When comedian, writer and artist Bryan Dawe came across a post on social media from a “Palestinian photographer” last year, her heartfelt request for help prompted the acclaimed satirist to lend a hand.
The former collaborator and muse of the late John Clarke, who together as Clarke and Dawe poked holes in the nation’s political classes for decades, admits he was taken by the plea for a new camera from the person purporting to be a young woman.
But Dawe’s decision to engage with the woman named Sarah Murtaja would eventually force him to shut down his social media accounts, exposed him to extortion threats and embroiled him in a frustrating battle with Facebook’s owners, Meta.
In May last year, Murtaja claimed in a Facebook post that her camera had been destroyed by an Israeli bombardment of Gaza, before asking for $2800 to replace it.
“ Israel prevented the introduction of financial aid into Gaza, where I created a donation campaign through PayPal, and I hope for the good people to donate even a little bit,” Murtaja claimed in the post.
Her request was accompanied by an image of a damaged Canon 5D III camera along with a portfolio of photographs purportedly taken by Murtaja in the occupied territories.
Dawe told The Age: “ Her photos displayed a human side of Gaza and Palestine missing from the normal media portrayal of death and destruction. The photos told another more heartening narrative of young kids trying to survive and live their lives among the chaos of an ongoing war.”
Read the article by Cameron Houston in The Sydney Morning Herald.