The Dream of a Museum in Every Major City for the Palestinian Narrative

The “Unprecedented Site”: The Dream of a Museum in Every Major City for the Palestinian Narrative

July 20, 2025, 6:30 AM
The Palestine Museum, which opened as the US Palestine Museum in Woodbridge, Connecticut, has expanded across the Atlantic with its first European branch opening last month in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh.

During the opening ceremony, Faisal Saleh, the museum’s founder and tireless visionary, welcomed guests with a quiet intensity that contrasted with the storm of ideas surrounding him. Born into a family of Palestinian refugees displaced from the village of Salama near Jaffa in 1948, Faisal’s journey from the occupied West Bank to US tech entrepreneur and “museum builder” feels like a lifetime condensed into a singular mission: to create a cultural space where Palestinians can own their narratives.

Indeed, the Palestine Museum is no ordinary art museum. While it proudly showcases contemporary Palestinian art, from the hauntingly expressive to the defiantly hopeful, it also offers something increasingly rare: a platform where Palestinian culture, history, and resistance can be centered without apology or censorship.
"I will not rest until there is a Palestine Museum in every major city in the world," says Faisal Saleh.

This commitment has become increasingly urgent. In the wake of Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza and a relentless campaign of forced displacement and settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, the lines between humanitarian crisis, cultural erasure, and political repression have blurred. Yet cultural and academic institutions in Europe and the United States often remain silent—or actively suppress Palestinian voices.

An example of this occurred last month, when Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle, a Palestinian-American physician and one of the founders of Doctors Against Genocide, was invited to speak at Quinnipiac University about the medical realities in Gaza. But the university administration abruptly canceled her talk, deeming the topic “too political.”

The Palestine Museum stepped in. Dr. Kuemmerle delivered her talk at the museum, to a packed audience, with the full event now available on the museum’s YouTube channel.

This was more than a change of venue; it was a statement. The museum is making space for Palestinian voices, however uncomfortable that may be for some.

This ethos continues in Edinburgh. The European branch, located in a city known for its literary and artistic effervescence, aims to be a living archive and cultural center, highlighting not only visual artists, but also filmmakers, musicians, academics, and activists. When renowned orthopedic surgeon and founder of Medical Aid for Palestinians Dr. Swee Ang recently had her lecture in another UK city canceled due to "controversy," the museum's Edinburgh branch offered her an alternative venue.

Plans are already underway for a series of public lectures, exhibitions, and collaborations. But more than that, the Edinburgh branch represents an expansion of the museum's mission—to insist that Palestine is not a marginal issue, but a central one, and that its people have the right not only to exist, but to create, document, and speak freely.
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