Emily Jacir titled “ex libris”, commemorating the thousands of books Israelis looted from Palestinian properties in 1948.
Alongside the massacres and forced displacement of Palestinians in 1948, Israelis stole and looted an ‘astonishing range’ of Palestinian belongings: personal items, musical instruments, machinery, antiquities, and the contents of entire stores and libraries.
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Today's encounter at the district office in Zürich:
-So, you were born in Israel?
-No, Palestine
-It says you were born in Jerusalem
-Yes. Jerusalem, Palestine
-But Wikipedia says...
-Look, in 1897 in Basel...
-Ok fine. I will write it as Jerusalem, Palästina..
Little victories.
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Racists on Twitter: they forced Messi to wear an “Arabian” gown.
Argentinians who flew to attend the World Cup:
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Israel deploys several mechanisms to hinder Palestinian academic freedom. Raids on university campuses, arrests of student leaders, blocking access to external resources and faculty—are all toolkits for denying Palestinians the right to education and knowledge production.
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Few months ago, I came across this beautiful house while walking in Jaffa. Today, I learnt it belonged to the Palestinian family of Shaikh Ali who owned large orange plantations in Jaffa. The family was displaced in 1948. Upon its confiscation, Israel used it as a military court.
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“Israel made the desert bloom.”
Below: one of the hundreds of instances of Israeli settlers destroying Palestinian olive trees en masse.
Today we celebrate 75 years of Israel's independence and friendship with Europe.
A special message from President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen:
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“I am so amazed that despite the clear lack of expertise and experience on Palestine you somehow seem to posses the same entitlement that Balfour possessed when he declared Palestine a home for the Zionists.”
@m7mdkurd
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How I know I’m in Palestine: mom using tequila bottles to store olive oil
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Mapping the Nakba. A timeline of the systematic depopulation and erasure of Palestinian cities and villages in 1948.
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“People hear the word colonialism and they think of something long gone in the past and they don’t realize that it exists in the present tense in my front yard.”
@m7mdkurd
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If people remain indifferent, we could witness one of the worst genocides in modern history. 2 million people in Gaza are under continuous bombing. Water, electricity, food, and medical aid are cut off. People are live-streaming their last words. The world’s silence is deafening.
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Alongside the massacres and forced displacement of Palestinians in 1948, Israelis stole and looted an ‘astonishing range’ of Palestinian belongings: personal items, musical instruments, machinery, antiquities, and the contents of entire stores and libraries.
A recent book documents the rampant looting of Palestinian belongings in 1948, but fails to recognize it as part of Israel's wider goal of dispossession.
Avi-ram Tzoreff reviews Adam Raz's 'Looting of Arab Property in the War of Independence.'
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PhD finally submitted!
Excited to finally share that next month I’ll be joining
@MIT
as a 2021 Aga Khan Postdoctoral Fellow in Architecture!
I am truly overwhelmed. Thanks to everyone who’s been there in any shape or form!
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In 1917, Allenby entered through Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate, ushering in British and Zionist colonialism in Palestine. Today, after decades of ongoing Israeli colonialism, Palestinian Jerusalemites continue to assert who the city truly belongs to.
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Back in Cambridge! Heartwarming to see the printed version of my
@Cambridge_Uni
dissertation for the first time, especially after having missed my PhD graduation due to visa delays. Titled “Building Urban Palestine: Jaffa and Nablus 1870–1930”.
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This devastating view of the Jerusalem hills after the fires of last week is not only an act of nature. Israel replaced the Palestinian terraced gardens that once covered those hills with hazardous pine trees. My earlier piece for
@ArchReview
below.
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Israel’s language of domination is anachronistic with our times. Its rhetoric, like its logic, is rooted in 19th century colonialism. It is no surprise that Western powers find solace in Israeli colonialism. In it, they see the image of their former self—an image they yearn for.
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'In Hebron and the Galilee, one people, one struggle.' Land Day Protests in Palestine, 1979.
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The official poster for the upcoming 9th edition of Palestine cinema days 2022. Paying homage to the Syrian artist and designer Burhan Karkutli (1932-2003), whose work is considered emblematic of the Palestinian resistance and its visual landscape. Designed by 40mustaqel.
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Amid the ongoing tragedy, with echoes of bombing still reverberating in Gaza's streets, the architects of this genocide, unyielding, convene to draft plans for future extraction – blueprints marked by the indelible stain of blood on their hands.
