Commentary: Response to Ayed Nabaa (Al Jazeera)

Palestine Sunbird: A Stamp of Defiance is a 2020 documentary film shot by Ayed Nabaa and produced by Al Jazeera and MediaTown. It tracks the efforts of one Khaled Jarrar, a Ramallah-based artist and activist, to promote his passport stamp and postage stamp designs in various European countries as a means of advocating for Palestinian statehood.

In the context of philately, Sunbird is an important movie for a few reasons. The first and most obvious is that it is a documentary about stamps. There are not many of those being produced, certainly not on a stage such as Al Jazeera, so when one does get made it is an immediate cause for celebration. Second, it demonstrates the use of stamps as purveyors of political messages. The intersection of philately and politics has been an area of interest to scholars since before World War I, and it will continue to be of interest for as long as stamps are issued and territorial and ideological disputes persist. Third, the film offers a glimpse into the world of stamp design. Some of the questions it addresses, albeit indirectly and without fully answering, are: What motivates artists to design stamps? What obstacles do stamp designers face in their field? What factors determine whether a design is approved for or rejected from appearing on a stamp?

בול צופית
"Palestine Sunbird" stamp
Israel Post, 1993

Nabaa's film opens with Khaled Jarrar describing the Palestine sunbird (Cinnyris osea or Nectarinia osea) and searching for it in an orchard in Qalqilya. The symbolism of the scene is clear: birds are not bound by the terrestrial obstacles to which Jarrar is subject, and in seeking out the Palestine sunbird Jarrar is seeking out freedom for Palestinians. Jarrar fails to find the bird and turns instead to his canvas. The scene ends with him gazing out from his studio at a stretch of wall beyond a field as the camera zooms in on his paintbrush. The suggestion is that while others in Jarrar's situation might have been holding a weapon, an instrument of violence, what he holds is an instrument of artistic expression, of "creative dissent."

The Palestine sunbird made its philatelic debut in 1963, on one of ten Air Mail -- Birds of Israel stamps issued by Israel Post and designed by Miriam Karoly. That stamp avoided identifying the bird by its popular name, denoting it instead by its Hebrew name, Tzufit, and by its scientific name in Latin. Thirty years later Israel Post issued a second Palestine sunbird stamp, this one (shown above) designed by James Smith and featuring the bird's popular name -- the first of just three times the word "Palestine" has appeared on an Israeli stamp. The Palestinian Authority first featured the sunbird in 1999 on a "Palestinian Sunbird" souvenir minisheet, and subsequently did so again in 2013 and 2019. Birdtheme.org, a website developed by Kjell Scharning that aims to be a comprehensive guide to birds on stamps, indicates that the Palestine sunbird has made a total of eleven appearances on the stamps of four different stamp-issuing entities: Israel, Jordan, Palestine, and Togo.

בול הכנסה מתקופת המנדט הבריטי
Palestine Revenue 50 mils stamp
c. 1928
(Image source: Hipstamp.com)

The second character to whom viewers are introduced is Ahmad Mrowat of the Palestinian Archive in Nazareth. Mrowat is offered as a stylistic counterpoint to Jarrar -- an authoritative voice who speaks from a place not of art and emotion but of history and intellect. Three components are key to Mrowat's position: demonstrating that a political entity called "Palestine" existed and issued stamps before the political entity called "Israel" existed and issued stamps, arguing that the political entity called "Israel" has been engaged in a philatelic erasure of the political entity that was called "Palestine," and praising Jarrar for acting to preserve and restore Palestine's philatelic legacy.

A revenue stamp such as the one depicted above forms the basis of Mrowat's first point but also undermines it. A common misconception, which Mrowat articulates in reference to the stamp, is that the British administration of Palestine following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire was a colonialist enterprise. In reality, the British Mandate was conceived from its inception as a transitional regime, to be maintained until the local inhabitants could govern themselves. That the stamp features Arabic and Hebrew in addition to English and no image of the Queen reflects this reality: rather than forcing the English language and British icons onto the population, as a colonial administration would have done, the British endeavored to incorporate Arabic and Hebrew into their official documents and depict local sites on their stamps. As to his argument that Israeli stamps have been erasing "images of al-Aqsa, Bethlehem, Jaffa or Nazareth as historical symbols of Palestinian cities," again the reality is not as Mrowat describes it. In the first place, sites in or related to Jaffa and Nazareth have been featured on Israeli stamps since as early as 1953 and 1965, respectively. In the second place, Israel has never considered Bethlehem part of the country and since 1967 has been sharing sovereignty on the Temple Mount with the Kingdom of Jordan, hence featuring those sites on Israeli stamps has political implications that Israel Post naturally prefers to avoid.

