[DEBATE] : Joseph Mas'ad vs. Mahmoud Darwish

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 7/12/07, Ran Greenstein <rangreen at sn.apc.org> wrote:
> The sad reality is that neither Fatah nor Hamas have managed to offer a strategy that has
> resulted in any Palestinian gains, but what's all that got to do with Darwish?

I agree with you as to the lack of strategy on the part of both Fatah
and Hamas, and I rather think that it was a mistake for Hamas to enter
into electoral politics and try to be a governing party, when the
Palestinian Authority, subject to Israel's power to collect taxes and
control entry and exit and dependent on financial aid from the
so-called international community, has always been completely
vulnerable to economic boycotts and sanctions.

But Darwish can't pass off what happened as if it were just a "civil
war" between the two dominant Palestinian parties, when the whole
world knows that one of them has been and is still being supported by
Tel Aviv, Washington, and their Arab friends.  That's re-writing
history, unbecoming of the poet as a truth teller.
-- 
Yoshie