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The Palestine Archeological Museum in Jerusalem, designed by British architect Austen Barbe Harrison in the 1930s. It was confiscated by Israel in 1967.
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Palestinian Manshiyyeh quarter in Jaffa shortly after 1948. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, Israel razed the ethnically cleansed quarter to the ground under the pretence of “improving” Tel Aviv’s waterfront. Hasan Bek Mosque still stands as a reminder of what was there.
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Jaffa, my final stop in Palestine. Couldn’t but share these!
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Palestinians can no longer take regular highways to arrive at their jobs or families in other cities. Like in the Second Intifada, they have to take alternative dirt roads through the hills and valleys of central Palestine. Settlers can roam freely, with soldier protection.
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Palestine is a global cause. Palestinian freedom is intertwined with your own. Israel invests heavily in bullying the world to remain silent on its atrocities. We rely on the solidarity of millions who believe in freedom, dignity, and justice. This is a truth they‘ll never grasp.
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The Jerusalem Airport, now the Israeli Qalandia Checkpoint. Previously connecting Palestine to the world, now a colonial infrastructure segregating Palestinians from each other. How will history remember this?
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A dual war is waged on Gaza. One marked by real-time genocidal warfare, and the other, a parallel media war that justifies Israeli war crimes and dehumanizes Palestinians. Don’t participate in the latter. Question what you see on Western media. False tropes literally cost lives.
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Our pain is historical pain. It is not limited to days or weeks. We learnt to date our history with Israeli massacres. Any child in the camps will recite you the names: Dir Yassin, Qana, Sabra and Shatila. We know our history and our murderers. Our whole life is the evidence.
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This is what Israel did to the interior of the Place Hotel in Jerusalem, an iconic building built by Palestinians in the 1920s. They confiscated it in 1948, and since then all its interior furniture and artworks have been looted and sold in auction markets. /1
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Their beaches. Our destroyed villages.
Tantura, near Haifa, before the massacre.
There's a mass Palestinian grave under a popular Israeli beach, 1948 war veterans confess
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Today, 30 March, is Land Day in Palestine. This is a photo of Land Day protests in Nazareth in 1979. The banner reads: “In Hebron and the Galilee, one people, one struggle.”
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A beautifully made new book on the wildflowers of Palestine by Rema Hammami!
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Please give academics their time. It takes time for colonists to open their archives and admit their crimes. Only once buried, will the voices of the colonized be worth scraping for. It is only the colonial past that we can read against the grain, not the colonial present.
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For decades, Israel has been using architecture to tighten its colonial control over Jerusalem’s Old City. This is best exemplified in the case of Damascus Gate, where watch towers, metal fences, and military presence are employed to bar Palestinians from their public spaces.
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Back at beautiful Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre in Ramallah, Palestine. One of my favorite venues in the city. Will be curating an exhibition there on the 1930s Arab Exhibitions in Jerusalem that will open in August!
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Imagine spending years building your home, only to have settlers from the colony next doors come and burn it. This is what Palestinians have to live through as a result of Israeli colonialism. The photo is from earlier today in Turmusaya, near Ramallah.
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Best birthday gift: visiting the beloved city of Jaffa, Palestine.
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After 1948, Palestinian educator Khalil Sakakini wrote:“Farewell, my library! Farewell, the house of wisdom, the abode of philosophers, a house and witness for literature! How many sleepless nights I spent there, reading and writing, the night is silent and the people asleep.”
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Birthday gift to myself. A visit to the stunning Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
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My village, al-Nasareyya, in the Jordan Valley, Palestine. Last ones I promise 😊
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The building was constructed in 1934, likely by Palestinian architect Darwish Abulafia. I wrote this some time ago for
@PalStudies
on Jaffa’s architecture and plantation landscape before 1948:
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Palestinians love their cities. From Gaza to Jerusalem to Akka, Palestine is irreplaceable.
Video showing the residents of Akka cleaning their streets while singing: “I would not replace Akka for the entire world.”
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This video is circulating now of UNHRC delegates leaving upon Russia’s speech. Remember when Israel’s Ambassador to the UN ripped a UNHRC report on violations against Palestinians and all delegates remained glued to their seats?
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What do we gain out of Israeli institutions like
@TelAvivUni
recognizing the theft Palestinian lands? Nothing. The lands remain stolen. Palestinians remain denied the right of return to their homes. The machine of colonial violence is still in operation.
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Sakakini had lost his entire library at his home in the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Qatamon in 1948. He was not alone. Today, thousands of looted Palestinian items and books are kept in the National Library of Israel, misleadingly marked as ‘AP’, or Abandoned Property.
