The Tampa Times · Tampa, Florida · 12 October 1976

CP-1976-008

Arab-American convention hears horror stories from Israeli Arabs

Andrea Brunais, Times Staff Writer

Transcribed from the clipping

“NEW YORK — Hanna Nasir already was asleep when Israeli authorities in Birzeit called him to their offices to discuss student demonstrations at Birzeit University. The students had been demonstrating against continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank. It was close to midnight in November 1974 when Nasir got the call, but the president of the Palestinians’ only university did as he was told. There were no discussions, however. Nasir was handcuffed, blindfolded and driven to the Lebanese border with three other West Bank Palestinians. They were told to move north, if they returned they would be shot… Nasir is one of the 1,300 well-educated professionals who have been deported — illegally, they say — from the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Jordan. Nasir left behind his wife and four children, who later joined him in Amman, Jordan, where he continues to run the university in absentia. His expulsion, he said, was part of a systematic policy by the Israelis to eliminate any possibility of leadership among the Palestinians on the West Bank… Felicia Langer, a Jewish author and attorney on the West Bank, described ‘institutionalized terror’ against the Arabs in the occupied territories, including tactics such as illegal deportation, years-long ‘administrative detentions’ without hearing or trial, brutal interrogations, collective punishments and the destruction of homes… Some members of the AAUG hoped the organization would join the struggle to improve the image of the Arab in the minds of the American public. Keynote speaker James Abourezk, Democratic senator from South Dakota, noted that most Americans think of Arabs only as ‘greedy, rich spendthrifts or murderous bandits.’… In deference to the bloodshed in Lebanon, however, the festivities were scrapped. Instead, the outspoken leftist mayor of Nazareth, Tawfiq Zayyad, proved himself as adept at poetry as he is at aggravating the Israeli authorities. He recited one of his poems about Palestine, which set some members of his audience to tears. ‘We will not leave (Palestine),’ he recited. ‘We are staying, to attend our homes, our lands, our fences. We were here in the past, we will maintain it in the present, because the future is ours.’ Tomorrow: Palestinians under Israeli rule.”

Context added by this archive

A poem recited at a convention and printed by an American paper as news. The parenthesis in “We will not leave (Palestine)” is the paper’s own. Zayyad was mayor of Nazareth and a member of the Knesset — a Palestinian citizen of Israel, which the paper marks in its headline by calling the speakers “Israeli Arabs.”

Cite this item

"Arab-American convention hears horror stories from Israeli Arabs," The Tampa Times, 12 October 1976. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1976-008. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1976-008

Elsewhere in the archive

• Life not democratic for some in IsraelThe Tampa Times · 13 October 1976 · the same newspaper
• Plight of four schoolgirls illustrates frustration of West Bank occupationBellingham Herald · 17 March 1976 · the same year
• Arabs Killed In Rioting In IsraelEffingham Daily News · 30 March 1976 · the same year
• Israel Fights ‘Worst Arab Riot’Pittsburgh Press · 30 March 1976 · the same year