Togetherness in Israel |
21 |
bin places that are difficult to uncover.’” Those weapons will
bsomeday be used against Jews.
bHate? On May Day, 1976, at a huge Arab rally in Nazareth
bto celebrate brotherhood and solidarity, Samiah Al Kassen, an
bIsraeli Arab poet, delighted the crowd by reading one of his
bworks. The full text appeared on May 7 in the Arab-language
bnewspaper Al-Atihad. It reads, in part:
O Joshua, son of Nun
Listen!
You stopped the sun on the walls of Jericho
Did you satisfy the desire of your murderous God?
You will murder in the day and inherit the murdered
All the oceans in the world cannot clean your hands . . .
Who has the deed to the land, to history?
Who has the deed?
You have the weapons, the army, the clubs
You have the flag, the newspapers, the embassies
True, true: but in my pocket, I will preserve the deed:
As long as there are stones on this land
as long as there are empty bottles
we will throw them on your tanks.
bPoetry is the marching tune of national rebellion. Israeli
bArabs honor their poets especially when they write of the de-
bstruction of the Zionist state. In February 1977 the PLO’s press
battaché at the UN, Rashed Hussein, died in a New York City
bhotel fire. He had been born in the Israeli Arab village of
bMusmus, and on February 8 the Israeli government allowed his
bbody to be buried there. Thousands of Arab citizens of Israel
bstreamed through a muddy, winding path to hear Arab Knesset
bmember Tewfik Zayad declare: “We shall never give in until the
bgoal that Rashed Hussein and his friends [sic] advocated,
bfought for, and struggled for is fulfilled.”
bHussein’s “friends” are the PLO. We all know what they
bhave “advocated, fought for, and struggled for.” When an Is-
braeli Arab, a Knesset member (and mayor of Nazareth), pledges
bto see that these are “fulfilled,” what does that say about the
bArabs of Israel?
bToo many simply do not understand that the Arab-Israeli
b