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If this 1909 photograph was taken in the opposite direction, this would have been the view: the Palestinian city of Jaffa, a primary port city and largest citrus exporter in the Eastern Mediterranean. Far from “desolate”. For more:
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Tile remains from depopulated Palestinian houses in Jaffa. As I wrote on Jaffa for
@ArchReview
: “Once a city has been reduced to a collection of objects, it is no longer a city. It turns into mere memory, a city’s ghost.”
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تقرير آمنستي هو محاولة لتصفية ضمائر العاملين في حقل "حقوق الانسان" بما يخص القضيّة الفلسطينيّة. أما بالنسبة لنا كفلسطينيين، لا أعتقد أنه سيتبع هذا التقرير أيّة أثر ملموس على أرض الواقع. على مشروعنا وخيالنا التحرريّ أن يكون أشمل وأوسع من لغةٍ مقيّدة تصف واقعنا ولا تقدم بديل عنه.
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Israeli colonialism is antithetical to Palestine’s centuries-long ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity. Historians will look back at this dark age with disdain—targeting holy sites and worshippers in Jerusalem, a city that belongs to all humanity.
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Yesterday was the opening of our exhibition "Al-Ma'rad" at the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center in Ramallah. The exhibition is an homage to the 1930s Arab Exhibitions in Jerusalem. Here are some photographs from the event.
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من نتائج التحريض والخطابات الشعبويّة: جرى اليوم الاعتداء على نشاط فني للأطفال ضمن برنامج لمسرح عشتار في رام الله بسبب وجود الوان قوس قزح في إحدى دمى النشاط. ضمن الحضور كان ابن اختي بعمر ٣ سنوات. شتم وضرب وتحرّش وتخريب وسرقة هواتف. هذا هو السياق الذي نعيش به.
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Back in Palestine! This apartment building in Ramallah is one of my favorite examples of late modernist influences in the 1960-70s.
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Happy new year! Today I went to the Palestinian village of Deir Ghassaneh with my friend who worked on renovating some of its buildings back in 2012. It was a beautiful start to the year.
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My grandfather passed away on this day 6 years ago. He will always be missed.
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In the 1930s, the Zionists planned several exhibitions in their newly built colony of Tel Aviv named the "Levant Fair". The aim was to enhance the image of Zionism regionally and globally. The fair included pavilions for Lebanon and Egypt, still under the thumb of colonial rule.
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Tomorrow, Biden and Lapid will meet at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Jerusalem. Originally known as the Palace Hotel, the building was constructed by Palestinian leader Hajj Amin al-Husseini in the 1920s. It was also where the Arab National Exhibitions were held in 1933 and 1934.
Soon at Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center: “Al-Ma’rad”. A homage to the Arab National Exhibitions held in Jerusalem in the 1930s, bringing crafts and industries from all over the Arab region to Palestine.
Curator: Nadi Abusaada
Design: Luzan Munayer
Supported by
@BarjeelArt
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In the early 1960s, Italian filmmaker Pier Paulo Pasolini visited Palestine in search for sites to shoot a biblical drama. He was disappointed that Palestine was “too modern”. Here’s a clip from a video installation I did (with Luzan M.) for a new exhibition at Qattan Foundation.
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Israel gave the UN 24 hours to “evacuate” 1.1 million people from northern Gaza. This is not evacuation. It’s an order of mass genocide and ethnic cleansing. This is more than Israel killed and ethnically cleansed in 1948, and it’s unfolding in real time before the world’s eyes.
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Sheikh Jarrah is a microcosm for Israeli colonial policy in Jerusalem more broadly. Today, another Palestinian neighbourhood, Silwan, also faces the threat of evictions. The procedures and mechanisms shift but the purpose is one: moving Palestinians out. But Palestinians won't.
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Israeli forces damaging the historical stained glass of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of the greatest architectural monuments of the Arab-Islamic worlds. Only a snapshot of the active Israeli attempt at destroying Palestinian architecture and history.
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Just arrived at my grandma’s house in Nablus. The beauty of the view is disrupted by an Israeli raid to the city this morning.
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My latest article on Jerusalem stone for
@ArchReview
is now out! I would love to know your thoughts.
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At the beautiful Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Notice the broken stained glass windows in the last photo as a result of Israeli raids.
