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CNN Live Saturday
A Profile Of Arab Cartoonist Umaya Joha
Aired August 09, 2003 - 18:45 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KELLI ARENA, CNN ANCHOR: In Gaza, where the sound of gunshots is common and loud political discussions can be heard on every street corner, a silent outcry is turning a lot of heads. CNN's Jerrold Kessel reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Umaya Joha is among the most famous and the most powerful women in the Arab world. Even when she prepares a first birthday drawing for her daughter Noor (ph) -- Noor (ph) means light -- the message, she says, is for all the Palestinian people.
Her political cartoons do very much reflect Palestinian popular sentiment.
"It's a right and a duty," she tells me. "My cartoons," she says, "don't only reflect reality, but seek to cultivate the soul of the Arab and Muslim people, and to stress the need to change reality."
Hers is a silent outcry, but the silent voice is anything but soft. The message of the cartoons -- harshly anti-Israel, anti- American, and fiercely critical of Arab leaders.
The road map to peace as a voracious serpent. "They are the ones with blood on their hands," her response to Israel's refusal to release Palestinians who have killed Israelis. And of the bloody events in the Jenin refugee camp last year, she shows Israel not able to inflict its pain on Palestinians without the cover of the Arab leadership.
Pride of place in her workroom, a prestigious prize from the Gulf, awarded for a cartoon showing that the Arab rulers see their holy war the protection of their golden seats of power.
"They hardly represent themselves," she says caustically of Arab rules, "I don't believe in them at all."
Much of Umaya's modest home is a shrine to her husband, a leading militant who was killed earlier this year by Israel in a major attack on a Gaza neighborhood.
Not only the Arab world is following her. Through her cartoons, Israeli professor Mordechai Keidar seeks to understand and to explain the Palestinian mind-set.
MORDECHAI KEIDAR, ISRAELI LECTURER: I find her art very important for Israelis to understand and to look at what goes on in the Palestinian souls, through her eyes, through her brush.
KESSEL: This was her forceful response to the Israeli professor, who wrote an article in her Palestinian paper, arguing that a key to peace is Palestinians being ready to abandon their right to return to their original homes.
Her Palestinian key to those homes opens the door to the whole of Palestinian, including what is now Israel.
And she says: "Any Palestinian leader who tries to ignore this will fall. No doubt of that."
If Israelis and Palestinians go back to fighting each other, Umaya Joha is bound to remain a center of Palestinian attraction, but if the two peoples began to advance down a true peace road, will her uncompromising views remain mainstream or come to be sidelined in the Palestinian community?
Jerrold Kessel, CNN, Gaza.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 9, 2003 - 18:45 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KELLI ARENA, CNN ANCHOR: In Gaza, where the sound of gunshots is common and loud political discussions can be heard on every street corner, a silent outcry is turning a lot of heads. CNN's Jerrold Kessel reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Umaya Joha is among the most famous and the most powerful women in the Arab world. Even when she prepares a first birthday drawing for her daughter Noor (ph) -- Noor (ph) means light -- the message, she says, is for all the Palestinian people.
Her political cartoons do very much reflect Palestinian popular sentiment.
"It's a right and a duty," she tells me. "My cartoons," she says, "don't only reflect reality, but seek to cultivate the soul of the Arab and Muslim people, and to stress the need to change reality."
Hers is a silent outcry, but the silent voice is anything but soft. The message of the cartoons -- harshly anti-Israel, anti- American, and fiercely critical of Arab leaders.
The road map to peace as a voracious serpent. "They are the ones with blood on their hands," her response to Israel's refusal to release Palestinians who have killed Israelis. And of the bloody events in the Jenin refugee camp last year, she shows Israel not able to inflict its pain on Palestinians without the cover of the Arab leadership.
Pride of place in her workroom, a prestigious prize from the Gulf, awarded for a cartoon showing that the Arab rulers see their holy war the protection of their golden seats of power.
"They hardly represent themselves," she says caustically of Arab rules, "I don't believe in them at all."
Much of Umaya's modest home is a shrine to her husband, a leading militant who was killed earlier this year by Israel in a major attack on a Gaza neighborhood.
Not only the Arab world is following her. Through her cartoons, Israeli professor Mordechai Keidar seeks to understand and to explain the Palestinian mind-set.
MORDECHAI KEIDAR, ISRAELI LECTURER: I find her art very important for Israelis to understand and to look at what goes on in the Palestinian souls, through her eyes, through her brush.
KESSEL: This was her forceful response to the Israeli professor, who wrote an article in her Palestinian paper, arguing that a key to peace is Palestinians being ready to abandon their right to return to their original homes.
Her Palestinian key to those homes opens the door to the whole of Palestinian, including what is now Israel.
And she says: "Any Palestinian leader who tries to ignore this will fall. No doubt of that."
If Israelis and Palestinians go back to fighting each other, Umaya Joha is bound to remain a center of Palestinian attraction, but if the two peoples began to advance down a true peace road, will her uncompromising views remain mainstream or come to be sidelined in the Palestinian community?
Jerrold Kessel, CNN, Gaza.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
