National Poet or Cannibal?

Mahmoud Darwish has been reunited with his forefathers. He left a legacy of hatred, bitterness and nightmarish visions of cannibalism. Take, e.g., his poem "Identity Card":

I do not hate people
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The occupier's flesh will be my food
Beware..
Beware..
Of my hunger,
Of my anger!

It seems that he became hungry (perhaps even hungry and angry), ate the occupier's flesh and choked on the occupier's bone. Oh dear, oh dear! Or maybe he succumbed to the bitterness and hatred gnawing away at his heart. He was 67-years-old. He fled Israel as a young man. Had he chosen to stay in Israel, he might have benefited from the ever improved longevity our beleaguered little country is blessed with. Other, no less (perhaps even a tad bit more) respectable, Arab intellectuals stayed put under the "occupier", and despite claims of genocide, ethnic cleansing, systematic, indiscriminate yada yada, managed to live to a ripe old age: e.g. Emile Habibi, who died in 1996 at the age of 76, or 86-years-old Tawfik Toubi, may he live to be 120.
However, let it be known, that the national poet of Palestine, Le poète de la résistance, the voice of the Palestinian whoryssey, opened his identity card poem with these controversial lines: "Record! I am an Arab!" Good grief! Isn't this proof from the oracle's mouth that Palestinians are Arabs and that all the brouhaha around their being the descendants of the ancient peoples of Canaan (some even go as far as to claim that they are in fact the descendants of the Israelites, perish the thought!) is just another lie aimed at denying us our right to live in the land of our forefathers? Not only that, but lo and behold, the honorable Independent in the UK quotes literary editor Iyad Rajoub that by 1996, Darwish "was no longer the poet of resistance, he was soft, he was living a luxurious life. I was shocked. I could not imagine that he was the one who had written 'Record! I am an Arab'." Much like Suha Arafat living la vida loca to the tune of hundreds of thousands of American dollars a month.
The other honorable mouthpiece in the UK, the Guardian (of anti-semitism and anti-Zionism, no doubt) also publishes a tearjerker for the intellectual who grew up in a house where "there were no books." But most of all, the Guardian and other mourners claim that Darwish was a "poet, author and politician who helped to forge a Palestinian consciousness after the six-day war in 1967".
Thus, while distinguished scholars cannot agree whether Jewish history in the Land of Israel can be traced back to the 7th century BCE or the 13th century BCE or in between, Palestinians, the "rightful owners of the land", are still arguing whether their national aspirations go back to 1919 (well, yes, barely 90 years ago), when the First Palestinian National Congress was held in Jerusalem, demanding an independent Palestinian government in federation with Syria and rejecting Zionist political claims, or 1948 (The Creation of the State of Israel) or 1967, the Six Day War. Their claims are legitimate, we are usurpers, occupiers. All within the grand span of 90 years. I mean, what is 2,500 – 3,500 years compared to 90? Or even better, compared to 40, as the mighty Guardian itself proclaims. Darwish helped forge a Palestinian consciousness after the Six-Day War. I suppose that has nothing to do with the fact that he studied in Moscow for some time (as did Abu Mazen, by the way) and were undoubtedly recruited and trained by the KGB and also here.
So I guess, yeah, one has to admit The Guardian got it right this time. The continuing humiliation of the Arab puppets and their Soviet handlers by a tiny (but top notch) Hebrew army helped forge (make that invent) the Palestinian consciousness, which has brought more than enough misery to the Palestinian themselves, seeing as they are right now engaging in savage tribal bloodshed.
As one Arab whose name escapes me, but who is basically in charge of the Moslem Holy sites in Israel, put it: the Temple Mount mosques became precious for all the 1.5 billion Moslems worldwide as soon as Israel occupied Jerusalem in June 1967. Why? you may well ask. Well, because they no longer had access to it, except those who do have access to it. Did it mean anything to them before 1967? Not much, since one has never heard of a compulsory pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Moslems, such as the Hajj to Mecca. Besides, they didn't care much for the mosques as weeds were growing all over the compound at the turn of the century. "As long as you are mine you can rot into oblivion, but you become the apple of my eye the minute you fall into the dirty hands of the invading Zionist gangs." Mind you, there was no road to write home about from Yaffo to Jerusalem until the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. The "road" was repaired to allow the Austrian Emperor his pilgrimage to Jerusalem en route to Suez for the official opening ceremony of the Canal. One might think that the Moslem rulers of the land (the Ottoman Empire), having the best interests of the "fidels" at heart, would have maintained some kind of thoroughfare to this the third holy place in Islam. One might, but then one would be wrong. The only way to travel from Yaffo to Jerusalem was on horse or camel back (or maybe donkey). The Austrian Emperor and his companions were expecting to travel by coach.
Anyways, in Palestinian parlance "occupier" has nothing whatsoever to do with the Six-Day War. The occupied territories are not Judea, Samaria and Gaza (which has become un-occupied in the mean time). Nope, what they mean is the Yahood, the Jewish State. According to sixth grade history textbooks published by the PA (PLO) - "The Modern History of Palestine" – the Green Line is an imaginary line which separates between lands occupied before 1967 and those occupied thereafter (could it be that this is what Yuli Tamir meant when she suggested teaching about the Green Line to Israeli students?