חותמת דרכון: מדינת פלשתין
"State of Palestine" souvenir passport stamp

Next to join Sunbird is Alison Ramer, described as a human rights activist living in Ramallah. Jewish and originally from New York, what Ramer adds to the ensemble is the voice of the disillusioned-Zionist-turned-pro-Palestinian-activist who went from being enamored with Israel and wanting to build a life there as a Jew returning to her ancestral homeland to denying Israel's right to exist and accusing it of ethnic cleansing. Ramer recounts having her U.S. and Israeli passports stamped by Jarrar during visits to the West Bank, landing in Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport en-route to another visit, being confronted by Israeli immigration officials over the "Sunbird" stamp, and having her Israeli passport canceled on its account.

Ramer may have been who Ayed Nabaa had in mind when he called Jarrar's Palestine Sunbird "a stamp of defiance." Defiance is one of the attributes that Ramer most strongly projects as she recalls her interaction with the Israeli official at the airport: when the validity of her Palestine stamp was called into question, Ramer's reply was a defiant, "What, you didn't know? Palestine was a state before Israel." It should first be noted that the cancellation of passports due to the presence of souvenir stamps in them is far from unheard of. An article by Stacey Leasca at Travel+Leisure from February ("Why You Should Never Put a Souvenir Stamp in Your Official Passport") warns against this very practice in reference to stamps from places like Machu Picchu and Antarctica. As for Ramer's insistence that Palestine was a state before Israel, that is her engaging in semantic sophistry. "Palestine" was the name not of a state but of a League of Nations Mandate entrusted to Britain after World War I. It came close to being the name of the Jewish state declared subsequent to the Mandate's termination -- in which case modern-day Israelis would have been called "Palestinians" -- but the Zionist leadership ultimately went with "Israel" since that name best reflects the historic connection between the Jewish nation and Ancient Israel.

בולי "מדינת פלשתין" בהנפקת דואר גרמניה
Deutsche Post "Palestine Sunbird" personalized stamps

Sunbird next shifts the setting to Europe, first to France and then to Germany. It also becomes more purely philatelic in nature as it focuses on Jarrar's efforts to produce stamps that are actually valid for postage and not just of artistic or activistic value. Jarrar reports that a Palestine sunbird stamp he designed for the French postal service was rejected. However, with the help of Franziska Zahl of the Berlin Biennale, Germany's Deutsche Post approves his proposal and stamps bearing his design are printed and sold in the thousands.

Because Sunbird was made for a general audience, there are moments where attempts to simplify philatelic concepts for the viewer result in frustrating ambiguities and inconsistencies. Did Jarrar ever design a postage stamp for Palestine Post? "I had a postage stamp, which I designed, printed here in Ramallah and then placed on applications for temporary residence cards," he explains. Except that sounds less like a postage stamp and more like an adhesive stamp of the kind Jordan affixes to visitors' passports when entering the Kingdom. Then when talking about the stamp he designed for the French postal service Jarrar mentions that he failed to get his design printed as official postage and instead had it printed unofficially. Does that mean it was rejected as a standard government issue but accepted as a personalized stamp? Apparently not. Apparently, it was rejected as a personalized stamp and printed independently as a cinderella. The viewer can only speculate as to the reason La Poste turned down Jarrar's stamp proposal, but Germany's approval of Jarrar's design is no less puzzling. In the first place, the words "State of Palestine" appear on the stamp, giving the impression it is an official Palestinian stamp. Seeing as Jarrar is a private individual and not acting on behalf of the Palestinian government in any official capacity, how could Deutsche Post sanction a stamp design purporting to represent the Palestinian postal administration? Even if Palestine is not fully a state according to the United Nations, the postage stamps issued by Palestine Post are nevertheless valid for international postage according to the Universal Postal Union. Would Deutsche Post approve a stamp design submitted by a private individual purporting to represent a full United Nations member state?

