 she was protesting the demolition of houses near the Gaza Strip. Her portrait can be seen above a bed of flowers, with an Israeli bulldozer moving towards her in the background. Saleh says that Corrie’s parents attended the museum’s opening last month. In a token act of sympathy, he presented them during the ceremony with a dollar bill, the amount of compensation the family has sought in the lawsuit they filed against Israel, which they demand take responsibility for her death.
There is also a large collage of photos, taken by Prof. Margaret Olin of Yale University. It shows graffiti from the Deheisheh refugee camp in the West Bank. Elsewhere, there is an Israeli army ammunition box filled with stones, “showing the asymmetry in the struggle between the two sides”, according to Saleh. “On one side Palestinian children throw stones at Israeli soldiers; on the other, Israeli soldiers shoot bullets at them,” he says.
One of the museum’s walls is dedicated to showing the life of the Palestinian community under the British Mandate. The photos show themes that repeat themselves in different versions. In one photo, a British policeman questions Palestinians at the entrance to Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate. In another, a man is asked to show identification papers in the middle of a street. There are also photos from 1933 in which British soldiers are shown violently suppressing a Palestinian demonstration against the British Mandate and Jewish immigration to Mandate territory. “Back then they were doing what Israeli soldiers are doing these days, only [the British] were much more civilized and less violent,” he adds.
Not a platform for political debates
And yet, a similar photo of Israeli soldiers detaining Palestinians for a search will not be found in this museum. No photos of an Israeli tank or checkpoint are on display either, or of demolitions or any other sign of the current reality and the Palestinian struggle for independence. Saleh deliberately left them out since, he says, “anyone wishing to learn about the current situation need only turn on his TV or read the paper.” He explains: “There are many ways of learning about the current suffering of the Palestinians and there are many organizations devoted to this. You don’t have to go to a museum to learn about it firsthand. I’m not a political person and I have no interest in copying what’s done elsewhere.
He says he sees his museum as an attempt “to help the Palestinian cause in the best and most suitable manner for me, through art, a neutral language that everyone can connect with.It is also meant to foster understanding between Jews, Christians and Muslims, not to be a platform for political debates.
“For me, this museum has two main objectives,” he says. “One is to use art to tell the story of the Palestinian people, with their sufferings, ambitions and dreams. To show Americans that Palestinians include artists and poets and photographers, and that they are not just terrorists, as they are portrayed in the media. The second objective is to provide Palestinians with a place that presents their culture, which celebrates their excellence while affording them pride.”
He has mainly good relations with the adjacent Jewish community, he says. “Several media outlets that came to cover the museum’s opening subsequently interviewed the Jewish Federation in New Haven, which had nothing negative to say,” he says with satisfaction. With that, despite the invitation he extended, none of them have yet come for a visit. Both sides realize that such a visit will not take place in the near future.
Palestinians are also not coming in droves, for now. “Some museum visitors came especially from Boston or traveled for several hours from New Jersey and Pennsylvania” he says. But he realizes that as long as the museum remains in an office building in a sleepy town in south Connecticut, far from the lively art and media centers in major cities such as New York or Philadelphia he is fated to remain at the margins of public discourse.
“For me this museum is just a model,” he stresses. “When I establi