The Palestine Sunbird is a small passerine bird and is recognized as the national bird of Palestine. It has become a symbol of defiance for some Palestinian artists such as Khaled Jarrar (I recommend watching the beautiful Al Jazeera documentary about his stamps project). There is also a story about an Israeli campaign to change the name in order to eliminate the word Palestine from it. Inspired by this, I added this to my series of bird illustrations.

It is a small contribution that we can make to stand in solidarity with Palestinians who are fighting against a military state which occupies land, restricts people’s movement, leave people homeless, and deny people’s identity. Many people say it is a too complex issue to get involved with, but really as a South African when I refer to my own country’s history of Apartheid everything that the Israeli state is doing seems very similar: the silencing of journalists, forced military service for its youth, the unlawful eviction of people from their homes, killing children, building walls around territory, reducing the humanity of people. The list of resemblances goes on.