Amended Resolutions? Part 2 was created in 1994, following the signing of the Oslo Accords, which while holding out the carrots of more immediate economic aid to Palestinians and the possibility of a Palestinian state at some time in the future, further reinforced the asymmetric power structures of the status quo and advanced the Israeli strategy of gaining more control over lands seized by force on the ground while thumbing their noses at any and all censures made by the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council. This noncompliant stance was encouraged and ultimately enabled by active U.S. support and the partisan misuse of its veto power, at the United Nations in New York.

The background image for this work shows all that is left of a house in Gaza following an Israeli bombardment. Where once a beautiful old Ottoman-era building stood, nothing more now remains than a pile of rubble.

In this second version of Amended Resolutions? Shawa overlays a background scene of irrefutable evidence with the opening pages of UN General Assembly Resolution No 2243, Concerning Respect for and Implementation of Human Rights in Occupied Territories, December 19, 1968. This Resolution was passed following the UN-brokered cease-fire that ended the bloody Arab-Israeli “six-day war” of June 1967, which redrew the Middle East map to give the Israeli victors expanded control of the contested territories. For Palestinians the war’s end signalled the start of a heavy-handed occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Israeli forces.

The interrogation mark in the title appears to ask the question: When were the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the many UN Resolutions condemning the Israeli use of force suspended for Palestinians, or superseded by new amendments to the already published General Assembly Resolutions?

© October Gallery, London, 2021.