Imagine, living in the aftermath of a war that not only occurred before your lifetime, but before the lifetime of your parents. Imagine, growing up in the wake of destruction from a wave that occurred decades before you were born. Imagine, knowing the aftermath without ever having known the antecedent.

Mixing henna for a bride Beit Sahour, West Bank. It's traditional for the women of a village to gather for an evening of dancing, singing, and henna mixing to wish the bride well the night before her wedding.

The majority of Palestinians living in the occupied territories are young people who have spent their lives in the shadow of a war from their great-grandparents’ generation. For Palestinians, it is not simply a matter of one, singular event that drives their situation. Palestinians mark time on an altogether unique clock; major political events designate their experience in a general sense, but for each person there are smaller and more personal events that mark each family’s own timetable.

To better understand the complexity of the term “aftermath” when applied to Palestinians, here is a general rundown on the Palestinian population: First there is the post-1948 population, those who originated in the region that is now the state of Israel. Many fled as refugees to southern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and what is now called the West Bank. Then there is the post-1967 population (which contains a large portion of the post-1948 population) that originated in the West Bank but became a mass of internal refugees during the Six Days War of 1967, as well as a population dispersed in refugee camps in Jordan and many other countries. Although separated by two decades, these two events mark the mainelements of the Palestinian Diaspora.

In the summer of 2007, I spent five weeks extensively traveling throughout the West Bank in order to photograph the daily life of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Read More »