104 artists at the Yasser Arafat Museum display their offensive caricatures depicting falsified Israeli aggression and antisemitic tropes
Video posted on the Facebook page of the Yasser Arafat Museum
Visual:
The video shows PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh launching an exhibit of cartoons at the Yasser Arafat Museum, which is run by the Yasser Arafat Foundation. The cartoons are by cartoonists from 43 countries including “Palestine.”
The screenshot shows a sign in Arabic and English introducing the exhibit.
English text: “Caricature
Palestine & Yasser Arafat
More than one hundred artists coming from forty-three countries meet at this venue to celebrate and to sense their path to Palestine and its righteous son, the Late Yasser Arafat.
It is, however, rather true that modern technology allows each of us to access any piece of information we may need and to be aware of the various events that may occur around us. Yet, it is our responsibility to articulate and analyze the questions we raise and the vision we adhere to. Creative individuals are the most capable of doing so. There is nothing more eloquent than the art of caricature for it reflects a particular situation while sinking deep with their sharp knives in order to highlight and explore a particular situation from its various dimensions by using humor and painful sarcasm. One hundred and four artists, each with a distinctive style, came here to express their moral and artistic positions towards Palestine and Yasser Arafat in a clear and in a straight forward manner. We have to underline how beautiful it is to know that everywhere in the world there are plenty of dedicated friends for Palestine and for Arafat who never ceded siding with their own conscience. We congratulate ourselves for their firm solidarity and we thank them for their true friendship.”
The screenshot shows Shtayyeh looking at cartoons at the exhibit. Three cartoons – at the top center, top right, and bottom left – feature the PA map of “Palestine” that presents all of Israel together with the PA areas as “Palestine.” The cartoon at the top left shows two Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinians and causing a river of blood to flow from their corpses, on which a basket with a Palestinian flag on it is floating, in a reference to Moses from the Bible.
The screenshot shows a cartoon at the upper left of an Israeli soldier painting a target on the belly of a pregnant Palestinian woman. The cartoon at the bottom right shows a mosquito apparently representing Israel sucking the blood from the Gaza Strip.
The screenshot shows a cartoon at the top left of three Israeli soldiers holding a Palestinian girl and laughing while burning a Palestinian flag. In the foreground another Palestinian girl holding a painting of former PLO and PA Chairman Yasser Arafat points at them from inside a house that has been demolished.
The screenshot shows a cartoon at the bottom left of the PA map of “Palestine.” The cartoon at the bottom center shows former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu undermining the ground underneath the Al-Aqsa Mosque with a bulldozer.
The screenshot shows a cartoon second from the left at the top of a guillotine made out of the Israeli and American flags, with a keffiyeh (Arab headdress) positioned to be cut by it.
The screenshot shows a cartoon at the right of a girl stopping a massive bomb with a Star of David on it. The cartoon at the center top shows a hand with claws on it and the Israeli flag on its sleeve gripping Palestinian figures, one of whom is holding a sign reading “Standing firm,” while another hand with claws on it and the American flag on its sleeve is holding a document with “Normalization” written on it.
The screenshot shows cartoons at the center top and bottom left of the PA map of “Palestine.”
The screenshot shows a cartoon at the bottom left of a Jew with peot (Jewish traditional sidelocks) and a man with an Uncle Sam hat standing together and laughing, while the man with the hat lights sticks of dynamite that are attached to an olive branch in the beak of a blindfolded dove.
The cartoon at the bottom center shows three beauty pageant contestants, with “Miss Universe 2021 The Apartheid Pageant” written at the top. The contestant in the center has a crown on his head and is wearing a ribbon that reads: “Israeli Prime Minister Miss Appropriate,” indicating the word “misappropriate.” On the left is a contestant with a ribbon reading: “Miss Universe Org. Miss Anthropic,” indicating “misanthropic.” On the right is a contestant with a kippah (Jewish skullcap) and a ribbon reading: “Zionist Lobby Miss Information,” indicating “misinformation.” The cartoon refers to Miss Universe contestants who were in Israel for the 2021 contest and visited the Tafadalu: Rahat Bedouin Experience, where they wore Bedouin clothing and prepared Bedouin food. Palestinians have distorted this visit as “heritage theft.”
The Yasser Arafat Foundation is, according to the foundation’s website, "an independent and non-profit organization" that "receives governmental support and undertakes functions of governmental nature related to the preservation of the heritage of the [late PLO] President [Arafat]." The foundation emphasizes that "it enjoys legal, fiscal, and administrative independence," despite the fact that they receive "governmental allocations" of funding. Likewise, the "honorary president" of the foundation "is the president of the Executive Committee of the PLO/President of the Palestinian National Authority" - meaning the current foundation president is PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The honorary president approves membership on the foundation's Board of Trustees. At the time of writing, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Special Representative Nabil Shaath is Chairman of the Board of Directors, and several PA, Fatah, and PLO officials are on the Board of Trustees. The foundation was established in 2007 via Presidential decree. [The Yasser Arafat Foundation, http://www.yaf.ps/?url=posts/show/541/The_Foundation, accessed January, 2022]
Yasser Arafat – Founder of Fatah and former chairman of the PLO and PA. During the 1960s, 70s and 80s Arafat was behind numerous terror attacks against Israelis. Although he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 together with then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East" after signing the Oslo Accords peace agreement, Arafat launched a 5-year terror campaign - the second Intifada (2000-2005) – in which more than 1,000 Israelis were murdered. Arafat died of an illness in 2004.