From Texas with Love

Jacir asked a group of Palestinians, “If you had the freedom to get in a car and drive for an hour without being stopped (imagine that there is no Israeli military occupation, … no Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks…), what song would you listen to?” Video footage of the vast West Texas desert serves as a backdrop to their responses. As a symbol of the freedoms that many Americans take for granted, this landscape also contrasts sharply and poignantly with the fantasies of mobility shared among Palestinians living in the occupied territories. Watching the video and listening to the songs selected by those interviewed, viewers experience a moment of empathetic identification with a group of people living in a vastly different geopolitical situation.