The paintings of Salam Khalili

December 2023

“Salam Khalili was a Palestinian journalist, painter, poet, and peace activist before, during, and after the Six-Day War in 1967. In 1973, as a chief editor at Jerusalem’s weekly newspaper El Fajr, he published an article with evidence that the war had been preplanned, prearranged, and agreed upon by Israel and Jordan. Because he did not first get permission to publish, he was taken as prisoner by Israel, tried, given a twenty-five-year sentence, and subsequently tortured for seven years. He was then put under house arrest for three years more before a small group of western journalists pressured Amnesty International to step in and fight for his freedom.

Subsequently, Salam was exiled from Palestine by Israel, and he and his family were then relocated to the United States by a concerned and generous sponsor. Twenty years after his arrest, the truth in his article came to light. He spent the rest of his life engaged in California wherever he could be, working to encourage and support the development of an agreement between Palestine and Israel to find a compromise and share the land they all love in peace and equality. He offered companionship and welcome into his home many young immigrant men as well as those dispersed by the terrors in the Middle East. In his later years, he became a frequent speaker at Spirit Rock Meditation Center on forgiveness, building peace and cooperation, and other personal spiritual topics. He and Jack Kornfield became friends, and Buddhism offered him a practice of solace for his aching soul.

Salam and I met in California, where he settled and we became intimates. He continued to try to paint but was never able to regain his brush. He tried writing, but was never able to find his poet’s way into written English although he remained a master Palestinian poet and a poetic storyteller in oral English. He asked me to tell his one man’s story in my own original poetry for him. He laid his hope of sharing his truths in my hands, believing them the same struggles as so many affected by war. The story lines of these poems are inspired by stories he gifted to me, and I have considered it a sacred charge from this political and spiritual poet. Salam died in 2016 at the young age of 64 without he or his two adult children ever being allowed to return to their beloved Jerusalem. The struggle continues on many fronts.”

Preface from Cantata for a desert poet by Sharon Lopez Mooney,
soon to be released by Arteidolia Press.

As part of Salam’s imprisonment, more than 125 paintings and an immeasurable count of books, documents and papers were incinerated by the authorities. These are a few of Salam’s paintings that were given to his family after they were smuggled out of Ber Shiva prison by an Israeli Police guard in 1976.