Banksy

Many are the metaphors that have been used to describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the trials and tribulations of the Middle East: time bomb, lion’s den, hornet’s nest, and so on and so forth. In the way that they each suggest something disturbing and difficult, all of them have an element of truth, as does the metaphor that turns the much transited ‘promised land’ into a sort of unpredictable and arcane game of chance: a Tarot deck whose cards are symbols and figures where luck counts as much as necessity, character as much as destiny. The Chariot (now combat chariot), the Devil, the World, the Emperor, the High Priestess, the Joker, the Hanged Man: just like magic cards or the cards of a pack of Witches Tarot, those of the Middle East Tarot represent the forces that have moved people since the very beginning of time: fortune and misfortune, success and failure, justice and injustice, life and death. Whether they are placed on the table right side up or inverted to signal danger, the cards of the Tarot of Israel and Palestine draw a map that has certain limitations, but nobody has as yet been able to interpret its full meaning, unless it’s the Tarot’s arcane numberless one, which does not appear but seals the set: the Fool that knows to scrutinize reality from a perch beyond good sense.