Samih al-Qasim

Samīħ al-Qāsim al Kaissy (Arabic: سميح القاسم; Hebrew: סמיח אל קאסם; 1939 – August 19, 2014) was a Palestinian Druze poet with Israeli citizenship whose work is well known throughout the Arab world. He was born in Transjordan and later lived in Mandatory Palestine and Israel. Before the Six-Day War in 1967 he was mainly influenced by Arab nationalism; after the war he joined the Israeli Communist Party.

Al-Qasim died on August 19, 2014, after a long battle with cancer. His funeral was held on August 21, 2014, in Rameh.

Al-Qasim visited Syria in 1997 and in 2000. He was prevented by Israeli authorities from leaving to Lebanon for a poetry event in 2001.

By 1984, al-Qasim had written twenty-four volumes of nationalist poetry and published six collections of poems. His poems in general are relatively short, some being no more than just two verses. Some of his famous poems include:

Al-Qasim contributed to the journals of Al-Ittihad, Al-Jadid, Index and others. He claimed that the pan-Arab ideology of Nasserism impressed him during the nationalist post-1948 era. Most of his poetry relates to the change of life before and after the Nakba, the Palestinian and broader Arab struggle to free their lands from foreign influence, Arab nationalism, and various Arab tragedies. In 1968, he published his first collection of poetry, Waiting for the Thunderbird. Al-Qasim wrote about these subjects while they were at the climax of their popularity among the Arab population in the later half of the 20th century. When asked by his Iraqi friend, poet Buland al-Haidari if he had visited Baghdad, he replied by saying he did not have to, since he views any Arab city as equal to his own Arab residence.

Al-Qasim claims that the pan-Arab ideology of Nasserism impressed him during the nationalist post-1948 era. He was jailed several times for his political activities that have involved advocacy for Palestinian rights and dissent against government policies, starting in 1960 for refusal to enlist in the Israeli army which is required of Israeli Druze. He was also under house arrest. He joined the Israeli Communist party Hadash in 1967 and was detained along with other members of the party at the outbreak of the Six-Day War. He was sent to al-Damoun prison (official name: Damon Prison) in Haifa. During this time, he virtually lost his nationalistic emotions upon hearing Israeli radio announcing its territorial gains after their victory.

Al-Qasim was born in 1939 in the Emirate of Transjordan (now Jordan), in the northern city of Zarqa, while his father served in the Arab Legion of King Abdullah. He came from a Druze family from the town of Rameh in the Upper Galilee. Al-Qasim attended primary school there and then later graduated from secondary school in Nazareth. His family did not flee Rameh during the 1948 Palestinian exodus (Nakba). In his book About Principles and Art, he explains: