Mahmoud Darwish: Palestine's Prophet of Humanism

It is impossible for me to express what I feel about the passing of Mahmoud Darwish. Like many Palestinians, I had grown up reading his poetry in order to express how I feel about whatever significant events happen to Palestinians. I turned to his writings to understand the periods of Palestine’s history that happened before I was born. If ever anyone in history deserved the title of a Poet Laureate, it was indeed Darwish, who spoke the mind of his people in a way I doubt anyone has ever been able to do for any other people. Today, I wake up missing my voice. The real travesty of Darwish’s death is that it revealed to me that he is no longer there to eloquently express to me how I feel about such travesties.

An often underemphasized aspect of Darwish’s life is how he truly lived every single episode of modern Palestinian history, and lived in all the significant locations and periods of Palestinian life. He was born in 1942 in Al-Birweh, Galilee, before the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine that made him a refugee in Lebanon in 1948. His father decided to return his family to Palestine in 1949, risking murder by Zionist militias that had murdered countless Palestinians who attempted to “escape home”. Somehow, Darwish succeeded in returning, and thus lived the years of his youth as a second-class Israeli citizen. He would then leave to study in the Soviet Union in the early 1970’s, joining the growing Palestinian Diaspora in Europe. His political activism lead to Israel stripping him of his second-class citizenship, and thus returned him to the ranks of Palestinian refugees and the Diaspora. He would then live in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, getting to savor the experience of the homeless Palestinians wandering across the Arab World.

Darwish witnessed the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon—one of the pivotal points of his life, his poetry and of Palestinian history—and left with the Palestinian resistance on the boats headed to Tunisia. From then on, he lived the quintessential Palestinian nomadic life; the whole world was home for this stateless nomad. In 1995, he finally returned to Palestine with the PLO’s signing of the Oslo Accords, and attempted to build his life there. He again witnessed another brutal Israeli siege of Palestinians, this time in Ramallah in 2002, which inspired his powerful poetry collection, 'Haalat 'Hisaar (A State of Siege). Since the 1980’s Darwish had serious heart problems, and had a very close encounter with death in 1998 after heart surgery, an experience that inspired his monumental work, Jidaariyyah (Mural).

Throughout all these episodes of Palestinian history, Darwish was there, the voice of the voiceless Palestinians to the world. His peerless poetry and striking emotion were enormously successful in drawing world attention to the plight of Palestinians, galvanizing Palestinian to their cause, and rallying millions of Arabs around the cause. All the countless millions spent on PR campaigns by the Israeli Foreign Ministry were never a match to any of Darwish’s powerful poems.

For me, the most striking and admirable thing about Darwish’s poetry is how it remained so resolutely humanist and universalist in its message. Never did Darwish succumb to cheap nationalism and chauvinism; never did he resort to vilification of his oppressors or the usual jingoism so common in political art and literature. Never did he forget that his oppressor too is human, just like him. The magnanimity, forgiveness and humanism he exhibited in his work remain the ultimate credit to this great author.

Throughout ethnic cleansing, living as a second-class citizen, being placed under house arrest, having his second-class citizenship revoked, being chased and hounded from one exile to another, being bombed in almost each of these exiles and living under countless sieges, Darwish’s humanism never succumbed. One of his most popular poems, Rita, spoke of his love for a Jewish Israeli woman by that name; and about the absurdity of wars coming between lovers. This poem was made into a popular song by Lebanese musician Marcel Khalife.

In his powerful 2002 poem, A State of Siege, written during the Israeli siege of Ramallah, after talking of the sixth sense that allows him to skillfully escape shells, Darwish takes time to address the very Israeli soldiers shelling his neighborhood:

You, standing at the doorsteps, come in
And drink with us our Arabic coffee
For you may feel that you are human like us;

…

To the killer: If you had left the fetus thirty days,
Things would’ve been different:
The occupation may end, and the toddler may not remember the time of the siege,
and he would grow up a healthy boy,
and study the Ancient history of Asia,
in the same college as one of your daughters.
And they may fall in love.
And they may have a daughter (who would be Jewish by birth).
What have you done now?
Your daughter is now a widow,
and your granddaughter is now orphaned?
What have you done to your scattered family,
And how could you have slain three pigeons with the one bullet?

Darwish’s last poem, published a few weeks before his death, tells the fascinating tale of falling into one hole with one’s enemy. Darwish explores the dynamic of enemies facing a common plight; how the past is remembered and yet forgotten when they cooperate to murder a snake; how instinct triumphs over ideology and how a common plight makes the concept of enmity absurd. In a pretty accurate description of the current plight of Palestinians and Israelis, and in a very ominous phrase indicating that Darwish felt his impending death, he concludes:

He said: Would you negotiate with me now?
I said: For what would you negotiate me now,
in this grave-hole?
He said: On my share and your share of this common grave
I said: What use is it?
Time has passed us,
Our fate is an exception to the rule
Here lie a murderer and the murdered, sleeping in one hole
And it remains for another poet to take this scenario to its end!