בולי "מדינת פלשתין" בהנפקת דואר גרמניה
Deutsche Post "Palestine Sunbird" personalized stamps:
Design rejected by La Poste,
subsequently printed by Deutsche Post

Back in France, viewers are introduced to artist Jean-Yves Bizien of Brittany. Bizien visited the West Bank in 2005 and observed that there was no postal service operating there. The experience compelled him to take artistic action, and the action he took was to design French postage stamps. Featuring "images of the Palestinian countryside, olive and orange trees and photos of Palestinian cultural figures," as well as "pictures of the traditional Palestinian dress and daily life scenes," Bizien's hope was that his stamps would rally public support for a Palestinian state. As in Jarrar's case, however, Bizien's efforts hit a wall and his designs were rejected.

Once again, the reason for La Poste's rejection is never made clear. Was it the imagery? Was it the "State of Palestine" inscription Bizien included in his designs? Or does La Poste have a policy of turning down any submission with an overtly political message? Even a phone call between Bizien and a philatelic printing office fails to resolve the matter. It is also unclear why postal services in the West Bank were shut down at the time of Bizien's visit. In the mid-1990s, as part of the Oslo Accords that established the Palestinian autonomous zones in the West Bank and Gaza, Israel transferred authority over postal services in those areas to the newly formed Palestinian government. Periodic waves of violence have been known to disrupt inbound and outbound mail delivery, and it's possible that with 2005 being a more turbulent year than usual Bizien's visit coincided with an outbreak of hostilities that led to the suspension of certain government services. However, 2005 was also a year that saw the opening of no less than six new post offices across the West Bank, according to Tobias Zywietz of Zobbel.de. Therefore, supposing Bizien's account of his experience is credible, it should be seen as an exception rather than the rule.

גלויה עם בולי "מדינת פלשתין" מבלגיה
Postcard mailed to Khaled Jarrar from Belgium

Sunbird gets a little sloppy about halfway through, with scenes that look like they belonged earlier in the narrative abruptly appearing in the middle. Still, Nabaa's talents as a filmmaker are hardly diminished, and he especially has a knack for conveying symbolism without coming across as pretentiously poetic. In one scene he captures Jarrar on a rooftop looking wistfully out at Berlin's vast uninterrupted urban landscape stretching as far as the eye can see. Moments before Jarrar was at the Berlin Wall, and in the next scene he is back in the West Bank town of Qalqilya where his journey began.

In his final appearance before the film switches back to Jean-Yves Bizien, Jarrar reveals that while at the Checkpoint Charlie station in Berlin he had his own passport stamped with the "Sunbird" stamp he designed. Would he suffer the same fate as Alison Ramer upon reentering the West Bank?

What happened was totally opposite to what I'd expected. I expected them to stop and question me. When I stamped my passport at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin I had a feeling of fear and hesitation. I wanted to see the Israelis' reaction when they saw my passport. The [Israeli] soldier opened my passport and saw the Israeli stamp next to the Palestinian stamp. He then saw the other tourist stamps which I had at Checkpoint Charlie. It seemed that the colourful green, yellow and red stamps caught his attention. He looked at them and smiled. He then showed them to the girl next to him, as if he'd seen something strange. It seemed he didn't understand what it was. He stamped my passport, returned it to me and I left.

Sunbird concludes with a message indicating that Jarrar's stamps were "officially produced" in Germany, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Norway, and the Netherlands.

The relationship between Israel and the Palestinians takes varying forms, of which conflict is only one and violent conflict a smaller subset therein. The fact that each side dominates and animates the discourse of the other makes them resemble tenants in the same apartment building who sometimes play their music too loud and can't agree on how to repair the leak in the roof but also invite each other over to watch a soccer game every now and again. Jarrar's postage stamps capture this nuanced relationship. What is remarkable about his stamps is that of all the motifs he could have chosen that are staples of Palestinian art -- keys, rocks, slingshots, contested historical sites, the black and white keffiyeh -- he went with a delicate songbird. Not only that but, perhaps taking a page from Israel's stamps or following in the footsteps of the British, he boldly chose to feature Hebrew alongside Arabic and English.

Is Palestine Sunbird an unbiased take on the conflict? It's doubtful if even Ayed Nabaa would call it that; nor does it have to be in order to be appreciated for what it is. Rather than being a historical documentary, Sunbird is a commentary on art as a form of protest -- particularly philatelic and visa-stamp art. As of now, this is the first detailed response to Nabaa's Sunbird -- and it too is a commentary. But because this blog is written by an Israeli, the perspective it offers aligns with a different, at times opposing narrative. Stamps talk but don't listen. The people who collect them can do both, and the ensuing conversation between collectors will be made richer and more constructive the more of them join in from both sides to share their comments and perspectives.