The nomination of a major collection of posters from the Palestine Poster Project Archives has been accepted for formal review by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s Memory of the World program. The UNESCO program’s International Register inscribes library and archival holdings of “world significance and outstanding universal value.”I have nothing at all against the Palestine Poster Project. Despite the name, they have gathered an incredible collection of historic Zionist posters from as far back as 1897. It is a tremendous research site with fascinating tidbits and some fantastic and important poster art.
The nominated work, the Liberation Graphics Collection of Palestine Posters, is the first documentary heritage resource ever nominated by the state of Palestine for inscription to the Memory of the World program. If inscribed, it will join a register that includes the Bayeux Tapestry, the Book of Kells, the Phoenician Alphabet, the Gutenberg Bible, Karl Marx’s personally annotated manuscript of Das Kapital, and hundreds of other historically significant documents.
The Liberation Graphics Collection of Palestine Posters comprises 1,700 rare posters created by Palestinian and international artists in solidarity with the Palestinian quest for liberation, sovereignty, and the right of return. These documents cover a critical time period in Palestinian history: the second half of the twentieth century, when Palestinians organized and asserted themselves under conditions of colonization, war, exile, and occupation.
Here is a poster from the Fifth Zionist Congress in 1901.
Not only that, they include several dozen of my posters on their site! While most of them are politically oriented and were not created to be great art, I am proud of this poster that they included.
There are a also few early anti-semitic posters from the Dreyfus Affair.
Now, let's look at the special collection that the "State of Palestine" nominated to be included along with the Gutenberg Bible.
The earliest Palestinian Arab posters they have (outside a reproduction of a 1960 painting) are from 1967.
They include this poster against UNSC resolution 242 put out by Fatah:
And they have an early version of The Map That Lies:
I agree that the collection should be seen - people need to compare and contrast the violent posters of the Palestinian Arabs...
with the forward-looking posters of the Zionists.
If the special Palestinian Arab collection of posters gets accepted by UNESCO, they will be hailed as an important part of Palestinian history and culture. Clearly the PA government thinks so.
Will anyone ask the simple question: Why were there no posters created before the Six Day War?