PORTRAITS OF DENIAL & DESIRE
Sepia Prints (2014 - Present)
Portraits of Denial & Desire Sepia

Hamed Moussa. Digital Print. Sepia.
80 x 60 and 110 x 80 inches
John Halaka © 2015

Hamed Moussa - 1910 (?) - 2013.  Born in Deir El Assad, Palestine.

Hamed Moussa, was born in the village of Deir El Assad, I Northern Palestine, a little over a 100 years ago.  When I interviewed him, he told me that he didn’t know his exact age. He is one of the lucky few Palestinians who was not permanently displaced from his homeland in 1948 and has had the now very rare privilege for a Palestinian farmer of farming the small part of his ancestral land that was not expropriated by Israel.  

Hamed Moussa belonged to the land in every way and never intimated any patronizing, self-conscious, or defensive claims that the land belongs to him.

One of the fundamental differences in the relationship to the land between the indigenous Palestinians and the Israeli occupiers, is that the settlers forcefully insist that the land belongs to them while the indigenous Palestinians simply and naturally belong to the land.

“Those who left the country didn’t imagine that the state of Israel would remain, and they thought that they could quickly reclaim their land.  They didn’t realize that all of the land would be expropriated and that they would remain in exile…  I thank God that we were able to remain in our village…  I thank God that we were not all expelled…”

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