Since the Nakba of 1948, Palestinian artists have often expressed their feelings of pain and loss on Israeli imperialism, settler colonialism, violence, loss, and much more through different artistic mediums, inspiring generations of important and powerful resistance art.
Throughout history, resistance art has remained a key medium in challenging oppressive powers, having such a long history that it is difficult to pin the origin. The term ‘resistance art’ grew out of South Africa in the 1970s from the Black Consciousness Movement, as a way to resist apartheid and celebrate African unity. But, we have examples even going back as far as Ovid in Ancient Rome.
Resistance art remains a significant tool in resisting oppression, particularly due to its accessibility, and even its ability for anonymity. Anyone is able to pick up a pen, paintbrush, spray can, and channel their anger, pain, and fear through it.
Although it would be impossible to cover all the inspiring poetry written by Palestinian writers, I hope that they inspire, and encourage, people to read more of the country’s expansive collection of resistance literature.
Beginning with two shorter pieces from recent resistance writers.
My People — Samer Abu Hawwash
My people write the names of their children
on arms and legs, so they can find them
later in the massacres.
Samer is a poet and translator, born in 1972 in Lebanon to a Palestinian refugee family, who has written ten poetry collections, and has translated more than 20 volumes of poetry and prose from English, including Sylvia Plath.
In order for me to write about poetry that isn’t political — Marwan Makhoul
In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political
I must listen to the birds
and in order to hear the birds
the warplanes must be silent.
Marwan was born in 1979 in the Upper Galilee region of Palestine, and works as a civil engineer and a director of a construction company.
From the Diary of an Almost-Four-Year-Old — Hanan Mikha’il Ashrawi (1988)
I hear a nine-month old
has also lost an eye,
I wonder if my soldier
shot her too—a soldier
looking for little girls who
look him in the eye—
I’m old enough, almost four,
I’ve seen enough of life,
but she’s just a baby
who didn’t know any better.
Hanan is a prominent writer, activist, academic, and politician, remaining one of the most powerful voices in the Palestinian liberation movement.
Hanan was born in 1946 in the West Bank to a Christian family; her father, Da’ud Mikha’il, was one of the founders of the Palestine Liberation – a coalition recognised internationally as the official representative of occupied Palestine.
In 1967, when Israel took control of the West Bank (as well as other territories), Hanan was denied her ‘right to return’, in a law passed by the occupation that removed the legal status of any Palestinian who was not currently in Palestine, making her unable to return until 1973. She resided mostly in the US during this time, where she continued her further education.
Hanan has been involved in activism throughout her life, including helping to set up a legal aid committee to pay off the fines of students arrested by the Israeli occupation. She has an established history in politics, including her current position as spokesperson for the Arab League.
If I must die – Refaat Alareer (2023)
If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
[…]
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
[…]
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale
Dr Refaat Alareer was a writer, poet, translator, university professor, and activist from the Gaza Strip, born in 1979.
Refaat was shaped by his experience growing up in occupied Gaza, such as blacking out after an Israeli soldier, “grinning ear to ear”, threw a stone at his head while he was in first-grade, and another time being shot by rubber bullets, as well as witnessing the violent responses to the peaceful Great March of Return protests.
In the first few weeks of the genocide, Refaat and his family were displaced on multiple occasions, where he described Gaza as a place of “unprecedented horror”, as his children were already beginning to starve. In 2023, he wrote that: “Israel long ago created the concentration camp […] but now this is an extermination camp.”
In December 2023, he was killed by an Israeli airstrike, along with his brother, sister, and their children, just five weeks after writing the aforementioned poem, which he pinned to his Twitter profile. The poem was written to his daughter, Shymaa, who was then murdered in an Israeli airstrike just a few months after her father, along with her children.
A year after his death, a posthumous collection of his work was released in the book ‘IF I MUST DIE’, which includes both poetry and prose.
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Boy Sells Gum at Qalandiyah — Mohammed El-Kurd (2021)
A woman tells him a pen is a sword. What’s a pen
to a rifle? Another fed him a sonnet. If Shakespeare
was from here he wouldn’t be writing.[…]
The boy is eight, which is twenty-two for Americans.
Mohammed is a writer, poet, activist, lecturer, and journalist, born in the West Bank in 1998. The aforementioned poem is from his collection, ‘RIFQA’.
In 2009, part of Mohammed’s family home was forcefully taken by Israeli settlers. Prior to the Palestine-Israel conflict of 2021, he studied university in the US, but returned to protest Israel’s evictions of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem. The same year, he was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME Magazine.
Since his return, along with his twin sister, Muna El-Kurd, the pair have been documenting and speaking out against Palestinian displacement in East Jerusalem, particularly on social media.
Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying — Noor Hindi (2022)
Colonizers write about flowers.
I tell you about children throwing rocks at Israeli tanks
seconds before becoming daisies.
[…]
I know I’m American because when I walk into a room something dies.
Noor is an American-Palestinian poet and essayist. Her debut poetry collection, Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow came out in 2022, and she is the co-editor of the book, Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry.
On her website, she states: “Anywhere and everywhere you are, you can disrupt, advocate, speak out and refuse in small and big ways. Revolution until freedom”, and opens with a call-to-action to join the fight for liberation of Palestine and all oppressed people.
In addition, Noor has written articles on inequality in Ohio, which serves as a tie to her poetry, as she expressed concerns over unlawful evictions and police training which urged officers to be “ruthless killers”, both of which mirror similar concerns of Palestinians in their homeland. Particularly poignant, as many American police forces are trained by the IDF.
