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by Peter A. Belmont / 2015-01-15
© 2015 Peter Belmont
In 1988, Mahmoud Darwish, widely considered the Palestinian national poet, published a poem called “Passers Between the Passing Words” which caused quite a stir, being considered by Israelis as a demand that they leave Israel.
Wikipedia: In 1988, one of his poems, “Passers Between the Passing Words”, was cited in the Knesset by Yitzhak Shamir. He was accused of demanding that the Jews leave Israel, although he claimed he meant the West Bank and Gaza:[39] “So leave our land/Our shore, our sea/Our wheat, our salt, our wound.” A specialist on Darwish’s poetry Adel Usta, said the poem was misunderstood and mistranslated, while poet and translator Ammiel Alcalay wrote that “the hysterical overreaction to the poem simply serves as a remarkably accurate litmus test of the Israeli psyche ... (the poem) is an adamant refusal to accept the language of the occupation and the terms under which the land is defined”.
Here is a fragment of Darwish’s poem, in English translation:
Dig up your dead
Take their bones with you and leave our land
Live where you wish but do not live among us
It is time for you to get out and die where you wish but do not die among us.
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.
Because of the fuss in Israel (and the USA), and out of my feelings about the Israel/Palestine conflict, I wrote the following poem (slightly edited here). It happens to suggest, falsely, of course, that Darwish was plagiarizing Israelis. In a way, it suggests, perhaps, that I was plagiarizing Darwish, although my intent was merely to blast Zionist blindness.
If you read it, I imagine you will get the idea.
By the way, so far as I know, the Zionists of 1947-48 used no trucks when they expelled 85% of the Arab inhabitants of what then became Israel, the same being 50% of the Palestinian Arab population as a whole. The Palestinian exiles had to walk or die. The trucks arose in my poetic fantasy.
A Confession of Plagiarism
Israelis, O Israelis! How fearful my poem makes you.
Why does this cry from the heart so grip your souls?
This is no treaty, no negotiation.
No policy is this, no proposal, not even so much as a dream.
This, my poem, is no more than a cry from the heart.
Israelis, O Israelis.
Israelis, O Israelis, do not be confused. My poem is just
A cry from the heart. No great thing.
But, and this I must confess:
My poem reeks of plagiarism.
”Live where you wish, but do not live among us,” I wrote.
This was plagiarism.
In 1948, you put Palestinians on trucks,
Israelis, O Israelis, and took us across your borders, saying,
”Live where you wish, but do not live among us.”
I have plagiarized the message of your trucks.
”Die where you wish, but do not die among us,” I wrote.
But this too was plagiarism.
For 40 years you have closed your borders to us,
Israelis, O Israelis, saying
”Die where you wish, but do not die among us.”
Israelis, O Israelis, I have plagiarized the message of your laws, your borders, your guns.
”Get out of the memory of memories,” I wrote.
But this, too, was plagiarism.
I echoed that first, great, Zionist poem,
”A land without a people for a people without a land.”
I echoed Golda’s magnificent sonnet,
”The Palestinians? There are no Palestinians!”
I echoed your resplendent covenant,
Stately and majestic
And all in blank verse writ:
”There is no-one on the other side with whom to negotiate.”
”Get out of the memory of memories,” I wrote,
But I have merely plagiarized the message of your wilful blindness.
We Palestinians left the memory of your memories
Before you ever met us,
Before you forgot us,
Before you will ever admit that we exist.
Hear Israelis, O Israelis, the Palestinian people are One!
We exist! Hear us, see us, feel us, taste us.
Remove us from the oblivion to which you have consigned us.
Remove yourselves from the obliviousness
Into which you have been content to settle.
Answer our call.
Israelis, O Israelis, you have read my poem
And too casually assumed,
Too easily considered,
Too naturally supposed,
That the cry you heard was Palestinian.
But tell me, Israelis, O Israelis,
Really,
How can you tell
That this was not an Israeli cry,
My poem a translation from the Hebrew?
I have re-read my poem, Israelis, O ever-fearful Israelis,
And I will tell you.
In all honesty,
Even I,
I myself,
Cannot tell.
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