...worth a thousand words

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a difficult subject matter to talk about. There are many intricate details that make up that conversation and there are too many points of view that the discussion can become overwhelming. The words that one would need to describe their side of the conflict is an impossible number to count. The Parent's Circle is one organization that understands how frustrating it is to convey one's message about the conflict through words. The Parent's Circle is a group of Palestinian and Israeli bereaved families that have joined together to send their own messages out. They understand the phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words" and starting September 12 they will be voicing their opinions through the Israel Cartoon Museum; they will use the caricatures in the Conflict Exhibit.

The Parent's circle is a grassroots organization that has over 500 families involved, half Israeli and half Palestinian. All of these families share a common thread – they have lost an immediate family member in the conflict. Their goal is to promote reconciliation as an alternative to the violence, hatred, and revenge that so many who live here wish upon their neighbors.

Robi Damelin, a member of the organization, explained that “the idea for a cartoon exhibition came after one of the members in our forum attended a cartoons seminar...after he told me of it, I thought that a cartoons exhibition, revolving around our themes, would be a communicative method with which to deliver our message to people who usually don't hear it.”

The curator of the show is a cartoonist named Michel Kishke. He is in contact with all of the cartoonists around the world whom they are asking for support. Kishke says that “curating the exhibit has been an immense challenge, as caricatures by their very nature can be abusive and extreme, funny and painful. Nevertheless, the Parents Circle agreed to show all of these works no matter how painful or cynical, in order to illustrate the absurdity of the conflict.”

Many famous cartoonists from all over the world have contributed their art to this exhibit. Among them are Donnely (The New Yorker), No-Rio (Japan), Plantu (France), Zapiro (South Africa), Wilcox (Australia), El-Roto (Spain), and Bromley (UK). Damelin went on to say that “it was pretty easy to get the cartoons, almost everyone was happy to assist. I feel that people usually want to do something about situations that bother them or that they care about, but they just don't know what to do. The only one who couldn't take part was an Iranian cartoonist who gave his blessing but said he's too afraid of his government to participate.” Of these pieces of art, Damelin singles out a cartoon as being her favorite. It is called “The Bullet” and depicts a bullet chasing a child and the caption reads “this is the bullet that broke the child, that broke the families, that broke the town that broke the state that was seeking revenge from the country that broke the heart of the world.” Damelin thinks that this cartoon embodies the organization's beliefs, ideas and hopes.


The author of the article presents us with a view of an organization that is taking steps to work for peace in the Middle East. They have united as families to work for a better understanding and come up with a resolution for the conflict. The author questions the curator and a member of the Parent's Circle show we really only get one side of the story but the article is about the exhibit. One cannot expect to gain any further understanding about the conflict from this article alone. I would have liked to have read a response from someone who had visited the exhibit as the article was written almost a week after the exhibit opened.

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