IN STEREO

I mean, the debate about painting the wall, for me, makes no sense. I’m one of the first people in Bethlehem who started to invite artists to paint on the wall. Look, this wall got forgotten after it was built. [At first] the media took the story; it was a fresh story. And then it became an old story. So art is a method to force media, and force people to bring back the story of the wall to the world. This is what we mean by the graffiti and artwork on the wall. It’s not to make the wall beautiful. That’s a very stupid argument! The wall is ugly, and it will remain ugly. But with the graffiti, tourists are taking pictures; they’re looking at it. So this is the point. This is why the hotel is here. You come to our hotel and you can see how bad the view is, and what effects this wall has. We have a workshop here, called Wall-Mart, where people can buy spray paint and make stencils.

And the point of this is to make physical contact between tourists and the wall. Because, you know, when you have this physical contact, it’s kind of harder to forget. You connect with the injustice; you connect with the issue. You are making a statement. As you see, all of the statements that are made on the wall are something about justice, about peace, about freedom. The power of art is so amazing that today we are making the Palestinian voice so loud and [making it] heard in the world. With no violence. Because we Palestinians paid thousands of martyrs, thousands of souls, to make our voice reach the world. I mean, when you think of the kids who go and demonstrate behind the fence in Gaza, they are 100% certain that they are not defeating Israel by doing this act. But they are doing this act because they want their voices heard. – Wisam