But for me, the most memorable of Darwish’s work will always remain his seminal poem, Madeeh Al-Thill Al-‘Aaly (In Priase of the High Shadow). The poem was written on the deck of one of the ships carrying Darwish, along with thousands of Palestinian fighters, from Beirut to Tunisia after Israel’s barbaric destruction of Lebanon in 1982. Darwish recounts the daily realities of living under shelling and under siege in Beirut, the deafening silence of the rest of the world towards the plight of the Palestinians and Lebanese, and the harrowing details of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Acerbic, witty, and powerful, Darwish skewers everyone from the Israeli government murdering civilians while pretending to be the victim (“You stole our tears, wolf”), to the American government (“The Plague”) giving every child a cluster bomb toy as a gift, to the Arab governments (“the bastard nations”) who refrain from doing anything to help their Palestinian brethren, and instead resort to pathetic anti-Semitic rhetoric to deflect attention away from their ineptitude.

Yet through it all, and as dark as the plight becomes, Darwish never loses sight of the humanism at the heart of his cause and at the heart of the Palestinian struggle. He continuously disparages nationalism and mocks its silliness. The ending of the poem, in particular, serves as a sort of Palestinian anti-Zionist humanist manifesto. In it, Darwish addresses the Palestinian fighter with powerful rhetorical questions, asking him about the true nature of his cause, and what he is really after. Mocking the trappings of nationalism and statehood, Darwish—in no uncertain terms—asserts that the cause has always been about humans, about freedom from oppression, about the revolution against persecution, about the lofty ideals of liberty, and most definitely not about petty nationalism and the toys of statehood:

It is for you to be, or not to be,
It is for you to create, or not to create.
All existential questions, behind your shadow, are a farce,
And the universe is your small notebook, and you are its creator.
So write in it the paradise of genesis,
Or do not write it,
You, you are the question.
What do you want?
As you march from a legend, to a legend?
A flag?
What good have flags ever done?
Have they ever protected a city from the shrapnel of a bomb?
What do you want?
A newspaper?
Would the papers ever hatch a bird, or weave a grain?
What do you want?
Police?
Do the police know where the small earth will get impregnated from the coming winds?
What do you want?
Sovereignty over ashes?
While you are the master of our soul; the master of our ever-changing existence?
So leave,
For the place is not yours, nor are the garbage thrones.
You are the freedom of creation,
You are the creator of the roads,
And you are the anti-thesis of this era.
And leave,
Poor, like a prayer,
Barefoot, like a river in the path of rocks,
And delayed, like a clove.
…
You, you are the question.
So leave to yourself,
For you are larger than people's countries,
Larger than the space of the guillotine.
So leave to yourself,
Resigned to the wisdom of your heart,
Shrugging off the big cities, and the drawn sky,
And building an earth under your hand's palm--a tent, an idea, or a grain.
So head to Golgotha,
And climb with me,
To return to the homeless soul its beginning.
What do you want?
For you are the master of our soul,
The master of our ever-changing existence.
You are the master of the ember,
The master of the flame.
How large the revolution,
How narrow the journey,
How grand the idea,
How small the state!

 

Darwish’s legacy will live on as eternally as his ultimate triumph against his oppressors: he never let them succeed in making him dehumanize them. In spite of living through the full gamut of Zionist oppression and the Palestinian plight, in spite of all the murders, the sieges, the shelling, the racism and the oppression, Zionism never succeeded in turning Darwish into a racist, and never succeeded in making Darwish hate his fellow human. His humanism shone through as his ultimate triumph, and the ultimate insult to the chauvinist, parochial, racist, and criminal Zionist project to which he was the quintessential antithesis.

------

The following video is Darwish reciting a part of Madeeh Al-Thill Al-'Aly (In Priase of the High Shadow):

The following is Darwish reciting part of Jidaariyyah (Mural), talking about his brush with death in 1998:

Comments

[princetontiger]

"Zionist militias that had murdered countless Palestinians"

"chauvinist, parochial, racist, and criminal Zionist project"

Just a few of the inflammatory statements in this post which is very disappointing as I expect better of 3quarksdaily. Perhaps there is no editorial control? There should be freedom of expression but this one borders on if not actually crosses into propaganda.

No wonder peace is difficult to achieve if this is the usual mode of thinking of the "intellectuals."

I see that Mr. Saifedean Ammous is at Columbia which has had some militant anti-Jewish actions in the recent past.

Mr. Ammous, please turn down the heat of your rhetoric.

