When Emily Jacir was a kid, she told her family she wanted to become an artist and they panicked - not because they thought a life in the arts would be difficult but because they thought it might be dangerous. "They'll kill you, too," they said. Jacir's family wasn't just being melodramatic. In the context of Palestinian society in the late 1970s, to be an artist, literary figure or intellectual with a public profile was indeed something of a risk. 

"My goal is to remove the psychological barrier Israelis have against working with Palestinian companies," Tahboub says. "Our people have a good command of English, good managerial abilities, a familiarity with Israeli and Western culture and knowledge of the computing field. In addition, we are in the same time zone. Everyone knows it's possible to do business with Palestinians in the field of stone and marble, or textiles. They didn't know it was also possible to do IT outsourcing," he adds.  

Looking over the photographs selected by Amani Shaltout, our dedicated archivist, my eyes linger on the faces. What happened to the old man being helped aboard a departing boat? Where is the young woman staring out at us from the back of a Haganah truck? There is almost a uniformity to these images. The faces inevitably express fear, confusion, sadness. 

Situated in the heart of Bethlehem, directly between the Church of the Nativity and the Mosque of Omar on Manger Square, the Bethlehem Peace Center stands as a symbol of this West Bank city's reputation for coexistence, and is one of the premier cultural institutions and performance venues in Palestine. 

"The Stateless" is the title Mary Evangelista has chosen for a traveling exhibition of mixed media works by 10 Palestinian artists. Evangelista began to acquaint herself with the work of young Palestinian artists when she curated the ARTIsrael exhibitions of 1985 and 1986. As the idea of an exhibition by contemporary Palestinians became a reality, the New Yorker selected a panel of five respected jurors to choose the 10 finalists. 

Marwat Isa took an interest in her family's expulsion from the upper Galilee village of Biram only after her father's death in 1991. "We always lived with a sense of belonging to that place," says Isa. "To this day, people in Gush Halav live in unfinished homes, because they believe it will all be over in a little while, and we'll be able to return. The state lets us visit the village on two occasions: to hold ceremonies in the church and to bury our dead in the cemetery." 

This September 2007, The International Academy of Art Palestine opened its doors to the first set of ten students to study for four years in the experimental program leading to a Bachelor of Arts degree in contemporary visual arts. Such a unique project is an effort to support institution building and capacity building during these difficult times in the Occupied Territories. The leading artists of Palestine consider this event a significant cultural achievement aiming to establish the academy as a distinctive higher education institution. 

"The school of art is our attempt to live more normally," says Palestinian artist Khaled al-Khourani, one of the founders of the International Academy of Art Palestine. "A month ago, the Israeli army entered Beit Hanun and they reported the massacre that occurred there on the news. On the same day, there was a film festival in Ramallah.