Honesty

This mountainous moment in my life is fully documented. I am allowed the out-of-body experience of watching it happen from every angle. Apparently some new footage proves I was lying; apparently other footage shows me directly getting hit and a Ha’aretz reporter who claims I was targeted. I can’t watch either video. Sometimes, I can’t believe it happened. I’ve gotten used to the new face in the mirror. But I wonder what they claim I was lying about. Was I lying about spending a week in the hospital, barely able to move, my jaw wired shut, an indented fracture in my skull, not a word of apology from Israel, coming to terms with the compressed visual world I would now view through for the rest of my life?



I have become a minor symbol of solidarity and the occupation, and for this, people are interested in me. I never expected my first shot at recognition would be shrouded in scandal. Sitting underneath our basement staircase in my childhood studio, I dreamed of becoming a great artist. I want to go to this next place where I feel work and love flowing out of me. I want to create commercial art with soul. I want to become a “subjective journalist” - an illustrator traveling, experiencing, remembering, and communicating. But whatever I do, however am perceived, I am an artist. It is in the core of my being.