And perhaps something is lost in the translation but I don't find the poetry that great either.

[Abbas Raza]

Indeed Darwish's death is a great loss. Here is another of his most famous poems:

The Earth is closing on us
pushing us through the last passage
and we tear off our limbs to pass through.
The Earth is squeezing us.
I wish we were its wheat
so we could die and live again.
I wish the Earth was our mother
so she'd be kind to us.

I wish we were pictures on the rocks
for our dreams to carry as mirrors.
We saw the faces of those who will throw
our children out of the window of this last space.
Our star will hang up mirrors.
Where should we go after the last frontiers?
Where should the birds fly after the last sky?
Where should the plants sleep after the last breath of air?
We will write our names with scarlet steam.
We will cut off the hand of the song to be finished by our flesh.
We will die here, here in the last passage.
Here and here our blood will plant its olive tree.

- Mahmoud Darwish

[Ann]

Thank you very much Saif and Three Quarks Daily for an excellent and moving write-up of the sad passing of the incomparable Mahmoud Darwich. I well remember weeping at Marcel Khalife's singing rendition of Darwich's Ommi earlier this year.

"His humanism shone through as his ultimate triumph, and the ultimate insult to the chauvinist, parochial, racist, and criminal Zionist project to which he was the quintessential antithesis."

Indeed, and for this he was put under house arrest by the IOF at one stage ... for the crime of penning powerful words.

Thanks for telling it like it is, Saif, and for yourself invoking the spirit of Darwich: a humanistic intellectual who is uncompromising with the truth.

[oliviab]

A beautiful tribute, Saif. Many thanks.

o b

[saifedean]

princetontiger,

Opposing Christian nationalism does not make one racist towards Christians. Similarly, opposing white supremacism does not make one an enemy of white people or racist towards them; it merely makes one an enemy of racism.

Similarly, opposing Zionism does not make one an anti-Semite, it merely makes one an opponent of racism.

And Columbia is NOT a place of militant anti-Jewish action. This is pure nonsense propagated by mistaken propagandists who make the same mistake you just made: equating opposition of racism with racism itself.

I hope you never make this silly mistake again, these accusations you make are too serious to be bandied about like this.

Best,

Saif

[Hektor Bim]

I still don't see how Zionism is a racist project. After all, there are Jews from all races living in Israel as citizens, not to mention lots of non-Jews of all races as well. Sectarian or nationalist, sure, but you're going to have to provide more evidence that it is an inherently racist project.

[Ian Belson]

"He was born in 1942 in Al-Birweh, Galilee, before the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine that made him a refugee in Lebanon in 1948. His father decided to return his family to Palestine in 1949, risking murder by Zionist militias that had murdered countless Palestinians who attempted to “escape home”. Somehow, Darwish succeeded in returning, and thus lived the years of his youth as a second-class Israeli citizen."
Interesting that the Israelis would let anyone return if they were so bent on ethnic cleansing and killing Palestinians. Then they would educate Darwish and allow him to go to college in Israel. Sounds like second class Israeli citizenship may be better then most of the Palestinians were treated by the rest of the Arab world.

[saifedean]

Hektor,

I'm certain (from previous discussions) that you are fully aware that Israel discriminates based on whether one is Jewish or not. Yet, somehow, you continue to view this as not being racist.

The point is this: discrimination based on race is fundamentally no different from discrimination based on any other such meaningless criteria. I'm not interested in a discussion about whether Judaism is a race, ethnicity or mere religion. All these criteria are equally meaningless to a humanist, and to anyone who believes humans are equal.

Discriminating based on any of these silly criteria is equally deplorable, and is thus generally termed racism. To pretend Zionism is not racism, means that you believe the nonsensical notion that discrimination based on one meaningless criteria (race) is bad; but discrimination based on other meaningless criteria (ethnicity, religion) is ok.

Surely, you do not believe that.

best,

Saif

[saifedean]

Note:

Me saying that I find these criteria to be meaningless, does not mean that I am against people identifying using them.

I have no problem with people identifying themselves primarily as members of their religion, ethnicity, nation, race, football team, horoscope, tribe, company or any other equally absurd criteria to tell humans apart.

My only problem is when people start using these meaningless criteria to kick people out of their homes, build exclusive states and discriminate against people. Whether this is based on race, religion, horoscope or shoe size is the same for me; I oppose all forms of discrimination. Anyone who thinks discrimination based on some of these is ok, while discrimination based on others isn't, needs to think this over carefully.

[saifedean]

Ian,

You obviously have problems understanding basic writing.

Most of those who returned were KILLED by Israel. Israel did NOT allow anyone to return; but many tried to sneak back, and most were murdered, imprisoned or re-ethnically cleansed.

