Palestinian doctor Dr. Alaa Al-Laqta is a cartoonist who resists the occupation with his brush

Anyone who observes artist Dr.'s drawings cannot Alaa the caricature shot except the acknowledgment that the owner of this brush and imagination is in fact a doctor and thinker whose opinions extend beyond the lines and colors of the pen in the form of artistic paintings documenting current and historical events and facts in the Palestinian political, humanitarian and struggle scene under occupation, and similar to them in the Arab and Islamic arenas.

Dr. Alaa Al-Laqta is a distinguished person who thinks with his brush, and presents his opinion in the form of a painting or paintings that summarize all the explanations and contemplations, reaching the viewer’s mind as a concentrated dose of awareness, with which the viewer of the painting does not need a deep analytical reading that may be right or wrong.

The paintings of the Palestinian doctor Dr. Alaa Al-Laqta, in its political and humanitarian contexts, is of the “avoidable plain” category, where the person reading it feels - with a closer look - that he is in front of an international philosopher and thinker who scatters his ideas and spreads them through his brush of resistance to the occupation, which is an echo of his conscience burdened with pain, national concern, and the bleeding of the Palestinian wound, so that It reaches all minds, and touches the hearts of the simple and the educated, and the visions do not differ regarding the intended meanings and dimensions behind it.. The goals of the intention that Dr. wrote. Alaa Bayaraa is what you see on paper, as internalized by the artist with the brush and colors, and there is nothing other than the feelings and emotions that the eye captures in its first and quick reading.

I have heard the name Dr. Alaa Al-Laqta since he was a student in Romania during the 1990s, where one of my relatives was studying with him in medical school there, and then I followed his drawings in more than one magazine and newspaper here and there. Perhaps what attracted me to him was his artistic creativity, and his expressions that surpassed all the articles I was writing, so I used the splendor and thought contained in them to decorate the pages of the books that I was publishing, especially the series (The Man is a Position), which consists of ten parts, and contained within its covers the widest hospitality. Of these drawings, which amounted to more than 200, their meanings and ideas matched the objectives of the political analyzes published in those articles.

Dr. was Alaa is always generous and generous. He did not receive a fee from me for these artistic paintings. He considered all of this to be a gift from him to the homeland, and offered it as an “ongoing charity” and a deed in the balance of his good deeds.

When I was putting the final touches to my book (Perish and Do not Depreciate...Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa in the Palestinian Struggle Scene: Father Manuel Muslim as an Example), I asked Dr. Alaa wanted to draw with his brush a picture of Father Manuel that expressed this meaning, and the response came with a wonderful painting of Father Manuel in a scene of a knight who puts a war hood on his head in preparation for confronting the enemies. The hood was the Dome of the Rock, which made Father Manuel even more proud of his positions defending Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa.

In 2009, I met Dr. Alaa in Cairo at one of the hotels in the Heliopolis district (Radsun Blue) during my official visit there, for the purpose of meeting a high-level European delegation that aimed to open a dialogue with the Hamas movement, and meet some of its political leaders.
Dr. was Alaa - at that time - was residing in Nasr City, so it was an opportunity to get to know him more, and to exchange conversations with him about politics and literature, and how he came from the world of medicine, solutions, and the surgeon’s scalpel to the media space and the painter’s brush. It was an enjoyable meeting, as no one who saw the man and interviewed him was like anyone who heard about him, as I truly found in him a person who combined kindness, humility, and nobility of behavior, and who possessed the quality of literature that allows us to say: “He had a miracle in his morals.”

How many times did he honor us with drawings that we requested from him in particular. He was as generous in his giving as the sending wind, as he helped us with his brush, which blessed more than one of our intellectual works and the frontispiece of a book.

Dr. Alaa is an authentic Palestinian artist. Today he stands deservedly on the ladder of international fame. Many of his paintings, which exceeded ten thousand paintings, made their way to many newspapers and magazines in the Arab and Western arenas. His name is in the Palestinian imagination alongside the creative artist Naji Al-Ali (may God have mercy on him). And others who rose in the world of art, such as Samir Mansour, Imad Abu Eshteiwi, Muhammad Sabana and others, although each of them took a different artistic approach in their expressions of the Palestinian situation against the occupation.

He gave Dr. Alaa Al-Laqta depicted Palestinian oppression under occupation, a scene in which he exposed Israel’s crimes and aggressive violations against humanity, and gave the Palestinian child, the Palestinian prisoner, the Palestinian woman, and the Palestinian resistance their right to the spectacle of heroism and the epics of struggle, whose images captured the Arab and Islamic mentality, and were embodied through the keffiyeh, the aqal, the stone, and the slingshot, the manifestation of the struggle scene. The Palestinian and his widespread presence in regional and global arenas, as a fighter for freedom and self-determination... The stone in the hands of his children is one of the tools of his struggle against the occupiers, and the flag that his youth raises high is also a message of challenge to the aggressor’s army and a declaration card for the identity of his country, Palestine, and the sheikh strikes with his slingshot and the resistance with his bullets. It is also a message to the worlds: No, we will not be complacent.

With every Palestinian event, we were waiting to see his artistic painting with eagerness and passion, wondering: What did Alaa’s brush draw?! How many times have we tweeted our admiration at him, saying: How wonderful you are, Alaa. You have hit the nail on the head with the truth, and you have preceded all of us in conveying it to the old and the young, to the person of sound mind and to those who are even consciously poor.

In fact, there are many in my country who have engraved their names with their sacrifices, and left behind more than one fingerprint and trace behind them with their blood, while you have left, with the ink of your pen and the pigments of your studio, artistic paintings that live with us in our consciences, are immortalized on the pages of books, and decorate the walls of offices and library spaces. You are for your people, through your giving, an icon and a snapshot. In the highest.

Due to the wide acclaim and acceptance of his caricatures, they are widely circulated by social media pioneers, and therefore his Facebook account was closed more than once, but he succeeded in finding other media channels and outlets, so that his interaction with the Palestinian and Arab masses continued in his struggle. uninterrupted.

Indeed, God knows best, Alaa.. How many compliments and compliments you have received, for the beauty of those caricatured expressions, which were always (pain) a cure for the evil. One suffices to watch the reactions of social media activists and their beautiful comments to these cartoons expressing the groans and pain of the Palestinians, as a result of the injustice and betrayal of those in their Arab neighborhood or those who were supposed to represent the voice of human conscience and the free world.

Today, O Palestinian refugee, your pen travels from one country to another; From Romania to Egypt to Bahrain to Kuwait to Turkey, and despite all this easternization and Westernization, the appearance of your feather remains the most wonderful and has the deepest impact on the souls of your followers. Your arrow reaches where you intended and the target was with this “resistance feather.”

Yes; Resisting bullets have their share of the reward and their entitlements from the liberation project, but the soft power represented by the artist’s brush also has its share of the same thorn.

Truth and without compliments, Dr. Alaa Al-Laqta, with his brush and paintings, is like drones flying far away and killing the occupation. This resistance brush has contributed to transferring our oppression to the world, and Israel has not been able to market its accusations of extremism and terrorism against his pen.

Aside from the artist’s brush, there is Alaa the human being with a kind word and high morals, a son of the camp who is full of manliness and chivalry and speaks out about what he truly sees and people do not underestimate their things. We have always known him to be loyal to his fellow artists in mentioning and praising him, appreciating their efforts in the context of Palestinian patriotism.