As he received Sweden’s EWK Award of 2024 Mohammad Saba’aneh said that the prize was not for him, but for all Palestinians. A guest of this year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival in England, he was in Trieste to present his newest book. A recipient of 2022 Palestine Book Award for his extraordinary book Power Born of Dreams, Mohammad Saba’aneh talked about politics and prison systems – and why he always returns home to Palestine.
Your book Power Born of Dreams: My Story is Palestine followed the cartoon-art collection Black and White: Political Cartoons from Palestine. Your new book 30 seconds from Gaza has just been published in Italian, to be followed with the French and American editions. It is different.
Yes. There are differences in colour and technique, in how I used the black colour. Both books, Power Born of Dreams and 30 Seconds from Gaza are great but I still feel closer to Power Born of Dreams. It was the first time I used the format of the comic-book storytelling and there is a plan to do a sequel. However, with the war now it was important for me to do something about Gaza. People there are just trying to survive and it is difficult to focus on details that stories and art demand.
Palestinian film director Rashid Masharawi made a mosaic-film of short clips by artists in Gaza, titled From Ground Zero that was cancelled from Cannes but nonetheless shown in the nearby venue, under a tent. You have also lost friends, colleagues in Gaza …
Yes. Rashid’s project was great. Some of my friends from Gaza worked with him. We have all lost people, friends, family members … we lose them in Gaza and in the West Bank.
How have you got through the last year? After publishing Power Born of Dreams you said you hoped your work could inspire action. What has it been like for you in the West Bank as genocide unfolds in Gaza?
The situation in the West Bank is not as dangerous as it is in Gaza. We can, majority of us, live in our homes, there are no bombs falling on our cities…
But there were air strikes on Jenin?
Yes, and I go there regularly. But Ramallah, where I live, is safer than Gaza and than Jenin. However, just hearing about the attacks and destruction, trying to reflect it in art – it has not been easy. But I also feel this is the only thing I can do – to convey the messages and the suffering Palestinian people are going through. This is how this latest book came about – to convey, emphasize and spread the voices from Gaza.
My publishers in Italy and France saw my artwork on Gaza and suggested to publish it in a book. The artwork collects my reflections … The Spanish translation is in the works and next year also an American edition is planned.
Is there increasingly more space for your artwork? In Europe we see great interest among people to hear Palestinian voices but on the other hand also suppression, especially in Germany and Austria but also in France and England. What have been your experiences?
I live in Palestine and cannot talk about the situation for Palestinians in Europe. At the beginning of this October there were some pro-Israelis who launched a campaign against my exhibition in the UK and tried to shut it down. However, the director of The Lakes International Comic Art Festival Julie Tait and also the British Council stood by the work and it happened.
I do not know enough details about the situation elsewhere. We witnessed censoring of political cartoonists, not just Palestinian, also British, European, for example of Steve Bell, because of their support for the Palestinian cause. Political cartoonists have been fired, attacked and censored.
You have worked for Palestinian newspapers, also for the one close to Palestinian Authority that many Palestinians feel serves better the interests of Israel than of Palestinian people. What was work there like for you?
I was suspended many times while I worked for that newspaper. But I came back or published again. Many critics of the PA come with their own agenda or belong to a certain group or to a political party. I have no allegiance. I criticize when I feel something should be done differently, that actions should more closely follow the interests of the Palestinian people or reflect the events in Gaza. That is what happened.
I was suspended and fired two years ago from the newspaper. I got into big problems with the PA because I criticized Mahmoud Abbas in one of my cartoons. However, my criticism does not have a politicized agenda. When I criticize I do it because I feel we have to amend or better identify our situation in Palestine and enhance our position. I do not have a specific political vision. And that is the critical thing: especially in Palestine. The division between Fatah and Hamas has caused the lack of freedom of speech. If you criticize PA, you are accused of being a Hamas supporter, and if you criticize Hamas, it is the other way around. I have been blacklisted and attacked from both sides. And I do not care. It is my work.
It proves you are doing your job well?
Yes. In 2008 Hamas blacklisted me, then I had problems with the PA and with the Israelis and with some of the Arab regimes. I believe in what I do. These are my principles, how I think and reflect my opinions.
How does this effect earning a living?
My main work now is with the private Arab-American university as a professor. I teach art. Just doing art is not enough to survive. I also believe that if you rely only on your artwork it will be very difficult because you feel the red lines much more.
Do you feel you have enough channels to convey your commentaries?
