SELECTED DRAWINGS OF PALESTINE FROM MY 1964 DRAWING BOOKS

The books contain drawings in pencil, ink and watercolors of many subjects, but this selection concentrates on the people and views of the idyllic place where I grew up- the twin towns of El-Bireh and Ramallah, 17 kilometres to the north of my birthplace, Arab Jerusalem.

The village of Nabi Samuil between Ramallah and Jerusalem with its hilltop mosque is seen in the background.

Bireh spring and mosque a few hundred meters from our home.

The rolling hills of Ramallah. On good evenings the lights of Jaffa could be seen on the horizon. Grapes, figs and olives grow on these hills with stone terraces maintained by Palestinian Arab peasants since time immemorial.

The hills - to the north of Ramallah ?

My garrulous and cheerful barber Abu Gabi (Victor Battikha). After the 1967 war he emigrated to Australia.

Cypress trees fascinated me with their strong elegant shapes

I am not sure where this idyllic spot was. Near Ramallah? Bireh? Jifna? Qalandia?

A young lady at Ramallah Municipal Park

The Arabic inscription says "5 kilometres North of Jifna". Jifna is a small village thousands of years old, adjoining the university town of Birzeit and to the north of Ramallah.

A shepard boy.

My cousin Salim Tamari as a teenager. He is now a distinguished sociologist.

The radio tower and the ugly Taggart building, built by the British before 1948, according to standard colonial architectural design. At various times it housed administrative offices for the Ramallah district (where my father worked), studios for Radio Jerusalem where my sisters and I participated in children's programs, a jail, and the headquarters of the Israeli military occupation after 1967. It was then rebuilt as Yasser Arafat's Muqata'a HQ, then besieged and bombed to rubble by the Israelis.