(newspaper unidentified) · 6 April 1988
CP-1988-117
Poem by a Palestinian writer fans Israelis’ fear for their land
Transcribed from the clipping
JERUSALEM — A poem by a leading Palestinian writer has set off a furor in Israel, touching on a primal fear shared by almost all Israelis. Mahmoud Darwish's poem, in an English translation, ends with the lines: Get out of our land our continent, our sea our wheat, our salt, our sore our everything, and get out of the memory of memories.
It is the “our everything” that rubs a raw nerve for Israelis. Darwish, in charge of cultural affairs for the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee, is regarded as a moderate in the PLO. Yet the poem has strengthened Israelis' fears that the Palestinians will not be satisfied even if they attain an independent state in the occupied territories.
The poem has fueled the arguments of right-wingers, who oppose territorial compromise. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir referred to it last week in a speech. “I fear this poem by Darwish is liable to give the right the Knesset seats it needs for a possible majority in the elections,” Israeli writer Haim Guri said. “The poem returns us to the true demons.
It speaks truth; poems do not lie.”
How this transcription was made
Masthead not readable on the scan. The label on the slide read: UNCONFIRMED — Maria's label says Seattle Post-Intelligencer; no masthead or folio appears on this scan. The only paper name printed on the clipping is the credit line “The New York Times”, which is the source of the copy, not the paper that printed it. DO NOT let that credit line be mistaken for the masthead at ingest.
Cite this clipping
"Poem by a Palestinian writer fans Israelis’ fear for their land," (newspaper unidentified), 6 April 1988. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1988-117. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1988-117
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Last updated 2 November 2026
This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1724 to 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.
The clipping belongs to the newspaper that printed it, or to the news agency that supplied the copy. It is reproduced here for research, criticism and commentary. A city here is where the newspaper was published, not where the story came from, and on most records it was taken from the masthead.
Something wrong here, or something you know about this clipping? The archive is still being built and corrections are wanted: maria@rozumstudio.com, quoting CP-1988-117.
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