Israel and Palestine Find Peace in Poetry

Author: Khairani Barokka

Side by side on Sept. 29, two distinguished poets, one a Palestinian, the other an Israeli, brought the emotions and vivid imagery of war in the Middle East to a sizeable audience in the Robert A. Jones '59 Conference Room.
Taha Muhammad Ali and Aharon Shabtai each read from their own work — Ali in Arabic, Shabtai in Hebrew — and were accompanied by the commentary and English translation of Peter Cole. The event was sponsored by the Curt C. and Else Silberman Chair in Jewish Studies and the Saltz Judaica Fund.
The poets were introduced by Dean of the Faculty Robert Schine and Peter Cole, who has translated the remarkable work of both poets. The reading was held in the memory of both John Wallach '64 (founder of the summer camp Seeds of Peace, which brings together Arab and Israeli youth) and Curt C. Silberman.
It was poignant not only for the beauty of the verses read, but also as a reminder of the ongoing cycle of violence in the poets' homeland. These moving words came directly from the perspectives of two men who have been affected by the hatred they write of and their desire to tell the stories behind each poem.
Ali, born in 1931 in the village of Safuriyya, was forced to escape from his birthplace when it was bombed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.Fleeing to Lebanon, he later returned to find his village turned to rubble, and then settled in Nazareth at around the age of 17. There he set up a souvenir shop, became an Israeli citizen and has since written four books of poetry in Arabic. Ali's gestures and deep, gravelly voice played on the nuances of his language in his reading of his work last Sunday night. All of the poems were from his collection "Never Mind," published in 2000.
He began with a short piece from the group of poems entitled "Twigs," which ended with "art is worthless / unless it plants / a measure of splendor in people's hearts." Ali remarked, "Art has to contribute, to produce a splendor in people's hearts. Otherwise, it is not art … If I succeed tonight, I will be happy." This first poem was followed by "Warning," "Meeting at an Airport," "Abd El-Hadi Fights a Superpower," another poem from "Twigs" and "Sabha's Rope".
Ali's poetry does not automatically bring to mind the word "splendor." It deals with the issues of displacement, destruction, violence and desperation faced in Palestine. "Warning," he writes, "says my happiness / bears no relation to happiness." But this sadness is conveyed in a subtle way. The images of nature and kind characters portrayed in these poems bring a muted, gentler face to the suffering without lessening its intensity. The poems are all political without being violent or aggressive — they are bittersweet and even ironic.
"Abd El-Hadi Fights a Superpower," a poem that Ali had at first been reluctant to read in the United States because of its political statements, is about the innocent Abd El-Hadi. This character would, if he ever met the crew of the aircraft carrier Enterprise who attacked him, "serve them eggs / sunny side up / and labneh / fresh from the bag."
Another poem, "Sabha's Rope," tells the tale of a village cow, Sabha, who dies from eating a rope. Ali says of the village that "the bitterness was good / like chicory / or better!" and "I would have preferred … to swallow a rope longer than Sabha's / if only / we could have stayed in our village." Despite the sorrow, the second portion from "Twigs" is a clear warning against letting this sorrow turn to hatred: "After we die … hate will be / the first thing / to putrefy / within us."
Shabtai's poetry is also intensely political, but can be much fiercer and more explicit than Ali's. Shabtai was born in 1939, lectures at Tel Aviv University and has written more than 15 volumes of poetry, as well as being an award-winning translator of Greek drama. He has been described as "the most important Israeli poet of his generation." Often published in Ha'aretz, the Israeli daily newspaper, Shabtai is active in his condemnation of Israel's policies towards the Palestinians — he has gone to the Occupied Territories to distribute food, and was once part of a crowd tear-gassed by the Israeli army. This provocative stance is reflected in his poetry, in which he concentrates on writing about the Intifada.
"When [the Intifada] began two years ago," Shabtai said, "I reacted immediately. Something happened on Wednesday, so I wrote it on Wednesday … These are poems of quick reaction." He openly admitted that his material is meant to be politically provoking. "You say, 'I want to get rid of the Palestinians and the Arabs' I say 'I don't want that.'"
Shabtai read from his collection "Love and Selected Poems" as well as from his soon-to-be-published collection "Politics." The poems included "War," "Culture," numbers six, 20 and 21 from "Love," "The Prayer Book," "The Door" and "Lotta Abdel-Shafi."
"War" and "Culture" were the most explicit poems of the evening. "War" declares, "You'll need to divert part of the force / deployed to wipe out the Arabs — / to drive them out of their homes / and expropriate their land — / and set it against me." "Culture" speaks of "a soldier who shoots / at the head of a child". (Most of the poetry from "Love" and "The Door," however, were non-political poems).
Shabtai spoke in between his poems of his wishes for a return to "the essence of Judaism — living together in the land of Palestine and Israel. We still have some hope." This hope for living together is obvious in the poem "Lotta Abdel-Shafi," in which Shabtai wishes his daughter Lotta would marry the grandson of Heydar Abdel-Shafi, an activist from Gaza.
The sight of two elderly poets from Palestinian and Israeli backgrounds coming together to spread their message as one certainly extends more of that hope for reconciliation. Shabtai and Ali have done joint readings before, and clearly think highly of each other. Shabtai agreed that their poems complement each other, and said of Ali, "I like him very much. I think we are children of the same earth. There are similarities in our work." Ali speaks of Shabtai as "good-hearted" and "progressive."
Shabtai has been called much less flattering names in Israel, where his work has been greatly criticized in furious letters to the editor of Ha'aretz. When asked for a response to one of these criticisms that he did not write about the suicide attacks in Israel and their effect, Shabtai answered, "Of course, I have children who go to school, I am afraid of all kinds of terror. But I don't write about what the other side is doing. I write about my side. I think we have to start from our side. It is about morals. If the Jewish side acts morally, the other side will see this, and they will act morally."
Of the current situation in his homeland, Shabtai thought that "now is the most dark hour in all my life. But if you speak of hope … Crazy people, now, they go to all this craziness — it will lead to nothing. People will see the only option. Like in Greek tragedy, only punishment will cause something to happen. Then there will be hope."
Ali commented, "I think peace needs to come from a U.N. resolution … To get a state of Palestine beside a state of Israel, then there will be peace … I think poetry brings people together, breaks barriers between languages and nations. I think poetry is the language of humans, and if you hear it, it will make you better." And will he ever stop writing poetry? "Never," Ali replied firmly. "That's when I stop breathing."