This work is part of the Walls of Gaza II series, produced in 1994 following the Oslo I Accord of 1993, which was received as a bitterly disappointing setback by the Palestinians.

Against a background black-and-white photograph of a group of Palestinian children shouting and waving, is overlain the initial preamble to the United Nations Resolution 681, adopted by the UN Security Council in December of 1990. The UN document sets out in the clearest terms the obligations that bind all UN member states, reaffirming the principle of the inadmissibility of territory acquired by war, and calling upon the major signatories of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under that internationally agreed standard. It goes on to deplore Israel’s rejection of previous UN Resolutions and its provocative attitude towards the Palestinian people that continues to aggravate their situation. The Resolution stresses the responsibilities of any Occupier to take care of the population of the occupied country, their duty not to destroy property and their overriding responsibility to respect the rights of people and of children in particular. Five prior Resolutions are cited in the text (607 of 1988; 609 of 1988; 636 of 1989; 641 of 1989; & 672 of 1990) all of which have, in the interim, either been rejected or ignored.

If the children can be seen as celebrating such a forcefully worded Resolution setting out the minimum standards guaranteeing their protection, the tension of the work exists in the manner in which the reality of the situation on the ground offers a complete contrast to the high-minded sentiments expressed in the document. The overall effect of these two contradictory – if not mutually exclusive – realities, one visual the other verbal, presented within the same frame is one of uneasy cognitive dissonance.

© October Gallery, London, 2021.