As Curator of the Museum of the Palestinian People, my mission is to make Palestinian arts and culture more visible and legible to the world, and to situate them within the global discourse of art history. To this end, I have developed the Object Highlights essay series to offer critical analysis and contextualization of Palestinian artistic production, cultural identity, and material practices— within Palestine, across the refugee camps, and in diaspora. Each essay centers on a single work of art either created by a Palestinian artist or addressing the Palestinian experience, providing an interpretation of its aesthetic, cultural, and historical significance. All objects featured in this series are drawn from the permanent collection of the Museum of the Palestinian People in Washington, DC.
To learn more about the museum’s collections and ongoing research, please visit: https://mpp-dc.org/learn/. Please cite this essay if you reference or quote it in your writing, materials, and research.
Wafa Ghnaim, "Object Highlight: Ismail Shammout’s "A Salute to Bait Sahour" (1989),” The Tatreez Institute (blog), March, 12, 2025, https://www.tatreezandtea.com/tatreezing/2025/3/object-highlight-ismail-shammouts-a-salute-to-bait-sahour-1989.
The original oil painting “A Salute to Bait Sahour: The Resistance of the People of Beit Sahour against the Israeli Government” was created in 1989 by renowned Palestinian artist Ismail Shammout. The work on display in the museum is a reproduction.
In this powerful painting, a Palestinian woman stands tall in a traditional thobe, raising the flag high above her head in an act of defiance and resilience. Her face with a calm expression, she holds her ground against a backdrop of destruction, with smoke billowing behind her. Unlike the formal monumentality of last week’s depiction of a Palestinian woman for International Women’s Day, this woman is looking towards the future, serving as a living embodiment of both vulnerability and strength. She is not a statue, but deeply human—tired and yet, unyielding.
At her side, a young boy—perhaps her son—clings to her thobe, flashing a peace sign, a gesture that speaks to generational endurance and the continuity of memory and struggle. The tattered flag she lifts, flapping in the wind, becomes a beacon of hope amid devastation. Behind them, a crowd, including another woman in a thobe, fights the fire that consumes the landscape—acting together, as one. At her feet, red poppies—Palestine’s national flower—seem to be the only living element rooted in the earth, a quiet but potent reminder that life persists, from her head to her toes.
Painted during the First Intifada (1987-1993), the artwork honors the people of Beit Sahour, who carried out a historic, citywide tax strike in response to the Palestinian call to resist Israeli occupation through nonviolent means. Rallying under the slogan "No taxation without representation," residents refused to pay or file taxes to Israel. In retaliation, the Israeli government imposed severe collective punishments: a 42-day curfew, blockade of food shipments, disconnection of telephone lines, restrictions on media access, imprisonment of ten residents, and the confiscation of money and property from 350 families through house-to-house raids. Additionally, Israel levied punitive taxes designed to suppress the uprising, including the so-called "glass tax" (for broken windows), "stones tax" (for damage caused by stones), "missile tax" (for Gulf War-related damages), and a general "Intifada tax," among others.
Shammout (1930–2006) was born in Lydda, Palestine. During the 1948 Nakba, he and his family were forcibly expelled and eventually settled in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza. Shammout’s work stands as a testament to the resilience and cultural identity of the Palestinian people.
Artwork Details
Title: "A Salute to Bait Sahour" (1989)
Artist: Ismail Shammout
Credit Line: Gift of Serene S. Kanan
🖼 Object No. 2022.477
📏 Dimensions: 10 x 7.5 inches
🔎 On View Now