Until Peace
Jim Hollander
Reuters
The Israeli – Palestinian conflict is a long running affair full of bumps, quick starts and surprises. Covering this ongoing conflict for a ‘wire service’ on a daily basis is comparable.
It too is full of surprise encounters, quick reflexes as one finds oneself in events quickly unfolding, and many very touching moments. There are history-making moments as well as these peoples living in a small land of turmoil each strive to fulfill their wishes.
Preview
These photographs are made while crossing the often-invisible lines that separate Israelis from Palestinians, Moslems from Jews, or even Christians from Moslems and Jews. They resent each other, even hate each other, yet Israelis and Palestinians aspire to live at peace on a Holy Land they're destined to share.
The photographs deal with the struggles, aspirations and hopes, fears and joys that I have encountered during my photographic coverage since arriving in 1983. The photographs are in no way a chronology of events during this time, but are a mosaic of peoples in flux, often at odds with themselves and with each other. The politicians trying to shape history with recent peace processes, either ongoing or frozen have been omitted. It is the people on the ground that ultimately will shape the course of events in this region, either with their votes or with their guns and stones.
For many people there is hope. For as many others there is despair. I hope these pictures show what the country and its inhabitants have gone through during the past 17 years and what both Israelis and their Palestinian neighbors could expect to experience, maybe for the next 17 years or, UNTIL PEACE is found.
Jim Hollander