It's amazing that there are people in this world who will use a lapse by Israel that led to a failure to murder and ethnically cleanse one family as evidence of Israel's superior humanism.

[Paul]

By those definitions, isn't virtually every Muslim state on Earth a racist entity? Pakistan was formed on the basis of Islamic Nationalism, and Hindus and Sikhs who had lived on the land there were usurped and dispossesed of their lands and homes in order to fulfil the Islamic Nationalist aspirations of the Pakistan movement. Of course Muslims living in India were also dispossessed, but it wasn't the Indian national impulse that created the upheaval. That's just one of the Islamic nations. Did Darwish write about the inhumanity of Islamic regimes to non Muslims?

[Hektor Bim]

Saif,

It's fine if you believe that sectarianism is fundamentally no different from racism. If sectarianism is the same as racism, then just call it sectarianism and everyone will condemn it just the same. I think you don't think they are the same, or at least, don't think that others will think they are the same, so you continue to use inaccurate language because the word "racism" sounds worse that the word "sectarianism" and you want to make the policies of Israel sound as bad as possible.

You're being inaccurate to score political points, and it hurts your message.

[BenjaminL]

If humanism and univeralism are really "at the heart of the Palestinian struggle," then the Palestinian people and their elected leadership have certainly kept this feature of their struggle well-hidden.

Darwish looks like another Sari Nusseibeh -- a noble, reasonable guy who for this very reason enjoys no influence with the masses.

It's pretty hard to find any univeralism and humanism in these journalistic accounts:

David Samuels, "In A Ruined Country"

Martha Gellhorn, "The Arabs of Palestine"

The Palestinian people have as much claim to their lost property and homes as do the Bund der Vertriebenen, the Sindhi refugees or the Vietnamese boat people -- and as much chance of getting it...

Unless Iran follows through and nukes all the Jews, at which point the local reaction would no doubt feature much more of this famous yet elusive universalism and humanism.

[Hektor Bim]

Paul,

As I recall, Darwish did have something to say about the Arab nations treatment of Palestinians, their supposed "brothers". Only Jordan allows Palestinians to take Jordanian citizenship more or less automatically, even though most Palestinians in the diaspora today weren't born in Palestine and know no other home than Lebanon, Egypt, etc.

[saifedean]

BenjaminL,

Racists like yourself will always search for whatever flimsy piece of garbage evidence in order to vilify a whole people and justify their own racism towards them. It's of course inevitable to find racist voices in any people, and to magnify these and ignore everything else. It takes a real humanist like Darwish, and not a racist like yourself, to see past these and into the humanity of all humans, regardless of race, religion, nationality, horoscope or other such garbage.

But your contention that Darwish was a marginal voice, or your comparing of him to Sari Nusseibeh, speaks volumes of your ignorance and racism towards Palestinians; you could never understand that they could possibly like someone who is not a barbarian.

I urge you to watch Darwish's funeral tomorrow and see how many people attend it. Or to try to look at the videos of his speeches given to full football stadiums, or the countless millions of copies of his books that have been read by Palestinians and Arabs in the last decades.

Or, to look at the work of any of the other major Palestinian writers, poets and novelists. Take a look at the work of Emile Habibi, or Tawfik Zayyad, or Ghassan Kanfani.

Or, ask yourself who assassinated the wonderful Kanafani. It was none other than the criminal government of Israel, who assassinated a humanist novelist for his novels talking about the inalienable humanity of the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Israel stands as one of the very few despicable racist regimes in history to actually murder a novelist for nothing but his novels.

Anyways, none of that will matter to a racist like yourself who will never, ever, under any conditions let any evidence come between them and the wholesale vilification of a people.

Thankfully, though, people like you will always devolve into the grumpy weird old uncles of whom families the world over are ashamed, while the legacy of the greats like Darwish will live forever.

[J]

[Deleted]

[Steven Augustine]

Polemic is a minor art and arguments thus inspired are as unfailingly hate-filled as they are pointless. Thinking of yourself as "right" is precisely what makes you *wrong*, an error inevitably paid for with the blood of children (who don't give a damn about poems).

[saifedean]

Jonathan,

If you insist on swallowing Israeli Foreign Ministry propaganda hook, line and sinker, then there really is nothing I can do to argue with you.

For those interest in reality, however, it is worth noting that with every operation against Israeli targets, Israel inevitably "linked" to it an enormous number of intellectuals, writers, diplomats, musicians and non-military people who couldn't be involved in the operation even if they had wanted to. Israel would then assassinate these intellectuals under the pretense of vengeance, and thanks to the unfailing gullibility of westerns, will continue for decades to peddle the line that a novelist was responsible for a terrorist attack, and actually find "neutral" people brainwashed enough to defend it thirty years later.

