Israeli Minister of Culture Miri Regev expressed opposition to the recitation of a poem by renowned Palestinian author Mahmoud Darwish at an Israeli cultural event, calling it a “provocation” and requesting that the performance be canceled, Maan News Agency quoted Hebrew-language media as saying.
According to news site Maariv, Mira Awwad, a famous Palestinian singer and actress with Israeli citizenship, will perform a Darwish’s poem during an award ceremony of the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers in Israel (ACUM), where she is to receive a prize.
Regev, who stepped out of an Israeli movie award ceremony in September over the reading of a Darwish poem, had previously called the Palestinian writer the “leader of the Palestinian industry of lies,” and objected to the performance of his works in Israel.
The Mahmoud Darwish poem that enraged Israeli Ministers Lieberman and Regev – Poem of the Week https://t.co/bWt49Eu71A
— Christian Peacemaker (@cpt_intl) September 28, 2016
Regev reportedly asked ACUM to cancel Awwad’s performance, although the artists’ group rejected her request.
Responding to Regev’s opposition, Awwad said in a radio interview on Sunday that she didn’t “understand why Miri Regev does not want to listen to Mahmoud Darwish’s poems. She hasn’t read his poems, and so she is quoting him completely wrong.”
“Identity Card,” a poem Darwish wrote in 1964 detailing the indignities of life subjected to the bureaucracy of the Israeli occupation, has often been targeted by Israeli authorities for including the lines: “I do not hate people/Nor do I encroach/But if I become hungry/The usurper’s flesh will be my food.”
“Death does not hurt the dead, death hurts the living.” – Mahmoud Darwish pic.twitter.com/3Ad9aiho23
— Habib (@Habibiline) June 11, 2017
“Mahmoud Darwish says in his poem about the occupation that he will eat the occupier’s flesh,” Awwad said. “If Miri Regev recognizes that she is an occupier in her state, then this poem is talking about her. A sentence like ‘will eat the occupier’s flesh’ does not include incitement against all the Jewish people.”
(Maan, PC, Social Media)
