PA TV host praises violent “resistance” with “rocks, knives, and car rammings”
Official PA TV program From Beirut
Official PA TV host: “Dear viewers, good evening. I call on you to go towards my state – we and all the people – so that we will see a pain that is complete emotion. They are resisting the occupier in the holiest site with rocks, knives, and car rammings, while repeating like an echo the poetry of [Palestinian poet] Mahmoud Abd Al-Rahim, [Israeli Arab Parliament Member and poet Tawfiq] Zayyad, Rim, Al-Sbeih, [Mu’in] Bseiso, and [Palestinian poet Mahmoud] Darwish in the land that is downtrodden, in the cradle and the Night Journey of the most honored people [Jesus and Muhammad], where the eyes long to drink the sun of freedom. May every refugee return to Palestine from the diaspora to the land of the homeland that has longed for its children, so that they will wave the flags over the churches, mosques, and towers of Jerusalem, the capital of the independent State of Palestine.”
Mahmoud Darwish is considered the Palestinian national poet. He published over 30 volumes of poetry and 8 books of prose and has won numerous awards. He joined the Israeli Communist Party in 1961 and the terrorist organization PLO in 1973, becoming a member of the PLO Executive Committee in 1987. He left the PLO in 1993 because it signed the Oslo Accords with Israel. Many in Israel see his poetry as inciting hate and violence. One poem he wrote in 1988 at the height of the Palestinian wave of violence and terror against Israel in which approximately 200 Israelis were murdered (the first Intifada, 1987-1993) calls to Israelis: “Take your portion of our blood - and be gone… Live wherever you like, but do not live among us… Die wherever you like, but do not die among us… Leave our country, our land, our sea, our wheat, our salt, our wounds, everything, and leave the memories of memory.” In 1964, he wrote a poem entitled "ID Card" in which he said: "I do not hate people, And I do not steal from anyone, But if I starve I will eat my oppressors' flesh; Beware, beware of my starving, And my rage." He also wrote “Silence for the Sake of Gaza” in 1973, which many see as glorifying terror: “She wraps explosives around her waist and blows herself up. It is not a death, and not a suicide. It is Gaza's way of declaring she is worthy of life.” His defenders have claimed that Israel misinterprets his poetry and that he sought reconciliation with Israel. One wrote in 2017: “Darwish arranged meetings between Palestinian and Israeli intellectuals, and published essays on their discussions. He was optimistic that, through mutual understanding, the two sides could eventually reconcile.” [https://www.bcalnoor.org/]