Happy New Year to Everyone,
Its back to work for me. In my “To Do” list is finished updating my website. I have consciously added a gallery every few weeks to give each story time to be viewed. Next up is my new Gallery “Palestine“.
I started working in the Palestinian Occupied Territories in late September 2000. I was commissioned by the Observer Magazine to cover the uprising that came to be known as the Second Intifada. I still remember being on the plane to Jerusalem, nervous at the prospect of covering another conflict. I hadn’t covered that many but after each one I always asked myself why did I do this. I also had never been to Israel/Palestine but I was (I thought) well versed on the conflict.
I was shocked at first at the intensity of the anger felt by the Palestinians on the streets. I watched how the uprising spread from Ramallah to the rest of the West Bank and beyond to Gaza. I photographed the disproportionate response of the Israelis to what at first was just stone throwing. The difference this time from the first Intifada was that many Palestinians had guns. The security forces, the various factions of the PLO and Hamas. As the casualties mounted on the Palestinian side, many of those armed men started to shoot . I still remember the day in Ramallah when a stone throwing by Palestinian youths suddenly became a shootout between Palestinian security forces and Israeli soldiers. It scared the hell out of me but I also remember thinking this was a big mistake by the Palestinians. They had the high moral ground, stones vs guns, and they were about to throw it away. I still believe that had the Palestinians in unity had chosen non violent protest or at least non lethal resistance like stones they would be much closer to their national aspirations. Easy for me to say as I don’t live under the humiliation of occupation.
As time progressed I tired of the clashes, confrontations and endless funeral marches that seem to define the early months of the 2nd Intifada. I took to walking the streets of Hebron, Nablus and Gaza City and looking not for violence but opportunities to do portraits, street life and engage in conversations with Palestinians. I tired of being surrounded by dozens of other photographers doing the same pictures. Walking around in the streets I found myself alone able to see more clearly the corrosive effect the occupation had on everyday life for the Palestinians. I saw Palestinians through a new prism which was not defined by violence but by the daily struggles common to all human beings.
I travelled to Israel/Palestine dozens of times over the next decade and while I cherished my travels there the conflict’s seeming inability to resolve itself was exhausting. I felt more at home in Israel than in the Occupied Territories as it was on the surface a society closer to the one I was familiar with. But I being Mexican I was constantly stopped because of my brown skin, mistaken for an Arab. I was always rudely approached sometimes with downright malice before Israeli police realised I was not a Palestinian. Apologies would follow with tales of visits to London/Latin America (all of Latin America recognises Israel and as such many young Israelis back pack on their holidays there.) . In the decade of working there I saw Israeli society become more intolerant, more militarised and more isolated from the rest of the world. The Israel that was supposed to be modern, western and democratic in fact more and more resembles the bankrupt nation that Milosevic/Karazdic/Mladic dreamed of for the Serbs. Today’s Israeli political leaders dream of a Greater Israel that treats Palestinian national aspirations with the same disdain that Militant Serbs once held for the rights of Bosnians and Kosovars. What we found intolerant in the Balkans we seem to put up with Israel. Unlike the Serbia of the 90s, Israelis would be shocked at the comparisons because they think of themselves as part of mediterranean Europe. Probably deluding themselves like the French Colonials did in Algeria. Meanwhile Palestinians have been blessed with mostly bad leadership. No Mandelas in the horizon.
The big tragedy is that the national aspirations of the Palestinians mirrors that of the of Jewish Zionists of the first part of the 20th century. Israelis should recognise something of their own past in the struggle of the Palestinians today. The future of the Israelis and Palestinians are so intertwined in so many ways that I think one day there will be a binational state not two separate states.
But I digress as I always do when I talk about the Middle East. I miss days of endless walking with my Mamiya C330s, Mamiya 6s and Leicas. All loaded with wonderful Tri-X. I miss the heat, the slippery paving stones of the Old City of Jerusalem after the rain, the best Falafels/Humous in the world, countless of street arguments, the sound of the call to prayer at 4am, reading the English edition of Haaretz in a nice coffee shop near Hillel Street, Taybeh Beer and sharing a cars & taxis with Kai Wiedenhoefer and Ethan Eisenberg.
The greatest joy of working in Israel/Palestine was the amazing ability to enter people’s lives and struggles simply because I had a camera around my neck. This is the greatest privilege of being a photojournalist.
Antonio Olmos's Blog 