The Adoration of a Racist
Dan Margalit
August 11, 2008

Instead of mourning the loss of our national sovereignty on Tisha b'Av, the people of Zion were fussing over the coffin of Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian national poet, expressing their adoration for he who repeatedly called for the expulsion of the Jewish people from the Land of Israel and Judea: "Go away and taken the bones of your dead with you!". A Judenrein land with Judenrein graveyards. Ahmadinejad turned poet. A sort of "Nakba" to be visited on the Jews in Hebrew.
In order to remove all doubt: I could have agreed to the Israelis celebrating the poet of the enemy if he had raised the Palestinian flag and called the young men of his country to fight for their sovereignty, culture and even separatism. I could have even accepted his pan-Arabism. But Darwish supported the expulsion of an entire nation. Had he been a Jew and written the same words in Hebrew, he would have been branded a war criminal, a racist and a fascist.
Dr. Rafi Kishon reminded me the other day that the Ministry of Education tried to include some of Darwish's poetry in our textbooks, even before they even considered recommending a single line written by his own father, Ephraim Kishon. This evil spirit found a way to express itself as well.
It is part of our collapsing method of education for values. Ehud Olmert has national feelings, yet his government manages to remove 100 Jewish and Zionist definitions from the civic education curriculum. It readily allows any teacher to choose what to teach. Some teach about "Hear, oh Israel" and about the doctrines of David Ben-Gurion and Ze'ev Jabotinsky, while others teach about the "Nakba" and Darwish.
Democracy on liquidation sale. About a fortnight ago, at the end of Tamuz, Limor Livnat met with Ehud Olmert and Ze'ev Boim because the PM's office rejected the publication of a brochure on Jabotinski's death anniversary on the grounds that it quoted fragments from some of his articles, such as "The Iron Wall". She showed them what was deemed unsuitable for publication by the committee for preserving Jabotinsky's legacy which is subordinated to the PMO (which took Olmert by surprise), but nothing was done to remedy this idiotic blunder.
Still, the government would not allow Darwish to be buried in the Galilee. He will be laid to rest in Ramallah. But the sights and sounds [of the funeral] will not be forgotten too soon. Yesterday Israel went back 100 years in time, to the days of dancing "Oh, how beautiful you are, my beloved" before the landlord in Eastern Europe.

And last but not least, a few points made by Menachem Ben in his article Not Edible, published on August 15, 2008, in the culture supplement of Ma'ariv:

Darwish is lying when he accuses the Israelis of stealing his ancestral orchards and fields. There is no soul searching, no admission of guilt. No mention of the bloodthirsty gangs that started all the wars, beginning with 1948. Such a shame that no Israeli poet should stand up and speak out against this despicable propaganda.

Perhpas, Menachem, but thank heavens for journalists and bloggers.