Half Century of Struggle

Curator's note: In this poster which was published by the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) chapter in Italy in 1971 we see the outline of an armed fada'i (Arabic: guerilla fighter) standing in an offensive pose with a bayonet-fixed rifle. The poster is printed using hot yellow and bright red ink. Running down the left hand edge are a series of maps detailing the changes in the outline of the territorial boundaries of Palestine claimed by the Zionists over the course of the fifty years between 1917, when the Balfour Declaration of Sympathy was issued and 1967 when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza during what is known in the Arab world as "The June War" and in Israel is called "The Six Days’ War". The top map is of historic Palestine. Below that, in Italian, are the words "Israeli Expansionism" and below that are three yellow arrows each with a date showing the successive enlargements of Israel's territorial claims. The first arrow says "1947"; the second "1948"; and the third "1967". Between the maps and the figure of the guerilla fighter is the Palestinian nationalist slogan, written in Arabic: "Revolution Until Victory". This same slogan is repeated in Italian, "Rivoluzione fino alla viltoria", under the guerilla's left elbow. In the upper left hand corner of the poster is a copy of the Balfour Declaration of Sympathy in Italian. The text block at the top of the poster under the heading "1917" reads as follows: “November 2, 1917—With the declaration of Balfour, British imperialism tried to hold back the push toward unification by the Arab people by arrogating to itself the right to dispose of Palestinian land by recognizing the claims of international Zionism. In this way, the bases of the future state of Israel—watch dog of world imperialism in the Middle East—are laid.” The text block at the bottom of the poster under the heading "2 November 1971—A Half Century of Struggle" reads as follows: “November 2, 1971—A half century of struggle. In Palestine and in the vast occupied areas of Arab territory the expansionism of the Zionist state of Israel clashes with the righteous struggle of the Palestinian people—the vanguard of the Arab Revolution.”