I Am With the Revolutionaries

Click here to view a scaleable high resolution version of this poster 

Special thanks to Emanuele for the Italian-to-English translation; to Amer Shomali for the digital remastering; and to the Museum of Design Zurich for making this high resolution file available

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Analysis: This poster presents it narrative in a long horizontal format not unlike those of the Bayeau Tapestery and Picasso's Geurnica both of which the artist quotes in both content and format. Myriad icons and groupings dot the poster with each adding a critical historical or cultural detail of the story of contemporary Palestine. Intrisic to this telling is the complexity of Palestine's modern history: details related to ancient Jewish history, the biblical tale of the Promised Land are interwoven with quotes from Fatah and the Quran, references to the pivotal 1968 battle of Al Karameh and the political struggle for the rights of Arab women.

1) Manifesto The Palestinian national liberation movement is an essential part of the Arab liberation movement and of the international movement because all the liberation struggles in the world mutually help each other. The 1948 war brought to the rebirth of the state of Israel and was led by the feudal half-bourgeois Arab regimes allied with the colonialism and the imperialism in the Arab area. During the common struggle in Palestine and in the Arab world we need to aim at the counter-revolutionary forces (the Zionist movement, whose colonial base in Palestine is Israel, Arab reaction, the colonialism and imperialism) to create revolutionary Arab regimes able to mobilize the Palestinian and Arab masses for a long-term popular war. 

2) Israel, where are you going? More than 20 years of Zionist domination weakened the international feelings of the Jewish working class in Israel, which was totally alienated by the Jewish bourgeoise, i.e., Zionism. The working class and the Arab masses are still largely subdued by feudal, theocratic and petty bourgeois ideologies; The armed struggle is the only way to liberate the Israelis and the Arabs, giving them back their rights and their dignity. We think that the Vietnamese model is the only way to bring the imperialist and counter-revolutionary forces down in the underdeveloped countries. The Palestinian resistance chose this way in opposition to the Arab revisionist bureaucratic and petty burgeois regimes, who are still waging a classical war and diplomacy, and to the feudal monarchies which are trying to physically obliterate the resistance. 

3) The struggle for the liberation will be the rebirth of the Arab Woman 

4) Imperialism is not Christian nor Jewish nor Muslim but it's based on the cult of money  

5) The text inside the crescent moon is a quote from the Holy Quran:  I swear by the galaxies. Precisely running their courses. And by the night as it recedes. And by the morn as it breathes. Woe to the defrauders. Those who, when they take a measure from people, they take in full. But when they measure or weigh to others, they cheat. Quran. 

6) Text inside the balloon: The 4000 years old biblical promise (I will give that country to your progeny from the Nile to the Euphrates) was for Abraham's progeny: both the Jews (the sons of Israel) and the Arabs (the sons of Ismael) 

7) Text under the rabbi and the students: The prophecy of the "return" became true when the Jews came back to Judea to build the walls of Jerusalem and to reconsecrate the temple after their captivity. In the Holy Scripture. There's no promise for a second return so the question of Israel presented as the return after 2000 years contradicts the Bible's promise on which claims to be based. For this reason even in Jerusalem you can find Jews who think that Israel is against their religion.