Clowns in Palestine Cry: The Occupied Bodies and Lives of Jerusalem’s Children

Violence is central to the political logic of the Israeli state and its occupation of Jerusalem. Enacted in the hundreds of daily acts of harassment perpetrated by heavily armed soldiers, police, settlers, and undercover security personnel belonging to the State of Israel, much of the violence occurs routinely and it goes largely unnoticed by the rest of the world. In addition to direct physical control, settler-colonial domination is expressed by means of a hegemonic narrative in which Palestinian lives, including the lives of little children and their basic right to a nonmilitarized educational setting, simply do not matter. In this essay, the author shares and examines everyday scenes that inscribe violence on Palestinian children in occupied East Jerusalem. Besides documenting the hundreds of acts of insidious quotidian violence, she also highlights the myriad acts of resistance that have become ubiquitous among the city’s Palestinian inhabitants.