No one ever has enough channels. Despite the technology. I try to publish my cartoons on social media but my artwork has been blocked, censored. My profile page was shut down. I had around 5000 followers.
The printed, paper newspapers today have very limited reach. The book publishers I work with are not mainstream. They follow their principles and their own beliefs in their work. Therefore, more channels are always needed. Israel has full control on the mainstream media in the West. We, Palestinians have no such thing, just simple initiatives to convey our voices to the world.
Your book Power Born of Dreams talks about your experience in Israeli prison but you do something that has been taken up also by Ilan Pappe and now by Special UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese – you introduce to readers the situation of all Palestinians as that of prisoners. How has that understanding come about?
Experiences that led me to this came before the prison. I worked as a political cartoonist and if we reflect our situation onto political frameworks, we are faced with settler colonialism. Occupation that serves settler colonialism aims to fragment the indigenous people and put them in reservation camps or in prison camps. This has happened in America and in other countries that experienced settler colonialism.
This understanding is common for Gaza as it is called the biggest open-air prison. In the West Bank the situation is the same. We have many prison areas surrounded with illegal Israeli roads, settlements, the wall. Israel has used this infrastructure to achieve the fragmentation that puts Palestinians in prisons. It is not one united prison. The Israeli plan for Gaza now copies this: dividing it into more than one prison area for easier control.
Not all people realize that our situation is that of prisoners – we can go about our lives, move outside, even travel. But the ability of Israel to close off the West Bank and prevent all movement is omnipresent. If I want to go from Ramallah to Jenin, it should take me no more than an hour but I might spend four or five hours to find an open road.
Political framework of settler colonialism helps us see that also Palestinians in the West Bank are in a prison. Israel can at any point turn our houses, villages and cities into prison cells.
You read messages carved on prison-walls from previous prisoners, and consequently chose the linocut as the art technique for the book. Do you see a way how Palestinians despite fragmentation among Gaza, area 1948, East Jerusalem and the West Bank can overcome these colonial divisions and connect?
For me the main problem are not fragmentation, injustice or lack of freedom of movement. All these originate in the occupation. The solution therefore, for all of them is the liberation of our land. We cannot go about fixing particular individual problems that never end … we need to find a solution for the whole of the situation.
But how to achieve liberation if not through particular struggles?
That is the question we as Palestinians should ask the international community. Palestinians went to negotiate with Israel more than thirty years ago. And for more than thirty years we have got nothing but more violence, oppression and further theft of our land. At the same time, the world does not need the Palestinians to fight against the Israeli occupation. There are other ways to liberate Palestine. Palestinians might not be strong enough at the moment to defeat Israel but we see that in a peaceful way, through negotiations, we got nothing from the Israelis. So what is the answer?
As people under occupation we have the right to resist our occupier. We have the full right to practice resistance, granted by international law. But this takes lives. We lose people. In Gaza. In the West Bank. Now in Lebanon.
We do not hold the answer to this question we should be asking. We have tried everything. And we have lost. We lose every day. What is the solution? What should we, Palestinians do?
We will keep our right to resist the occupation – in all forms. This is an internationally recognized right of any occupied people. This right was the basis for the international community to support Ukrainians. Why is it different for Palestinians? These are the questions the world and the international community should answer. The world observes, for more than a year now, a genocide. And international community takes no action and offers no solution.
We hear again and again about the 7th October. But what happened was the result, a consequence of actions that have been continuing since 1948. During Nakba 750.000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes. Israel demolished around 500 villages. Then there was the war of 1967, the first and second intifada, all political events – and yet here we are: it all began on the 7th October. Before 7th October people in Gaza had been under the Israeli siege for more than 16 years. In that time they endured at least four Israeli wars on Gaza. And yet we hear only about the Israeli victims and hostages. My brother was arrested before the 7th October, kidnapped. Since, he has been imprisoned. He is held in prison without a trial. There were more than 5 000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons before the 7th October. Why are they not seen as hostages taken by the occupier? We, Palestinians, we need the liberation of our land and we need to live with our human rights fully recognized and respected.
Your brother remains in prison?
Yes. And on 7th October, when they tortured all the prisoners, they broke his glasses. Until today they have not allowed us to send or bring him a new pair. We have asked international and Israeli organizations for human rights, everybody, just to get a new pair of glasses to him. We have not succeeded. It is inhumane. The inhumanity that Israel wages against Palestinians inside and outside of Israeli prisons should be stopped.
