The block is a design research project exploring and mapping out the design constructions ranging from the actual material to the shape it takes changing the Palestinian landscape. As a way to understand the physical boundaries, I attempt to showcase some of the realities that the indigenous population lives under. Through this work, I navigate various layers of oppressions manifested in the Block. The Block is a barricade, a tunnel gate, a barbed wire, it is the overpopulated concentration of Palestinians completely surrounded by military and walls. People living under these conditions are forced to cope with and more importantly, stand resilient against the day-to-day incursion on humanity, normality, and peace.

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context:

The territory of “Palestine,” refers to the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Edward Said notes in his book The Question of Palestine that “Palestine became a predominantly Arab and Islamic country by the end of the seventh century. The landscape of Israel and Palestine is complex due to numerous reasons. The most prominent causes are the consecutive colonial campaigns that spawned for close to two centuries. Late 19th century, and before that, all the way till now the landscape is continually altered. Shifts of power, systemic land grab, and mass expulsion of entire communities follow every new incursion. British colonialism of Palestine, in the late 19th century, paved the way for the establishment of Israel (1983, p. 144). When the British colonial forces withdrew in 1948 (Pappe 2006), they left the native population unarmed, fending against the notorious Zionist military “Haganah” and other Israeli military groups. What is known as the Nakba--Arabic for Catastrophe--ensued; approximately seven hundred thousand of the native population were forcibly removed from their lands (see Khalidi 1994; Morris 1987; Pappe 2006). The majority of them sought refuge outside of Palestine, to neighboring Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. Some sought refuge within. The Gaza Strip and the West Bank mostly consist of populations that were expelled in 1948 cities, towns, and villages that are now Israeli. There are over 16 refugee camps in Occupied Gaza and the West Bank existing to this day. The perpetual state of war for over 100 years has impacted the people heavily, beyond architecture, and space. There is no concrete sociological survey of how the violent shifts of power impacted the fabric of society living in different concentrations surrounded by fences and Blocks. In this design project, I explore the relationship between landscape and power structure manifested in the Israeli Occupation, and before that British colonialism in Palestine.

As a Palestinian and a designer-artist I constantly examine my surroundings and try hard to project my understanding of it in the form of art. I look deep at the different tools which became symbols of the Palestinian strife for human rights. The cement blocks, the barricades, barbed wires, and the wall, are met with alternative routes, active and passive forms of disobedience that espouse hope and inspire creativity. The structure is there to distort space and tamper with time, the Palestinians has no option but to challenge it by performing the most basic task, such as going to school, or maybe even breathing. Understanding the relationship between an occupied Palestinian and the visual tools of oppression is a crucial subject that I intend to research for future projects and endeavors. I aim at giving an alternative narrative to the conflict, one that tells the story of a day in the life of a native. As a Palestinian, I lived 22 years of my life in the Gaza Strip, I survived, the first Intifada 1987-1993, the second intifada, 2000-2004. the Palestinian civil war, 2005-2007, the deadliest Israeli military campaign, December 2008 - 15 January 2009, countless military incursions, and the worst of all for me personally, was how our collective freedom of movement was systemically curbed or restricted mainly in times of war and confrontation. Visually, it translated to buffer zones, giant roadblocks, cement barricades, and turnstile gates actively keeping the landscape under perpetual surveillance. A city like Gaza with a population of two million has been under unlawful Israeli air, sea, and land siege since 2007 (Pappe & Chomsky 2010). The design manifested in Israeli cement barriers, military checkpoints, and most of all armed settlers, strongly suggest an apartheid ethnostate thriving on the drainage of Palestinian resources. In my opinion, every oppressive regime is guilty of using public space to highlight disproportionality. In the case of Palestine, settler colonialism thrives on discrimination, i.e social classifications which deem some cultures, identities, more acceptable. You find social and political supremacy conveyed in isolated and militarized rich concentrations of wealth leaching off the back of the Other in this case, the indigenous Palestinian. To the uninformed, misinformed eye, it may be unimportant. For the oppressed, every aspect of it, the landscape that is, works to serve and maintain supremacy and oppression. The moral question should have a bigger influence to ensure a humane, just world. To be specific, looking at the different settlements in Hebron, and Bethlehem, one notices the vast inequality in terms of access to space resources and infrastructure. The military is there to protect the settler- only population from any encroachment when in reality, settlement construction is an ongoing scheme to strip Palestinians from their land and livelihoods. The military is there to ensure that the settlers have the upper hand to ransack any farm and steal more land from the Palestinian.