It is worth noting here that the same people who see nothing wrong with these assassinations of Palestinian humanist novelists and intellectuals, are the very same people who never shut up about the failures of Palestinian leadership, failing to see the glaring hypocrisy that links their deafening silence towards the murder of the intellectual Palestinians, and their deafening lecturing of Palestinians for "failed" leadership.

Steven,

That's really cute. Instead of attempting to criticize the ideologies of hate that are the cause of the murder of children, we should follow your lead in your amusing sanctimonious troll lectures haranguing the victim of racist murder for thinking they are different from the racist murderer.

[D]

This is absurd. The author displays no respect for words, except inasmuch as their strength and vigor helps his fulminations. BenjaminL was being harsh and polemical certainly, but there isn't a meaningful sense in which his words were racist.

"religion, ethnicity, nation, race, football team, horoscope, tribe, company or any other equally absurd criteria to tell humans apart."

This equation between race and nation or religion is facile in the extreme. Races don't stand in the same inextricable relation to ideas and thoughts that religions and nations can and do. It means something to consider whether a human being who's truly Muslim/Jewish can consistently take idea X or moral precept Y seriously. It is gibberish by contrast to wonder whether Eskimos can, while retaining their Eskimo-ness, accept or reject Kant's view of Suicide.

[J]

[Deleted]

[saifedaen]

Jonathan,

The amount to which you're willing to stretch your credulity to allow the Mossad the benefit of the doubt would be amazing, were it not for the fact that you are an American intellectual, which means such gymnastics of logic are par of the course when it comes to Israel.

You have to admit it's a little curious how you always assume the best of intentions when it comes to Israel. You wouldn't give your own government this much benefit of the doubt (nor should you.)

Doesn't it strike you as slightly odd that Israel would use every operation as a pretext to assassinate novelists, writers and spokespersons who could communicate with the west? Of all the people in the PFLP, doesn't it strike you as odd that they would choose the novelist whose most revolutionary act was to WRITE press releases and manifestos?

Surely, it must've been the writing they were after, and not just mere membership in an organization that had thousands of members worldwide. Many of the members of the PFLP who were higher ranking than him, and many who were directly involved with the operations were never harmed by the Mossad. But you still cling religiously to the notion that they could never have targeted him deliberately.

But what is utterly amazing for me, even more than the "logic" of this argument, is the fact that you actually have no problem in making it and putting your name to it in public. You actually have no problem in ignoring every other issue related to the conflict--the ethnic cleansing, the occupation, the daily murder, the land theft, the illegal settlements, the religiously-exclusive roads--and only stick your neck out to DEFEND THE MOSSAD!

A human travesty is taking place in Palestine, and you see absolutely nothing worth commenting about except to defend the criminal organization that murders intellectuals by saying that they don't really mean to murder intellectuals because they're intellectuals.

How courageous. How utterly predictable.

50 years from now, when your grandkids look back at this terrible period of the history of the Middle East, I genuinely hope they try to Google your name and see what their grandpa was doing about this conflict. I'm sure they will be filled with pride to learn that his only action was to stick his neck out for the Mossad. I just hope you're alive then so you can have the joy of explaining to them the motivation of your courage.

[Steven Augustine]

Saifedean:

I'm just tired of the eternal argument, is all; Jew vs Arab, Hutu vs Tutsi, Protestant vs Catholic, Northerner vs Southerner, Muslim vs Muslim, Bloods vs Crips, America vs The World... does it come as any surprise to you that all sides, every side, of all of these conflicts, have always considered *themselves* to be "right"?

And it's overwhelmingly, as ever, men slaughtering, or ordering the slaughter, of women and children, isn't it? I suggest opening your mind to the philosophical proposition that the men with guns, bombs, rocks, flaming tires and machetes are all on one side, whatever flags they fly or ideologies they espouse, and most women and *all* children are on the other. Too difficult to wrap your head around that one?

It's the so-called "adults" who bring so much misery to this existence. Territories and ideologies are only ever convenient excuses. Death is always the prize.

If such sentiments are "troll lectures" in your eyes, I'm proud to be a "troll"; rather less proud to be an adult. Don't waste any more of your precious rage on me... go pump your fist and shout a slogan somewhere instead... your brothers are waiting.

