Impression, proche orient 1 | Jordan
Jordan Cucumber
2010
acrylic paint on fresh cucumbers
24 x ( 6 x 1.5 ) inches
Some argue that there is no need to evacuate the West Bank settlements and indeed no need to create a state for the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank because a Palestinian state already exists in neighboring Jordan.
Jordan granted most of the West Bank Palestinian refugees citizenship and is now a nation of six million people, divided about evenly between those from the East Bank of the Jordan River — considered original Jordanians — and those from the West Bank.
The proposal by which West Bank Palestinians simply have to come to Jordan for all their problems to be solved is called the ‘Jordan option’. It’s a perennial idea floated by different political actors in the region in various forms: the term also refers to a possible Jordanian security role in the West Bank or a future form of unity between a Palestinian state and the Kingdom of Jordan.
In discussing this Jordan Option, Khalid Mishal (the leader of Hamas) and other Arab leaders, jokingly call it the ‘Jordan cucumber’ because the Arabic word ‘khiyar’ translates as both ‘option’ and ‘cucumber.’
This option / cucumber wordplay is the starting point for Tom Bogaert’s ‘Jordan cucumber’ project. It consists of painted and rotting cucumbers, a translucent tablecloth greenhouse, seedlings and video.
Inspired by ‘Kill Khalid – the Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas’ by Paul McGeough, The New York Press, 2009.
