A painter, a porter, a homeland: remembering Sliman Mansour
The Camel of Burdens/The Camel Carrier of Hardships
Ramzy Baroud writes in The Palestine Chronicle on 3 September 2026:
The death of Palestinian artist Sliman Anis Mansour stirred powerful memories.
He passed away at Al-Makassed Hospital in occupied East Jerusalem on August 24, at the age of 79, bringing to a close a legacy that cannot truly be described, but only experienced.
His life almost exactly spanned the age of the Palestinian Nakba. He was born mere months before the mass expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homeland. Yet his death in an occupied city tells us that the story of Mansour, his art and the Palestinian struggle for freedom is far from over.
Oddly, for years, I knew Mansour through a single painting: Jamal al-Mahamel (The Camel Carrier of Hardships).
The title itself requires a pause. The phrase is rooted in Palestinian and Levantine popular culture. It describes one who shoulders the collective struggles, pain and responsibilities of others.
In Mansour’s post-Nakba world, that person is an elderly Palestinian porter, a barefoot worker carrying the burden of an entire homeland on his back. That homeland is represented by Jerusalem, with the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam’s holiest sites, rising above it.
Mansour, however, was not a Muslim. He belonged to the once-thriving, though sadly shrinking, Palestinian Christian community and came from the town of Birzeit, near Ramallah in the West Bank.
Let that sink in. One of the most iconic Palestinian paintings of the modern era, celebrating the centrality of Jerusalem and one of its most recognizable historic Islamic sites, was painted by a Christian man.
In the age of Israeli extremists like National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and his “religious wars,” this may appear unusual. For Palestinians, it is anything but. Though deeply spiritual, Palestinians have historically transcended religious divides in their long struggle for freedom.
A mosque is never just a mosque, and a church is never just a church. They are powerful symbols of history, culture, roots, spirituality and continuity. Mansour entrusted the Camel of Hardships with carrying all of that alone, as the world watched an old man bent beneath an unbearable weight, yet fierce and unbroken in his resolve.