Spatial Investigation.

The goal of these maps is to utilize data representations to tell the story of the different Palestinian territories and highlight the illegality of settlements. The areas highlighted in green color indicate Palestinian concentrations and lands that are completely cut or interrupted from other areas making the best routes impossible to embark upon I,e making movement harder. As I further study this, It becomes clear to me the systemic decisions made which are then translated with new maps I,e new lines cutting through more territory to make way for settle colonialism. The perpetual land grab is one means Israel uses to insure suppression and oppression of the indigenous individual and community.
The first thought as I began narrowing down ideas for the project proposal was finding the various elements at play that help shape the landscape. I pondered, who controls the landscape? Who has ultimate access to it? Upon inspecting data pertaining to the geography, the politics, and history of the landscape, I aimed at zoning in on one crucial thing; The visuals deployed to monitor and restrict freedom of movement for the native population in the West Bank. The map aims to utilize illustrations that indicate checkpoints and other obstacles standing guard to maintain the perpetual land grab making way for more settler colonialism.
+ THE OCCUPIED WEST BANK AS FRAGMENTED SPACE

Downlode - Designed by the author: Bashar lubbad, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Arabic typography to highlight “Soumod” as a defying culture,Soumod ,صمود (steadfastness or resilience) as a coping mechanism to deal with obstacles of material oppression. Beyond the means to cope with restrictions, there exists a persistence culture revealing itself in day to day life activities; the graffiti and memorials, the weddings and fashion. Normality is the sustained state of resilience.
Designed by the author: Bashar lubbad, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Social justice in Palestine: the theme of Somoudصـــــــــــــمـــــود
By drawing parallels between the general understanding of Sustainability with the resilience of Palestinians living under physical boundaries, I attempt to bring my audience closer to the situation in Palestine. How an entire population, whose land identity and livelihood are under continual threat, can continue to thrive, innovate, overcome!
Non-violent resistance in a Palestinian context has a spatial foundation within the concept of sumud, meaning steadfastness in Arabic. Sumud is a common term used to describe Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation. While it entered discourse in the 1960s, it is likely to have been part of a collective Palestinian consciousness of clinging to the land, dating from the period of the British Mandate (1917–48).38 The concept has acquired multiple and complex meanings over the years, throughout which its varying definitions and applications have found different resonances at various junctures of the conflict.
Many schools' cultural projects, commercial stores, neighbourhoods and refugee camps carry that name to reassure an identity and reaffirm anti-occupation sentiment. Smoud is the audacity to rebuild after every destructive war, the gamble to harvest olive grooves under constant danger from settlers and the military. Sustainability is using the tiniest of spaces to plant the most basic vegetables so you won't have to go to the market in times of closure and curfews. The domestication of birds not only serves as a means of communication but also a source of food during the hardest of times. Sumoud is the cultural encyclopedia of songs and folklore passed from one generation to the other still relevant to this day to every Palestinian regardless of where they are.

Screenshots 2021

THE ROAD MAP IN PIECES (Design by author 2020)Between every town, city, refugee camp, there exists a barrier, a checkpoint, a watchtower, barbed wire or a wall, Israeli checkpoints normalize the irregularity of time and place. The “RoadMap” begins where it ends; because travel time is irregular. It could take a Palestinian traveller up to 5 hours to get to the destination, while the Israeli, one hour. While an Israeli journey is able to use the high way connecting to the dierent illegal settlements and outposts, a Palestinian traveller has to cross through dierent checkpoints and roadblocks oftentimes changing the means of transporting in order to be granted entry.
DOWNLOAD - PRINT COPY Designed by the author: Bashar lubbad, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

+ ID SYSTEM IN ISRAEL.

