In Mideast, poetry is political

PAXTON DAVIS

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“POETRY MAKES nothing happen,” wrote poet W.H. Auden. In an age and country in which poetry is the precious possession of a tiny minority who are viewed by the majority as odd, possibly mad, that may seem true. But elsewhere in the world, poetry not only matters but makes things happen, as events in strife-torn Israel are now demonstrating.

Case in point: the publication of an Arab’s poem that is causing many Israeli liberals to fear that there is, after all, no way of co-existing with the Palestinians.

For years, the hope of Western liberals for peace between Israel and the Palestinians has lain with the liberal, intellectual element of the Israeli people and the politicians representing them in the ruling Knesset.

Their view and their argument have been that the Palestinian Arabs are willing to “share” Palestine with the Jews and that there are moderate elements within the Palestinian movement with whom Israel can deal. That view underlies the current, highly visible effort of U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz to broker a peaceful settlement to the violent discord on the West Bank.

But the faith of Israeli liberals in the feasibility of that scheme was rudely shattered two weeks ago, when an Arabic-language Paris weekly published a poem by a man widely regarded as one of the “moderate” voices within the Palestine Liberation Organization. The poem, entitled “Those who pass between fleeting words,” is by Mahmoud Darwish.

To most Westerners, attuned to a different sort of poetry, it sounds both vague and hifalutin. But Darwish is widely respected as both poet and political activist, and his words, especially in this seemingly political poem, are causing deep doubts within the ranks of Israeli intellectual and liberal thinkers.

The particular verses troubling them go: Live wherever you like, but do not live among us It is time for you to be gone Die wherever you like, but do not die among us For we have work to do in our land.

Israelis are interpreting the lines to mean Darwish, despite earlier hope for his moderating between rival factions, shares the radical Arab view that the Israelis are intruders on land rightfully the Arabs’ and that no peace can exist as long as the Israelis are there.

The Israeli right has always maintained that Arab thought is implacably hostile and that any sort of negotiated settlement with the Palestinians is impossible. Darwish, for his part, denies that interpretation, insisting that he meant only to urge Israel to quit the West Bank and Gaza, not Palestine altogether.

Typical Israeli reaction was summed up by a professor at Hebrew University who said: “The right has always argued that if you give [Palestinians] the West Bank they will turn it into a base of operations to attack Israel. Now it seems that prediction is being borne out.” The poem, he said, has had a “really chilling effect.”

How this transcription was made

Masthead not readable on the scan. The label on the slide read: [masthead not on scan] — One clipping, one scan: an opinion column, one column wide, running the full page depth. “FUROR IN ISRAEL” sits above the headline as a section flag — it is a kicker, NOT a deck, so `dek` is left empty. The byline is set as a standing column signature block (“PAXTON DAVIS”) partway down the column rather than under the headline. Two unrelated stories occupy the right-hand side of the scan (one about an airport-security report, one headed “THE NO… Ta… So…” about linguistic history) and are not transcribed. — A date line is printed at the top of the page: “FRIDAY, APRIL 15, 1988”. 15 April 1988 was a Friday. The paper name is not on the scan, but the columnist’s tag line at the foot reads “Paxton Davis is a Roanoke Valley free-lance journalist and novelist”, which is consistent with Maria’s label.

Cite this clipping

"In Mideast, poetry is political," (newspaper unidentified), 15 April 1988. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1988-137. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1988-137