The streets are on fire.
A woman holds her dead child and cries, "God is greater... the boy has died."
A French reporter videotapes the fighting.
This is not a scene from a war movie, nor is it a broadcast from CNN. Rather, it is the drawing of a seventh-grade Palestinian child.
The drawing is part of an exhibit entitled "Children Under Siege: Palestinian Children's Perspective of the World Around Them" which opened yesterday evening in the lobby of Houston Hall. The collection of drawings, sponsored by the Penn Arab Student Society, features more than 30 pieces by Palestinian children from East Jerusalem.
The exhibit was put together by a Chicago-based organization called Palestinian Humanities and Arts Now, which promotes the discussion of Arab-related issues.
Helicopters firing on buildings, dead bodies in the streets, soldiers shooting and women grieving over lost children are the main themes of the artwork on display, some of which bore writing in English or Arabic.
Although an extremely realistic portrayal of violence is common to all the drawings on exhibit, the messages that the young artists delivered were quite diverse.
One eighth-grader depicted a guerrilla scene in front of the Dome of the Rock. On top of the golden cap there is a Palestinian flag, and above the flag the script: "We Want Peace."
But some of the young artists expressed a more disillusioned view. A fifth-grader, for instance, wrote on his art piece representing a street shooting: "What was taken by force cannot be recovered except by force."
Penn Arab Student Society Graduate President Angela Migally explained that women and children are severely affected by the occupation of Palestinian territories.
"Especially with the last Intifada, children have been fortunately or unfortunately very active," Migally said, referring both to the involvement of children in street violence and to the growth of peace discussion among children.
Migally believes domestic tensions resulting from the fights in the territories affect Israeli children, as well as their Palestinian counterparts.
"When you have that kind of violence in the streets, it comes home," she said.
Migally said that hope for peace in the Middle East is greatest among youth and women.
"When suffering is acknowledged on both sides, there can be a common ground for women and children to stand up and say 'No more,'" she said.
College sophomore Michael Khoury said there is a need for such an exhibit, claiming that "it is important to show the effect that the occupation has on children."
Khoury felt many people are not aware of the suffering of Palestinian children, because "often the American media does not portray what the Israeli army does."