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In 1933, Palestinians held an Arab Exhibition in Jerusalem, in response to the Levant Fair in Tel Aviv. After the organisers reached Gaza to gather financial support, they wrote: 'No other city in Palestine suffered from war than Gaza , yet it never ceases giving to the nation.'
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Posters are here!! Opening 10 August at Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center in Ramallah. An exhibition on the history of the 1930s Arab Exhibitions in Jerusalem!
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Eid mornings from our family home in the Jordan Valley, Palestine.
كل عام وانتم بخير من النصاريّة، أغوار فلسطين.
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"A sudanese student in Birmingham fools the city by pretending to be a prince"-1934, Filastin Newspaper. He got a whole banquet attended by the governor.
البرنس محمد دنبنغو امير السودان
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There is an impressive number of young architects based in the Arab region who are working towards shifting architectural thought and practice into a more critical and socially engaged field. It is time for architectural education in many parts of the Arab region to catch up.
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My latest short piece for
@PalStudies
is on the rise of Jaffa's citriculture in the 19th century and its material effects on the city and its suburbs until the mid 20th century. Link below :)
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The Old City of Jaffa. I overlaid a 1930s British map on a German aerial photograph of the city dating to 1916. In the Great Palestinian Revolt of 1936, British forces destroyed large swathes of the Old City in one of the most brutal counter-insurgency efforts during the Mandate.
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Just moved to Zürich! Will be working at the Department of Architecture at ETH Zürich as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Do get in touch if you’re around :)
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Then they chanted: “save our democracy”. But they really meant: “save our colony”.
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Years of hard work and labour Palestinians put into building their cities and homes. Only to have an order to destroy them, with their own hands.
The legality of orders like this is a farce discourse. A legal system under colonialism is a system built to push the colonised out.
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My latest short piece for
@PalStudies
is out! On Haifa, Akka, and the bay connecting them. Would love your thoughts!
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Delighted to be speaking at
@UofT
this Thursday 11:30AM-1PM EDT as part of the
@PalestineUofT
series. My talk will be on Aerial Imagery, Mapping and the Urban Landscape in Interwar Palestine. Please join us. Registration link:
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At the start of 1948, a truck full of explosives was set off next to the New Saray in Jaffa. Tens of Palestinians were killed and wounded and the building was entirely destroyed. The attack was carried by Zionist militant organisation Lehi ('Fighters for the Freedom of Israel').
#OnThisDay
Photograph | Grand Serai in Ruins 📸
“A truck loaded w. explosives covered w. oranges, parked outside entrance of
#Jaffa
's Grand Serai by members of LEHI-Stern Gang, destroys the building and kills 26 Palestinian civilians.”
#PalJourneys
🔻
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One day I'll write about mud architecture in Palestine, common in some coastal villages as well as those in the Jordan Valley. The image is from a village in the Jordan Valley, near Jericho, from the 1920s. The diagram is from a study by Tawfiq Canaan in the 1930s.
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A spectre of Palestinian history haunts these images from today's general strike. The closed shops and empty streets of Jaffa assert, after 73 years of its forced Israelisation, that the Palestinian city cannot be erased.
Photo below: Jaffa on strike, 1936.
أكثر مدينة ممكن تشوفي فيها أوجاع كل سنوات الإستعمار هي يافا، بس بهاد النهار مع الإضراب يافا رجعت إلنا.
#فلسطين_تقاوم
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Map of Gaza, 1842. From a series of British military maps of Palestinian towns following the Egyptian campaign. National Archives (Kew).
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How do I know pan-Arabism is alive? When I enter a barbershop in Zürich to find an Iraqi, a Syrian, a Palestinian and an Egyptian working there—mostly arguing about Spanish football.
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Mahmoud Darwish’s office at the beautiful Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre in Ramallah.
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These windows are regularly renovated by local Palestinian craftspeople. They are an embodiment to the living cultures of craft in Palestine and the region. Their destruction is but a testament to Israel’s barbarism. Photos via
@MiddleEastEye
.
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As I said on the BBC radio interview below, the border city of Jericho has been under siege for nearly a week now. I took this picture this morning as I was leaving the country. Two teenage soldiers appear in the side mirror. Denying entry to thousands of Palestinians.
Spoke to
@bbcworldservice
earlier this morning about the situation in Palestine over the past few days. Min 1:20-5:30.
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I wrote this piece for
@MiddleEastEye
last year on its history. The looted building was lately acquired by the Waldorf Astoria luxury hotel chain. It sums up a story of hundreds of buildings that remain inaccessible to their Palestinian owners since 1948.
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