Art, Literature, and Film

Art as a Space of Struggle and Imagination

Art related to Israel and Palestine often carries a double weight. It is creative expression and also a way to survive, resist, mourn, and imagine alternatives. Because the political conflict is so intense and long lasting, many artists feel that even ordinary themes like family, landscape, or memory are never just private. A painting of an olive tree, a photograph of a checkpoint, or a performance in a bomb shelter may all be read as political statements, whether the artist intends that or not.

At the same time, not all work is explicit protest or propaganda. Some artists insist on showing ordinary life, humor, love, or abstract forms as a way to insist that Israelis and Palestinians are more than symbols of a conflict. In this field it is often hard to separate what is “about politics” from what is not, because identity, space, and movement are shaped so strongly by the conflict.

Palestinian Visual Art and Symbolism

Modern Palestinian visual art grew in conversation with the experience of displacement, occupation, and statelessness. Because many Palestinians live as refugees or in exile, images of land, home, and return are especially powerful. The key symbol is the olive tree. It can refer to deep roots in the land, to family continuity, and also to the destruction of groves during war or settlement expansion. A single tree on a hill may at once show beauty and loss.

Other recurring images include the key, which stands for the homes left in 1948 and the hope of return. Many families kept their house keys, and artists often enlarge and stylize them on posters, murals, and sculptures. The cactus, or sabra, appears as a plant that survives in harsh conditions and marks the sites of destroyed villages. Even when artists move to abstraction, these motifs often remain as outlines or textures.

Political posters became a major form of expression, especially after the rise of Palestinian national institutions in the 1960s and 1970s. Graphic artists used bold colors and simple shapes to communicate quickly to a wide audience. Martyrs, prisoners, and fighters were depicted alongside doves, rifles, domes, and maps. In diaspora communities, wall murals and graffiti connect refugee camps or neighborhoods abroad with places in Palestine that many viewers have never seen.

In painting and sculpture, Palestinian artists navigate censorship, exile, and gaps in funding. Some work mainly inside the West Bank and Gaza, where movement is constrained and materials can be scarce. Others live in Israel, in neighboring Arab countries, or further abroad, and face different limits such as suspicion, language barriers, or pressure from funders. Exhibitions may be closed, visas denied, or donors insist on avoiding explicit political statements. As a result, many artists smuggle politics into seemingly private scenes, like a wedding with a checkpoint in the background, or a home interior with a television showing news of clashes.

Israeli Visual Art and Questions of Normality

Israeli visual art has always been tied to questions of land, identity, and belonging, but with a very different starting point. Early Israeli art often celebrated the building of a new society. Painters showed agricultural labor, new cities, and an idealized “New Jew” who was strong and rooted in the soil. Landscape painting became a way to claim connection to territory. Hills and valleys were depicted not just as scenery, but as part of a national story of return and renewal.

Over time, especially after the wars of 1967 and 1973, more Israeli artists began to question what lay beneath this confident image. Some explored the erasure of earlier Palestinian presence, for instance by photographing ruins of villages that had been covered by forests or parks. Others focused on military service, checkpoints, or life near borders, sometimes in subtle ways such as photographing everyday objects on a base or in a shelter without showing direct violence.

Contemporary Israeli art also grapples with internal social divisions. Artists may focus on the experience of Jews from Middle Eastern and North African backgrounds, Ethiopian Israelis, Russian speaking immigrants, or ultra Orthodox communities. The conflict with Palestinians appears implicitly in crowded housing, class inequality, or questions about who belongs where. While some artists support official narratives about security and survival, others criticize them by exposing fear, guilt, or denial in ordinary settings.

Israeli galleries and museums sometimes serve as contested spaces. Exhibitions that question state policies or show Palestinian suffering can cause public outcry, political pressure, or funding threats. At the same time, critical work is often possible precisely because there is an institutional art world, with universities, state funded museums, and private collectors. This creates a tension between dependence on state structures and resistance to them.

Shared and Collaborative Artistic Projects

Despite sharp divisions, there are artistic projects that bring Israelis and Palestinians together. These might include joint exhibitions, community murals, or residency programs that invite artists from both sides to live and work in the same place for a time. Often the aim is not to produce a single agreed narrative, but to place contrasting stories side by side.