[J]

[Deleted]

[J Massad]

a diiffrent palestinian take of m darwish

[...] "In the meantime, acts that Fatah thugs organized, including throwing a Fatah activist (mistaken as a Hamas activist) from a tall building, and the like, are being blamed on Hamas by the secular chorus of Palestinian intellectuals (and the Saudi-owned satellite media) who are supporting the Fatah coup. Perhaps Mahmoud Darwish's recent poem in support of the coup published on the front page of the Saudi newspaper Al-Hayat, can be explained by the monthly checks he receives from the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority; and he is not alone. His condemnation of those secular intellectuals who support Palestinian democracy is a further attempt to polarize Palestinian society not along the lines of those who support or oppose Palestinian democracy, but along the lines of secularists versus Islamists. That the "secularists" are the ones collaborating with theocratic Israel to destroy democracy coded as "Islamism" is represented as a force of Western modernity and enlightenment. What is lost on Darwish and his ilk is that it is those "dark forces" of Islamism in Palestine that are the ones defending democracy.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/851/op23.htm

[Alec]

The author does a disservice to the memory of this man. I don't understand how being an advocate for the Palestinian cause so often acquires the additional roles of apologist and propagandist. Do you actually think that in a conflict-a political conflict-which has spanned at least 60 years one side would remain immaculate? Where is the Palestinian B'Tselem (some of whose members were part of that "criminal government of Israel") or the Palestinian Benny Morris? Why would you mention Darwish's humanistic and inclusive tendencies if you were ready to shit all over them in the comments section?

[Leah]

Saif,

If I may call you that.

Thank-you so much for this wonderful appreciation of Darwish.

I'm so sorry you've had to contend with such clueless comments. But then that's the struggle isn't it. So many years of lies and misinformation.

There are some of us American Jews who are beginning to understand.

[willow]

The only thing more beautiful, human, and universal than this tribute is Darwish himself.

Thanks so much Saif, for explaining what the loss really means.

[reader]

Simply reading through the utterly hate-filled post argument on this thread makes me sick.

These posts, appended to what SHOULD have been an elegy to a rightly famous figure, makes me utterly disgusted to call myself human.

To all who are filled with political and ideological hatred on this board (regardless of your particular ideological position):

Shut up. Go and DO something about your ideas besides rant at those who you know are not going to agree with you. You make it painfully obvious why there is so much warfare in this world.

I'm with Steven; I wish I were a child. Children are at least honest about their hatreds.

[marcel]

Wow, Jonathan, that’s impressive. You’ve actually signed a petition! Amazing!
That really showed Saif for questioning the integrity of your valiant defense of the mossad.

[Steven Augustine]

"I'm with Steven; I wish I were a child. Children are at least honest about their hatreds."

The thing is, Reader (I feel slightly absurd calling you that), I have a 2 year old daughter, and this "debate" (in which, apparently, to hold the wrong position is to risk deletion) reminds me to be grateful that her life isn't in constant danger from rockets, mines, bombs, mobs and all the rest.

But it also makes me furious knowing that no amount of land, nor the defense of any ideology, would be worth a week of her misery and terror, much less the loss of her life: yet, *all* fathers don't seem to feel this way.

I could live with, and struggle against, an imperfect peace, a shaming peace, a peace on the terms of a cruelly superior army, if it meant the rockets could stop; the bullets could stop; my child could walk safely to school, read books, play in the mud, live a merely poverty-stricken life, a second-class life... but a *life*... while I worked hard for peaceful change. I wouldn't arm myself with pitiful weapons and chant "death to the aggressor" and hope they shot me in order to make my point; I wouldn't raise my children and grandchildren, et al, ad infinitum, into certain martyrdom.

As long as there's life, there is possibilty, yes? But in death, all possibilities end. No cause is worth the death of *one child*.

No sacred principle; no sense of self or manhood; no so-called holy land would be worth the death of my child and all the children around me. I would certainly kill to protect my daughter but... if I saw that killing an enemy, or threatening to kill an enemy, would only bring death back to her, I would put down my rock and get on my knees and plead for her life. I would do *anything*; make any bargain; for peace.

Wouldn't you?

[saifedaen]

Steven,
I actually agree strongly with your second comment.
The one difference between us, however, is that I think that the people who refuse to speak out against the men with guns and machetes killing children, and instead resort to wooshy-washy, arty-farty, "everyone is at fault" sanctimonious lecturing, are actually on the side of the men with guns.
As Desmond Tutu said: "If you are neutral between the oppressor and the oppressed, then you are on the side of the oppressor." I'll again emphasize here that oppressor and oppressed are NOT religious, nationalist or ethnic groups. It is exactly how you put it.
But in your last two comments, you lose me. And you make me realize that you’re not even one of those neutrals I mocked in my previous paragraph; you’re another run-of-the mill Zionist who shows up on internet forums where Zionists have run out of arguments to repeat the insincere refrain of “can’t we all get along” while, of course, always placing blame for us “not getting along” squarely on the person arguing against Israeli positions, and on the crazy irrational Palestinians who don’t like peace so much that they are actually willing to demand their freedom from military occupation! It’s a sign of the fact that the web Zionut contingent has really run out of arguments when these comments start turning up.
Incidentally, I am an opponent of violence, and a supporter of nonviolent resistance. But I won’t bother explain to you why your last comment is so wrong and meaningless. I’d have a tiny shred of respect for your position, and might have a temptation to engage you further, if instead of coming here and lecturing us about the evils of the Palestinian civilians demanding their freedom, you had actually dared to say a word about the ARMY THAT IS DENYING THEM THEIR FREEDOM! But of course you did not, you’re only here to try to salvage from this discussion anything that makes Palestinians look bad, and absolves Israel of any blame.
I presume that in a discussion on the German occupation of Poland, you would’ve gotten blue in the face shouting about those crazy Poles that are fighting the Nazis, and not mentioned a word about the little matter of the Nazi occupation of Poland: “How dare those Poles prolong the conflict for the sake of freedom!?”