We often hear that what is missing is a unified Palestinian voice saying, what the Palestinians want. How do you respond to this and can art play a role to bring different voices together?
Everything helps. Art can help. Political actions can help, demonstrations on the streets can help. Everything counts.
What do I do as an artist or what do we do in Palestine as artists? Maybe we will not liberate our Palestine by books or artwork but it is a tool. A tool we should use. We have seen that the Israelis have used various tools to convey their narrative and propaganda. They also use cartoons, comics, books, films … to cover their crimes. As Palestinian artists, intellectuals, creative individuals we should not refrain from using artistic tools to tell our story, our experiences, our suffering. And in our case I do not see a propaganda but a reflection of events on the ground. This is my role. To offer also to international audience a way to learn about Palestine and Palestinian stories. Conveying Palestinian experiences to people who have never been in Palestine is important. Offering a tool, a book to all who are part of the struggle for justice and equality also matters.
At the beginning of the Gaza genocide the Israeli propaganda became blatant and unrestrained. Their politicians said: “we are fighting human animals”, “this is the war of the civilized”, making us, Palestinians uncivilized. Dehumanization of Palestinians can be best dismantled by empowering and supporting Palestinian intellectuals, artists, authors …
Your city is Jenin with the Freedom Theatre, there was Israeli destruction and violence during the second Intifada that we see again now … what has the city given you?
I was born in Kuwait and returned to Jenin after my university diploma. Before that I was in Jordan and then in Nablus. But originally I am from Jenin, my family and friends are there. Every loss in Jenin is personal. I used to work in the Jenin campus of the Arab-American university. We have lost many students and colleagues. Only in 2024 two of my university colleagues were killed in Jenin. Everybody there is part of a common struggle and resistance. This makes it very personal. We started the Freedom Theatre in 2004 with Juliano Mer Khamis and others. I was a board member and continue to be their supporter.
But I do not see it as a different form of resistance. Art cannot be resistance. Resistance is resistance. International community likes to brand everything as a form of resistance. Today food, fashion, art, dance are called resistance but the Palestinian resistance is denied its right to be and resist. Art is a tool to survive, a tool to convey our narrative and our situation. The Freedom Theatre is a tool to enhance the options and chances for children, traumatized by the Israeli army. And the director of the Freedom Theatre remains detained by the Israelis because Israel does not want such institutions to exist in Jenin.
Is it possible for you to visit Jenin whenever you wish?
Yes, I was there two weeks ago. It is not safe. At any moment Israelis can get in, destroy, shoot, lock it up. The drones are everywhere. Currently the settler violence is the greatest danger, backed and protected by the Israeli army. A day before I left for London the Israeli army entered the village my family is from, surrounded the primary school and nursery, besieged them for five hours and killed six people. It happens suddenly and anyone can get trapped. It is not safe but I have to go – visit my parents and siblings. Yes, I have to cross many Israeli checkpoints but I cannot stay away just because Israel deliberately makes it dangerous, unpredictable and unpleasant.
We see focus shifting, yet the situation is getting worse – in Gaza, in the West Bank, in east Jerusalem, in Lebanon. What is the most problematic thing that is being overlooked?
We see resistance in Nablus and Jenin but with the escalation in Gaza the media forgot about the West Bank, and now we see the same with the Israeli bombing of Lebanon. Israelis play this very well. Different open fronts enable them to shift focus yet move closer to their end-plan. While the international community seems to be sleeping.
I would like people to know that the Israeli crimes in Lebanon should not cover the Israeli crimes in Gaza, nor should the Israeli genocide in Gaza cover the Israeli atrocities in the West Bank. Each and every person is a human being, suffering or being killed because of the Israeli occupation.
Many people say they are losing hope as they see what you, Palestinians are experiencing. What keeps you going and gives you hope?
There is always hope. Many people ask me, why do Palestinians stay on their land, in Palestine? It is great to travel but I always also travel back. I always will. Yes, I return to a war zone but it is our land. And it is this that gives us hope. We are fighting for our cause and we remain on our land.
But how do you cope with fear, with insecurity?
Through art. It is enough. Art is a good tool to deal with all these emotions. I am not always strong. Sometimes I feel I need to leave and travel somewhere safe. But art is a good companion. Also, what I have to deal with is nothing compared to what my brother has to deal with in the Israeli prison or what Palestinians in Gaza face up to every day. If you compare yourself to another Palestinian, you usually find yourself in a good place. It is only if you compare yourself to a European, that you know you are in a shitty position.
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