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This is quoted from Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project:

For the last three years, community members in Olympia, WA, and Rafah, Palestine, have been working together to create a lasting, sincere partnership to better foster understanding between people who have not traditionally had a chance to get to know one another. It is our belief that by forming such bonds between communities, misunderstandings can be overcome and distances and differences - whether they be cultural, linguistic or political - can be bridged. We believe these sorts of humanistic, people-to-people connections are vital to creating a world in which all people are treated with respect.

That is why it is called the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project.

The people of Rafah - and all Palestinians in the territories of Gaza and the West Bank, for that matter - live under Israeli military occupation. They are not citizens of Israel or of any state, and have no rights of protest or redress. The occupation is a violent daily reality, in which Israeli soldiers, checkpoints, tanks, helicopter gunships, and F-16 fighter jets control every aspect of Palestinian lives, and have brought social, family and economic life to a virtual halt. What we often hear described simply as “the violence” in the Middle East cannot be understood without an understanding of what military occupation means.

The Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project is now offering a series of pastel works created by artists in Rafah though the Palestinian Artists Association. These works represent what it means for a people to live for decades and decades under Israeli military occupation. The feelings of imprisonment while watching your land being taken from you must be unbearable.

Let the artists speak for themselves:

Title: The Palestinian Flag
Artist: Yusuf Subeh

Title: Waiting
Artist: Bisan Umar Atteya

Title: Right of Return
Artist: Hiba Ibrahim Al Jazzar

Title: The Prisoner
Artist: Hamza Jamal Mansur

Title: Freedom is Executed in Palestine
Artist: Bashir Hemeid Qishtta

For information on showing or purchasing the art seen here, write to art@orscp.org or visit:
http://orscp.org/art_under_occupation/

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