[Deborah]

Thanks for the comments on Darwish's poetry. Some of the comments here come from people who simply do not know what they're talking about. They have sentiments about peace, their children, etc., but they've never actually lived under occupation. They've never raised a child in Nablus or Hebron, so they don't really know what they're saying.

I appreciated your posting Darwish's poetry. I hate how Fatah(s) has enlisted him as "their's" because of his anti-Hamas polemics, etc. Suddenly, his poetry is being reduced to the latest round of Palestinian in fighting or some white American's ideas about pacifism or what you can or cannot say about Israel to be intelligible in the U.S.

Yawn. Darwish's poetry, regardless of his politics, will always be recalled. He did not belong to Fatah but to the entire Palestinian people and ultimately the world.

[D]

As Desmond Tutu said: "If you are neutral between the oppressor and the oppressed, then you are on the side of the oppressor."

Or, as another eminence would have it,

"Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

[Richard Silverstein]

Thank you for this wonderful eulogy/obituary & for yr personal observations about the role that Darwish's poetry played in yr life.

I too have written an obituary of him fr. my perspective as an American Jew & critic of Israeli policy & the Occupation.

I certainly do not know his poetry as well as you. But I mourn his loss as do you. It is rare that poet or politician can ever put himself in the shoes of the other & grant humanity to the enemy.

As we say in Jewish tradition: "May his memory be for a blessing."

In 1982, with a friend I organized a demonstration of Jews at the UN against Sabra & Shatilla. We juxtaposed Darwish's poetry with the Book of Lamentations, noting how similar the destruction of Jerusalem was to the destruction of Beirut.

I have heard yr name before but I can't believe, having blogged for five yrs. that I've never visited yr blog. I will add a link to you in my blogroll.

[Steven Augustine]

"They've never raised a child in Nablus or Hebron, so they don't really know what they're saying."

Yes, how naive of me to claim that I'd put the life of my child first; obviously, that should be a location-contingent sentiment. Right?

And no matter how I frame my comments, they're only acceptable if I hate Israel and Israelis, I see. Well, sorry if I can't distinguish between the Jew-hater and the Arab-hater, but I am neither.

The "funny" thing in all this is that I left a near-identical (pro-child/anti-warrior) comment on an Arab-hating Zionist's website last year; he never responded, but I'll assume he considered my comment anti-Semitic.

And so it goes on the hatred-go-round.

Let's take a moment to reflect on the naive stupidity of Martin Luther King's non-violent, passive-resitance engagement with brutal American apartheid in the 1960s, shall we? What a fool, that man.

[niz]

Steven, I will respond to you from Mahmoud Darwich poetry.

"This siege will continue till it convinces us to choose with full freedom that slavery doesn't harm" from a state of siege ...I am translating from Arabic.
Steven..this is basically what you are asking the palestinians.
Darwich continues in the same poem:

Martyr the daughter of the martyr and the sister of the martyr, sister in law of the mother of the martyr, grand daughter of the grandfather of the martyr and the neighbour of the martyr's uncle ...etc..
and no news to bother the civilized world
for the barbaric times are over
and the victim's name is unknown, ordinary.
and the victim is like truth, relative...and etc.

In another poem he says (I don't remember which):
"the victim is asked to change its statements to live post modernity!"

Your are speaking and lecturing the Palestinians how they should act against a regime that stole their land and is currently oppressing them with something that has two names (you choose what you like)either apartheid or occupation.
Are these crimes? I don't know anymore...
...but it doesn't matter... may you be consumed by your own hate...
The Arabs lived so many years angry about Israel and the west and the catastrophe that happened in our region...but Darwich was able to reverse this anger and teach me at least, how to experience pain of loss with out anger...As if somehow he tried to liberate himself and heal the shame that marked the collective memory of palestinians after 48. He is the one who also said 'I want a country so I can leave it!'

