Faith Matters: Nonviolence and poetry necessary for Palestine peace

About 20 years ago, Adam, a student from Gaza, introduced me to the work of Mahmoud Darwish, who at that time was considered the unofficial national poet of Palestine. I grew to share Adam’s admiration of Darwish’s poems, which range from the lyrical to the political.

Here is an excerpt from Darwish’s “ID Card” in which the poet adopts the persona of an old Palestinian farmer stopped at an Israeli security checkpoint:

Write down:

I am an Arab

You have robbed me of my ancestors’ vineyards

And the land cultivated by me and my children.

Nothing is left for us and our grandchildren

Except these rocks …

Darwish’s own family’s village in Galilee was destroyed in the 1948 Israeli takeover of the territory. I am still in touch with Adam who still has family in Gaza. As you can imagine, he is outraged by what is happening there and very concerned about the welfare of his family and homeland.

In a recent email, I asked Adam if he thought Darwish’s poetry was still relevant. “This is not the time for poetry,” he replied.

I can understand why he thinks this — it is a time for action and humanitarian aid, not for mere words.

However, I hope he is wrong. My hope is partly personal. For years as an English teacher I made my living promoting the importance and understanding of mere words, including those shaped into poems. I like to think that there is never a time when poems such of those of Darwish are irrelevant.

But can poetry be heard over the sounds of war — the bombs, the sirens, the screams? Palestine needs the stillness of a ceasefire. More, it needs a cease to violence that only a nonviolent movement might help create.

Against all odds, against all bombs, such a movement exists. The January 2024 Sojourners features an article on and recent interview with Ali Abu Awwad, cofounder of Taghyeer (Arabic for change), a Palestinian nonviolent movement.

Awwad will not yield to despair in spite of the current horrific violence in his homeland. As a victim of Israeli violence, Awwad began to learn the effectiveness of nonviolent action when in an Israeli prison for throwing rocks. He went on a hunger strike until he was allowed to visit his mother, a well-known activist, also in prison.

After his brother was shot to death by an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint, Awwad met with some Israeli victims of Palestinian violence.

This, he says, brought about his final commitment to nonviolence.

“Now more than ever,” Awwad asserts, “we all must refuse to use violence to justify more violence. We should not allow our pain to blind us to what is most needed: mutually guaranteed sovereignty, security, and dignity for both Israelis and Palestinians.”

He questions, of course, the value of military support. “The best way to support Israel,” he writes, “is to protect both Palestinian lives and Jewish lives.”

Those wishing to support Awwad’s work may do so through The Friends of Taghyeer Movement.

When asked if he has hope for progress toward peace, Awwad responded that hope is possible only if coupled with strategy and action: “What gives me hope … are all those human beings on both sides who still fight every day for a solution, not each other. When I see Israeli and Palestinian mothers struggling to protect their kids — this gives me a lot of hope.”

Awwad’s hope for peace reminds me of Mahmoud Darwish’s “Salaam” (peace be upon you) for those who join him in believing in the light of the butterfly, the embodiment of hopeful change:

Salaam upon whoever splits with me the attention to

light’s ecstasy, the butterfly light, in

this tunnel’s night

Poetry and nonviolence in Palestine?

Both implausible.

Both necessary for a way through the darkness to the light.

Hesford is a member of the Latah County Human Rights Task force and Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Moscow.