TRIP TO THE PALESTINE MUSEUM

In order to prepare for our trip to the Palestine Museum US, Global Studies students watched a series of videos and read an article on Vox to gain some background knowledge before we went on the field trip.  Through these sources, I gained basic information about the Palestinian Crisis. I found out that the overall conflict has built up over decades and the purpose of the fighting is to determine what pieces of land belong to what countries and nations (Gaza Strip, West Bank, etc.).  Currently, results from the 1967 War leave Gaza to Hamas’ control and West Bank in Palestine’s control, but both are occupied by Israel. After this war, groups of settlements started moving to Israel occupied locations.
I found our Global Studies trip to the Palestine Museum US very informative, interesting and generally diverse from other museums.  Our tour guide, Faisal Saleh, started the two hour presentation by explaining to the group what exactly Palestine is and the history of its conflict.  Surprisingly, very few people know exactly what is going on, because there are motions put in place by Israel to keep things under wraps. After our question and answer session, we watched about 20 minutes of a movie about cross stitching and embroidering in Palestine.  It was very interesting to gain other people’s personal perspectives on the tragedies their country was facing. After watching the movie, we had the opportunity to walk around the museum and look at the different books and art pieces. I was surprised by how big the museum was and it was nice to be able to touch and look through some of the books and pieces.  There were many different exhibits around the museum, but I was really moved by the artwork done by the children in Palestine. After the (around) 50 day bombing, children from West Bank and the Gaza Strip were naturally traumatized and social workers were brought in to work with them. During a session, the kids were asked to draw what they had seen, and they drew a variety of different graphic images, including bombings, people dying and scenes of blood.  Because Israel is trying to hard to keep their Humanitarian Crisis a secret from the rest of the world, this is one of the first times these pictures have been displayed to the public. I found the images so captivating because they portrayed what actually happened from the most innocent and honest perspectives.