These are the sounds of Palestine, ringing louder than ever.
What is the sound of Palestine? For those in Gaza, the hum of Israeli drones permeates a soundscape punctuated by air strikes and the cries of children. Then there’s the sound of songbirds providing respite to embattled families, creatures whose ability to freely fly across man-made borders has been a motif of Palestinian literature for decades. But above all, Palestinian music in its rich history and diversity has remained a crucial thread knitting together a people in exile. Popular muses like Mohammed Assaf, rural folk traditions like dabke, militant resistance singers hailing the fedayeen, and diasporic innovators all display different articulations of Palestinian resistance and sumud (steadfastness).
Contributions from musicians in solidarity have also been crucial in influencing the sound of Palestine. Since the early 20th century, artists like Fairuz, the Rahbani Brothers, and Marcel Khalife (Lebanon) as well as Sheikh Imam and Umm Kulthum (Egypt) have been hailed as champions of Palestinian freedom and important influences; as quoted in David McDonald’s 2013 book My Voice Is My Weapon, Mahmoud Darwish honored the death of Assi Rahbani in 1986 by asserting that Rahbani’s songs became the “reference point” for the hearts of many Palestinians.
The notion that culture can transcend boundaries has become a bit of a truism, but in the case of Palestine, the fugitive, ephemeral nature of music has become a crucial tactic for connecting to one another and the land. Each Palestinian enclave is surrounded and separated; a system of city-specific IDs prevents Palestinians from moving freely within their own territory. Some Gazans have never left the Strip. In August 2023, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) documented a total of 645 physical obstacles to movement in the West Bank alone; Israeli peace organization B’tselem has documented over 100 new checkpoints erected after October 7th, 2023. Meanwhile, the region’s roughly half a million Israeli settlers, whose occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal under international law, are given the benefit of military protection, settler-only roads, and unfettered freedom of travel in a system of segregation enforced by military violence that makes South African apartheid look like, in the words of historian Rashid Khalidi, “child’s play.”
Palestinian musicians continue to find ways around these barriers to assert their presence and identity: according to Ramallah rapper Muqata’a, musicians from the occupied territories have been accustomed to collaborating online long before the pandemic, flouting the physical borders that prevent them from meeting in person. Radio Alhara, Palestine’s preeminent online radio station, casts the net even wider, having become a hub for international musical, academic, and artistic solidarity since its inception in 2020. And for those that are able to navigate the colonial borders, events like Ramallah’s Palestine Music Expo (PMX) bring together a global network of Palestinian musicians like Jowan Safidi, Bashar Murad, and Rasha Nahas who are navigating the boundaries between underground and pop.
But it’s also important to recognize that the Palestinian identity is not without its internal divisions. While the web is an important conduit for communication between Gaza, the West Bank, and the wider diaspora, internet access continues to be a crucial focus of mutual aid in Gaza after the enclave was largely cut off from the web after October 7. Less than a hundred kilometers away, however, is “five-star prison” Ramallah, which has a large university-educated, middle-class population compared to refugee camps like Nuseirat in Gaza. The blockades, wars, and economic deprivation of Gaza has created an enclave lauded for its spirit of resistance. Ramallah, on the other hand, is the seat of the Palestinian Authority (PA), an entity some argue is propped up by Western investment and carries out repression as proxies for the Israeli military. Sociologist Lisa Taraki critiques Western commentators that hold up Ramallah’s cosmopolitan cultural output as “proof of the resilience of the middle class, the victory of globalization, the defeat of the resistance, or of the PA’s ability to assure normalcy in a time of conflict and strife.” But Gaza is also a hub of culture, albeit one that may not be as easily accessible to us in the West; that’s precisely why the enclave’s numerous cultural institutions have been systematically destroyed by Israeli bombing, including the Eltiqa Gallery recently featured at contemporary art exhibition documenta fifteen. While they may not be on Bandcamp, Gazan artists like Sol Band and Osprey V are an important part of the Palestinian sound as well.
With an ear to the context of the economic, cultural, and social divisions within the Palestinian territories, largely caused by Zionist occupation, settlement, and militarization, perhaps we can connect the dots between a nation and culture in exile. This edition of Ley Lines highlights artists from Gaza, Haifa, New York, Lyd, Vienna, Ramallah, and more, working in genres as disparate as electro-dabke, ambient, modern classical, and post-hardcore. These are the sounds of Palestine, ringing louder than ever.
Ley Lines: Palestine — James Gui, July 9th 2024