Such collaborations are fragile. Artists may face accusations of “normalization” from Palestinian communities if the project seems to present relations as equal while occupation continues. Israeli participants may be criticized for aligning with “politicized” views. Funders and host institutions can also influence what is allowed, for example by insisting on balanced representation or by avoiding certain terms. Many artists who engage in joint work try to acknowledge power imbalances openly, rather than pretending that everyone is on the same footing.

Poetry and the Centrality of the Spoken Word

Poetry occupies a central place in the cultural life of both Palestinians and Israelis. It predates modern state boundaries and connects to older traditions of Arabic and Hebrew verse. Public poetry readings, songs based on poems, and quotations on posters and social media all give poets a role that can sometimes be as visible as political leaders.

For Palestinians, poetry often expresses loss, longing, and steadfastness. Poets who lived through dispossession or imprisonment wrote about exile, the memory of villages, and the tension between resistance and despair. Their work circulates not only in books, but also through recitation in homes, camps, and demonstrations. Poems may be turned into songs, making them easier to remember and share. The same lines can be read as national slogans, personal prayers, or love poems with a political echo.

Among Israeli Jews, poetry reflects varied experiences of immigration, war, and religion. Early poets often wrote about the shock of a new landscape and language. Later generations wrote about army service, the shadow of the Holocaust, and doubts about national myths. Some poets focus on intimate subjects such as family or aging, but the conflict enters in metaphors and images, such as sirens, shelters, or borders that cut through memories.

Hebrew and Arabic poetry about the region has also been translated widely. This makes it a key entry point for outsiders who want to understand emotional worlds that statistics and diplomatic reports cannot capture. Translation, however, always involves choices. Wordplay, religious echoes, and cultural references can be hard to render exactly, so poetry in translation can both reveal and distort.

Prose, Novels, and Personal Narratives

Novels and short stories offer detailed portraits of characters who live with the consequences of the conflict in their daily lives. Palestinian fiction often follows families across generations, from villages and towns before 1948 through displacement, camp life, and attempts to build a future under occupation or in exile. Authors explore themes such as the weight of memory, internal social hierarchies, and the tension between resistance and the desire for a normal life.

Israeli fiction portrays a different set of dilemmas. Common figures include soldiers, kibbutz members, immigrants from multiple continents, and urban professionals trying to balance career, family, and the constant presence of potential violence. Many novels question the official story of heroism and security by focusing on guilt, trauma, or avoidance. Others affirm the need for strength and vigilance, often through thrillers or war stories.

Memoirs and testimonies play a special role. Former soldiers, ex prisoners, survivors of attacks, and families of victims all publish accounts of what they have seen and done. These texts can challenge public denial or reinforce group narratives of victimhood and righteousness. Reading them side by side makes clear how two people can interpret the same event in starkly different ways, each grounded in sincere feeling.

Diaspora writers, both Palestinian and Jewish, add yet another layer. They often write in English, French, or other languages and address global audiences. Their work can link the conflict to experiences of racism, migration, or minority status in other countries. At times, they face criticism from their own communities for being too distant or too critical. Nonetheless, their books influence how readers around the world imagine Israel and Palestine.

Children’s Literature and Education Through Story

Stories for children help shape early ideas about identity, fear, and hope. In both Hebrew and Arabic, many picture books and young adult novels present historical events or everyday experiences through the eyes of a child or teenager. A story might follow a family during a curfew, a child who must pass through a checkpoint to reach school, or a youth who loses a sibling in war or an attack.

Other works deliberately promote coexistence. They tell of friendships across enemy lines, shared games, or misunderstandings that are resolved through dialogue. Such books often appear in bilingual editions, with Hebrew and Arabic side by side. They are sometimes used in joint schools or dialogue programs. Critics argue that these stories can oversimplify uneven power relations or ignore real barriers, while supporters see them as seeds for future change.

Children’s literature also conveys social norms. It shows who is presented as brave, who needs protection, and who has agency. For example, are girls shown as active participants in protests or army units, or mainly as caregivers and mourners. Are grandparents portrayed as wise guardians of tradition, or as people whose memories are questioned. These narrative choices shape how young readers imagine their place in the conflict.

