The Guardian published a photo story, Gaza’s children reveal their hopes and fears, May 11, about drawings by children from the Gaza town of al-Zarqa which are currently on display at the East London Mosque. The show is sponsored by Oxfam GB.
The piece can be found on the Guardian’s ‘Global Development’ page.
The Guardian characterizes the art as an expression of the childrens’ “collective yearning for a clean, safe neighborhood”.
The drawings are accompanied by a quote from the child artist explaining his or her inspiration.
A few of the children were curiously quite on-message.
A Palestinian boy, 11, named Amani explained that the following was motivated by his wish that he no had longer had to “live under occupation.” [emphasis added]
A Palestinian child, eight, named Rouane was responsible for the following drawing and is quoted as explaining: “I’d love to have a cleaner and safe neighborhood and a nice countryside and uninterrupted electricity.”
A Palestinian child named Amal, nine, responsible for the following drawing, complained of life “under siege“.
At the very least it seems improbable th Palestinian children (aged 8 to 11) typically use political vocabulary which, when translated from Arabic to English, just so happens to be exactly the same as what is typically employed by anti-Israel activists.
If there indeed was some “adult interference” in these attributions it wouldn’t be the first time a display of drawings allegedly created by Palestinian children was fraudulent.
Elder of Ziyon posted in 2011 (The fake child artists of Gaza) about another exhibit by Gazan children in the same town (al-Zarqa), documenting their experiences during the Gaza war, which were allegedly culled from art therapy sessions at Gaza children’s centers.
The drawings include one of a bomb painted with American and Israeli flags crashing into a street filled with dead bodies and IDF missiles targeting innocent civilians and destroying a mosque.
As Elder noted, the picture above from the exhibit was clearly based on an image by antisemitic artist Carlos Latuff:
Elder observed:
“[The drawings] look like they were done by adults trying to draw in a childish style. The symbolism, the coloring and the motifs seem, at the very least, to have been heavily prompted by adults.
Kids don’t come up with this stuff on their own.”
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