In Jerusalem — Mahmoud Darwish (2007)
But I
think to myself: Alone, the prophet Muhammad
spoke classical Arabic. “And then what?”
Then what? A woman soldier shouted:
Is that you again? Didn’t I kill you?
I said: You killed me … and I forgot, like you, to die.
Mahmoud was born in 1941, only seven years before the state of Israel was established. He was a poet and author who was regarded as Palestine’s national poet, publishing over 30 books of poetry and eight books of prose, and won many awards during his life.
During the 1948 Nakba, his village was captured by Israeli forces, forcing he and his family to flee to Lebanon. Following this, the IDF destroyed the village to prevent inhabitants from returning. A year later, Mahmoud and his family moved to Acre, Israel, but were never granted citizenship. When he joined the Palestinian Liberation Organization, he was banned from re-entering Israel and it was once he left the PLO that was he allowed to move to the West Bank.
In 1998, Mahmoud wrote the Palestinian Declaration for Independence, a formal declaration of Palestine as a date, separate from the occupying state of Israel.
After suffering a fatal heart attack in Texas in 2008, he was buried next to Ramallah’s Palace of Culture with an erected shrine, as he requested in his will to be buried in Palestine. His brother, Ahmed Darwish, said that: “Mahmoud doesn’t just belong to a family or a town, but to all the Palestinians, and he should be buried in a place, where all Palestinians can come and visit him.”
The Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, declared three days of mourning to honour Darwish, and he was given the equivalent of a state funeral. His importance to Palestinian culture cannot be overstated, and his life could merit an article of its own altogether.
THE OLIVE TREE — Tawfiq Zayyad (1982)
Because I am always hunted
And my house is always raided.
Because I cannot own a piece of paper,
I shall carve my memoirs
On the home yard olive tree.
Born in 1929 in Nazareth, Tawfiq was a poet, politician, and activist. He was an active member of the Israeli Communist Party, on the side of anti-Zionism, campaigning for better treatment of Arabs in Israel, as well as being active in trade union activities. In 1975, he was appointed Mayor of Nazareth.
In particular, he co-authored a paper on the treatment of Arab prisoners in Israeli prisons in 1987, which was subsequently quoted at a UN assembly where it was described as: “Perhaps the best evidence of the truth of the reports describing the repugnant inhumane conditions endured by Arab prisoners.”
Tawfiq was arrested several times throughout his life, making prison poetry a topic close to his heart. In 1973, he published a collection of poems titled Sujana al-huriyya (Prisoners of Freedom), written in support of the ongoing hunger strikes in a number of Israeli prisons. As a result, the book was quickly censored and banned.
Tawfiq’s poetry explored the idea of ‘sumud’, a Palestinian value and political strategy that emerged after the 1967 conflict, meaning ‘steadfastness’ – taking on a political statement of resistance. The simplicity and depth of his work allowed for many of his poems to be set to music, becoming part of the musical heritage of resistance.
Following his death in 1994, multiple streets were named in his honour.
Enemy of the Sun — Samih Al-Qasim (1970)
You may take the last strip of my land,
Feed my youth to prison cells.
You may plunder my heritage.
You may burn my books, my poems
[…]
O enemy of the sun,
But
I shall not compromise
And to the last pulse in my veins
I shall resist.
Samih was born in what is now known as Jordan in 1939, and was a poet, journalist, politician, and teacher well-known throughout the region. During the 1948 Nakba, his family did not flee and he describes the event in his book: “While I was still at primary school the Palestinian tragedy occurred. I regard that date as the date of my birth, because the first images I can remember are of the 1948 events. My thoughts and images spring from the number 48.”
He was also one of the first Arab Druze youth to refuse the compulsory military service imposed by the Israeli forces in his community.
Samih worked as a teacher, but was dismissed by the Israeli education minister due to his pro-Palestinian activism. After the 1967 conflict, he joined the Israeli Communist Party.
When he died from cancer in 2014, his funeral was attended by thousands.
What can we draw from resistance poetry?
As shown through the poems referenced in this article, there is a rich tradition of Palestinian resistance poetry going back decades, reminding us that Israel’s oppression of Palestinians has been ongoing since before October 7th . and it often covers themes of home, steadfastness, loss, youth, and imperialism.
Many of these writers felt the effects of Israel’s occupation firsthand, an inescapable disturbance that continues to undermine Palestinians’ livelihood today. It is interesting to note how many of the earlier writers were part of the Israeli Communist Party, which is indicative of the key connection between art and activism.
The party developed from the Palestine Communist Party after the 1948 Nakba, but eventually divided on Zionism. Multiple Arab members left and founded the New Communist List (Rakah) in 1965, which is an ongoing party today, whilst the original Zionist party left behind is now disbanded as of 1973. The resistance poets were part of Rakah, after the split.
Of course, it is one thing to be moved by art, and another to be moved into action.
In this time of genocide and bloodshed, it is easy to become overwhelmed and helpless, and to even want to step away from it all. It is also easy to forget that being able to ignore the conflict is a privilege in and of itself.
Although citizens may lack the power of governments and militaries, we can refuse to stay silent. We can protest, uplift Palestinian voices, boycott, make art of our own, and donate to causes focused on Palestinian aid – including Palestinians themselves.
Whilst it is important to avoid burnout, as any activist would tell you, do not look away from what is being perpetrated. Those that are committing this genocide, as with all cases of cruelty and misuse of power, rely on your silence and you ‘moving on’.