Theatre and Performance as Live Encounter

Theatre and performance art create live spaces where people physically share a room across social and political divides. Palestinian theatre companies often operate in tight conditions, with travel restrictions, limited funding, and sometimes direct interference by authorities. Plays may be censored or disrupted, yet theatre persists as a way to address taboo subjects, such as collaboration, internal class tensions, or gender roles under occupation.

Israeli theatre ranges from large state funded institutions to small fringe groups. Many mainstream productions still tell national stories, including classic plays about pioneers and soldiers. However, fringe theatres frequently stage works that criticize nationalism, expose inequality, or give space to Arab citizens of Israel as creators rather than just characters. Some include simultaneous translation to allow both Hebrew and Arabic speakers to attend.

Joint productions that bring together Palestinian and Israeli actors are particularly delicate. While they can foster real conversations and friendships, they also raise political questions. Who writes the script. Who directs. In what language is the play performed. These choices can reproduce or challenge existing hierarchies. Even when a play is set in a neutral or historical context, audiences may interpret it as an allegory for the present.

Film as a Global Window on the Conflict

Cinema is one of the most visible cultural arenas for the Israel Palestine conflict. Feature films and documentaries reach audiences far beyond the region and participate in global debates. Because film combines image, sound, and narrative, it can show concrete realities such as walls, checkpoints, and destroyed homes, while also following characters through complex emotional journeys.

Palestinian cinema has developed in a context of statelessness. Many films are co produced with European or other foreign partners, or are made by diaspora directors. Stories often center on daily life under occupation, refugee experiences, or the struggle to move from place to place. Filmmakers pay close attention to details like waiting, searching for permits, or navigating multiple authorities. Humor appears frequently as a way to cope with absurd situations.

Israeli cinema covers a wide spectrum. Some films tell stories of army units, intelligence operations, or hostage crises. Others focus on family dramas in which the conflict appears indirectly, for instance as background news, military call ups, or memories of earlier wars. There is also a significant body of films that critically examine treatment of Palestinians, the legacy of the Holocaust, or discrimination within Israeli society.

Documentary film is especially important. Crews record protests, house demolitions, army operations, and the aftermath of attacks. They may be harassed, detained, or denied access, which affects what can be shown. NGOs and activist groups often use short films to document alleged human rights abuses or to present alternative narratives. Viewers must consider who funded the film, who is given a voice, and what is left out.

International festivals play a major role in shaping which films gain attention. Awards can bring filmmakers prestige and greater distribution, but also lead to accusations at home. Directors may be celebrated abroad as courageous critics while being viewed at home as disloyal or naive. At the same time, films that affirm national narratives can be embraced at home and criticized abroad as one sided.

Representation, Stereotypes, and Power

Across art, literature, and film, there is a constant struggle over representation. Stereotypes of “the terrorist,” “the settler,” “the victim,” or “the fanatic” appear in both local and foreign works. These simplified images can make it easier to mobilize support, but they obscure the diversity within each society. Artists and writers who challenge such images often face backlash from audiences who prefer clear villains and heroes.

Who controls funding and distribution shapes which stories travel. State agencies, foreign cultural institutes, private donors, and streaming platforms all have their own priorities. For example, a funder might request a focus on universal themes rather than explicit politics, or on dialogue projects rather than open confrontation. This can encourage certain kinds of narratives, such as personal reconciliation, over others, such as structural critique.

Language also affects visibility. Works in English or French often reach global audiences more easily than those in Arabic or Hebrew only. Translation can open doors, but it can also filter out more radical or locally specific elements. Some creators respond by incorporating subtitles, multilingual dialogue, or visual storytelling that relies less on words.

Art as Memory and Future Imagination

Because the conflict is long and unresolved, art functions as a form of memory and a rehearsal for possible futures. Museums, memorials, and commemorative projects curate particular versions of history. A photographic exhibition about destroyed villages, or a memorial for victims of bombings, does not merely look backward. It affirms claims about what must be recognized and repaired.

At the same time, speculative and imaginative works try to picture different futures. Science fiction, alternative history, and experimental art sometimes portray shared cities, new political structures, or environmental crises that affect everyone. Such works can seem far from current reality, yet they open spaces where it is possible to ask what kind of coexistence, separation, or transformation might be desirable.

In this sense, art, literature, and film around Israel and Palestine are not only mirrors of a tragic present. They are also tools through which communities and individuals tell themselves who they have been, who they are, and who they might yet become.