The question of intersectionality to me as an artist can be explained as the Venn Diagram of socio-economic, racial, sexual, ethnic, religious, and political identifiers which sometimes overlap to highlight problems of systemic racism, sexism, and socioeconomic inequality. I thought of Christopher Columbus, and how the celebration of his legacy highlights a Colonialist, Racist, and Brutal Legacy. However, I then changed my mind because I wanted the idea of intersectionality to be more relevant to my background and experiences. I come from the occupied land, what is known as ‘Israel’. Intersectionality to me is manifested best in Israel’s system of control imposed on the population through its color-coded ID for Palestinians living across the occupied Land. As a Palestinian coming from the Gaza Strip, I carry the Green identification (ID) card issued by the Israeli military. Around 2 million of us live in an enclave completely sealed off by Israel's occupation since 2006. Gaza Strip is where the opportunity to leave is the exception to the rule. I do not have a passport, but I carry a travel document and in most Countries, I am considered stateless. There are 7-8 million of us, Palestinians living in the occupied land as third-class citizens. Around 3 million of us live on the west bank also carrying a Green ID card and a travel document. There are half a million living in Jerusalem carrying a Blue ID card which is a residency status issued by the Israeli authorities and must be renewed every two years. Jerusalemite Arabs enjoy more freedom of movement at home and abroad with the exception of Gaza. If a Jerusalem resident travels abroad they risk being denied residency by the Israeli authorities. Israel to this day has no defined borders in the West Bank or Jerusalem as it continually expands its settlement project. Why is the system of identities issued by the Israeli occupation so racist? This color-coded system, which was imposed in 1981 by the Israeli Military is only imposed on the indigenous Arab population and is devised to better control the population. The Israeli fenced-in/out enclaves of Palestinian territory are constantly monitored by its military. 25% of the population in Gaza has relatives in the West Bank but can not travel freely back and forth to visit them. A Gaza resident needs a special permit issued by the Israeli military. The permit process is a tedious one and is most commonly rejected for unknown reasons. This parallels South Africa’s system of Apartheid imposed by the white minority over the indigenous majority.

Infographic 03 > Places where you are allowed to move and live

Infographic 01 > ID's Systems on population groups. The objective of the above illustration is an attempt at showing how Israel’s system of identity cards is used to enforce apartheid and racial profiling of Palestinians. The diagram above shows the population of every category. I used circles of different colors attributed to the specific color of the ID card. Every circle equals 50,000 ID cards. Israeli Jewish ID (6 Million people) the freedom of movement inside occupied land. A Jewish Israeli can practice politics without fear of reprisal from the Israeli government. An Israeli can go to most countries around the world without a visa. Israeli Palestinian ID: (1.8 Million) this group may enjoy the freedom of movement in and out of the occupied land but can not live, work, or own land in certain Jewish-only areas. The vast majority of these groups live in Arab-only areas that are overpopulated and underserved by the Israeli state; the usual recipe for crime and lawlessness is East Jerusalem ID. (0.3 Million) this group as mentioned above carries a residency card that is subject to revocation and deportation. While these Palestinians can enjoy the freedom of travel relatively but cannot live outside Jerusalem because their ID will be revoked. On a daily basis, Palestinians living in Jerusalem are deported to make room for more Jewish-only settlements and infrastructure. Jerusalemite’s homes are often demolished, but the Palestinians living there are at least allowed to repair or expand their homes. West Bank ID. (3.2 Million) They live on less than 3500 square kilometers, cut by more than 300 military checkpoints and over 130 Jewish only settlements and the number is growing. On the west bank, Israel builds Jewish-only roads and facilities bypassing Palestinian villages and cities. In 2002 Israel built a wall separating each city from the other. A Trip to school which took 20 minutes can now take up to 2-3 hours. A city like Qalqilya in the heart of the west bank is completely surrounded by a wall and the entire population accesses their city through a gate! Gaza Strip ID. (1.8 Million) According to the UN and various human rights organizations, Gaza is the biggest open-air prison controlled by Israel. Gaza strip is under Israeli land air and sea blockade since 2006. In it, lives 1.8 million Palestinians who were subjected to three brutal military campaigns in less than 10 years. By default, Gaza residents can not move anywhere outside the Gaza Strip. Even Though Gaza shares borders with Egypt, the Egyptian authorities impose similar restrictions to those of Israel. The majority of Gaza's population are refugees from the occupied lands now living in 8 refugee camps scattered across the Gaza Strip. The living conditions here for this population in these refugee camps are exceptionally worse than in Gaza city.

Infographic 02 > Population per square kilometer

How much of historic Palestine can be accessed, And by whom? Israeli citizens are free to move and live everywhere. While Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza are restricted to move except with a special security permit which can only be approved by the Israeli Army. Nowadays, something as innocent as a Facebook post is enough to deem someone a security threat forever.

Designed Oppression

Mapping out different construction materials and designed objects such as fence wires, concrete blocks, the Separation wall, Watchtowers and Warning signs. Analyzing the images, one can visualize the experience of living under the Physical Boundary.