Palestinian museum missing one thing: Exhibits

Shira Rubin, Special for USA Today, Birzeit

Transcribed from the clipping

“BIRZEIT, WEST BANK — A $24 million Palestinian Museum of Art, History and Culture that opened Wednesday showcases a beautiful building with sweeping views. All that’s missing are the exhibits. It’s an unfortunate metaphor for a people long in search of a national identity and homeland. Still, Palestinians went ahead with a festive celebration marking the empty museum’s debut to ‘tell the world, the entire world, that we are here, that we are still here, and we will continue to be here to build our independent state,’ Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said. ‘We have been planted here since the dawn of history,’ he said… Completion of the exhibits has been delayed, in part because the museum’s director resigned last December over disagreements with the museum’s management. With him went the first exhibit, ‘Never Part,’ which showcased personal items of Palestinian refugees to showcase their heritage. Museum Chairman Omar Qattan said that after years of delays, the decision was made to go ahead with the opening ‘for something affirmative in the midst of all this negative energy’… The opening was timed to coincide with the week in which Palestinians mark the 68th anniversary of the nakba, ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic… Israeli Communications Ministry spokesman Yehiel Shavi dismissed the museum, telling USA TODAY in a phone interview Wednesday that it was an ‘attempt to take away the Jewish identity of this contested place.’”

Photograph caption

“The Palestinian Museum has been hailed by Palestinian leaders as a symbol of optimism.” · Shira Rubin, Special for USA Today

Context added by this archive

The same reporter and the same day as the Victoria Advocate printing held here, under a shorter headline — and with one paragraph the Texas paper did not run. An Israeli communications ministry spokesman told this newspaper by telephone that a museum of Palestinian art and history was an attempt to take away the Jewish identity of the place. The building had no exhibits in it.

Cite this item

"Palestinian museum missing one thing: Exhibits," USA Today, 19 May 2016. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2016-004. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2016-004

Elsewhere in the archive

Human rights and human shieldsUSA Today · 25 July 2014 · the same newspaper
‘Our enemies want our annihilation, not peace’USA Today · 11 June 1990 · the same newspaper
Palestinian children join attacks on IsraelLebanon Daily News · 24 February 2016 · the same year
New Palestinian museum missing one thing: All the exhibitsVictoria Advocate · 19 May 2016 · the same year
Israel accuses Hamas of diverting aidThe Rock Island Argus · 20 September 2016 · the same year

This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American and Anglophone newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1812 to 2022. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.

The clipping belongs to the newspaper that printed it, or to the wire service that supplied the copy. It is reproduced here for research, criticism and commentary. The city is derived from the masthead, not read off the clipping.

Something wrong here, or something you know about this clipping? The archive is still being built and corrections are wanted: maria@rozumstudio.com, quoting CP-2016-004.

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