The Israeli state is a colonial project and it is racist in nature. Yes...but that doesn't mean that Israelis are all racists.The south african regime and system was a apartheid racist regime..but not all the south African whites were.
Thank you Saif..for me reading Mahmoud Darwich is like a yoga session...I think for people, he empowers them as he is able to see in a rotten cruel reality the possibility of beauty.
Darwich is always absurd, painful and optimistic...always able to see the beauty of our human condition:
"our coffee pots and the birds and the green trees
with blue shadows. And the sun jumping from one wall
to the other like a ghazzel
and the water in the endless clouds in what what was left for us
of sky and other things postponed for memory
points out that this morning is strong and beautiful
and that we are guests on eternity."

[LeaNder]

This is really wonderful, Saif. I agree with Richard Silverstein and Philip Weiss.

And thanks, I didn't know him, I have to admit.

[Steven Augustine]

"Are these crimes? I don't know anymore...
...but it doesn't matter... may you be consumed by your own hate..."

Niz, you seem to think my wish for a non-violent approach to the problem is fueled by hatred. I'm curious: what would *your* suggested solution be? How should the Palestinians effect a positive change, in your opinion?

[princetontiger]

From the NY Times:

"He also wrote the Palestinian declaration of independent statehood in 1988 and served on the executive committee of the P.L.O. But he quit in the early 1990s over differences with the leadership and moved firmly out of the political sphere, lamenting the rise of the Islamist group Hamas and what he viewed as the bankruptcy of Palestinian public life."

"He maintained a wide circle of literary acquaintances, including Israelis, and he said he fully supported a two-state solution."

Darwish seems to have been a generous, humble and intellectually honest person. Attributes which seem to be lacking in this post.

There have been plenty of injustices and wrongs done by both sides. There are plenty of nuts and fanatics on both sides. Reasonable people need to rise up to make a lasting peace.

Which of the following are looked upon with universal admiration and honor?

Martin Luther King vs Black Panthers
Mahatma Gandhi vs Tamil Tigers
Nelson Mandela vs Robert Mugabe
Dalai Lama vs Mao Zedong

The non-violent way may be more difficult but much more effective in the long run when fighting oppression.

And Saif, calling people names just because they disagree with you does not help the dialogue.

[niz]

to steven and princetontiger...

I believe in non-violence as an approach to end any conflict because it is smarter. No tyrant can kill all the people. I believe that palestinians must use that method and I think they have been using it besides violent methods.
What is my problem with you?
It pisses me off sometimes when I talk to Israelis or pro Israelis who say nothing and I mean nothing about the amount of house demolitions, killings of babies and women and civilians but they have the audacity to blame it on the palestinians not having a Mandela. It's like a Nazi piece of shit is lecturing the Warsaw ghetto uprise "no..you should stick to non-violent tools you barbaric jews" and then he looks to the camera and says "hey ...you see jews understand only force..it's their fault..they didn't bring Ghandi". Maybe then another Nazi philosopher would propose changing the Torah and the educational Curriculum.. This is Khutsbah!!
After you state that what is happening to Palestinians is a crime and a violation of their human rights. That Israel has built a system of apartheid and occupation (i don't care what you call it) and you agree that it should be changed and that the moral responsibility lies on the occupier, then we'll sit together and talk about new methods of civil and social resistance. I don't know if you see how hypocrite you seem?
back to Darwich and maybe this why he is popular. He has the ability to say what thousands of people cannot. He is a shelter of words: Again from a State of Siege:
" [to a semi-orientalist] Let’s say things are the way you think they are -
that I am stupid, stupid, stupid
and that I cannot play golf
or understand high technology
nor can fly a plane!
Is that why you have ransomed my life to create yours?
If you were another - if I were another
we would have been a couple of friends who confessed our need for folly
But the fool, like Shylock the merchant,
consists of heart, and bread, and two frightened eyes"
"[To a killer:] If you reflected upon the face
of the victim you slew, you would have remembered your mother in the room
full of gas. You would have freed yourself
of the bullet’s wisdom,
and changed your mind: ‘I will never find myself thus.’"
(translated by Ramsis Amun)

Steven..non-violence is about stating the naked truth, about courage. It's not about passiveness.

[kamal salibi]

This is the one I meant. It is just what ought to be said.

[P S Manoj Kumar]

Its just impossible how I heard the news of the death of Mahmud.He was one of the greatest poets lived during the 20th century in the Asian continent.In an age of wars, brutal killings, exiles and boundless sorrows, when human beings are exposed to merciless lives, some words will emerge as the token symbols of life. Mahmud Darwish was one who produced such powerful words which reflected the emotions, life, death and culture of a people who are worst hit from the later half of 20th century. Darwish, You poured light in the darkness of lives and history. You showed us how a poet can postulate a nation and a people. You taught us how to internalise the cultural lessons from the opened skins, blood stains and dying men. That too is our culture, sir. Blood and pains have very much to say in this world.