Druze poet Samih al-Qasim dies at 75

‘Resistance poet’ known for passionately defending identity Arab Israelis, passes away after battle with cancer

By AFP 20 August 2014, 12:55 am

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Druze poet Samih al-Qasim reads a poem during a literary evening marking 40 days since the death of his compatriot, Mahmoud Darwish, in Tunis, September 2008. Al-Qasim passed away on August 19, 2014, following a battle with cancer. (photo credit: Fethi Beladi/AFP)

Samih al-Qasim, a Palestinian Druze poet known across the Arab world for his nationalist writing, died Tuesday after a long battle with cancer, a family friend said. He was 75.

Qasim died in Safed hospital in northern Israel after suffering from cancer of the liver for the past three years, Issam Khuri, a novelist and close family friend, told AFP.

He was best known for his nationalist poetry in which he passionately defended the rights and identity of Israel’s Arab minority.

Known as a “resistance poet,” Qasim’s poems were widely embraced across the Arab world as a symbol of steadfastness in the struggle against foreign occupation, with many translated into English and other languages.

“I have no love for you, death, nor do I fear you. But you are making a bed of a body and a blanket of my soul,” he wrote last week as he was dying.

He was a contemporary of the late Mahmoud Darwish, who was also born in a village in what later became northern Israel, and was widely considered one of the Arab world’s greatest poets.

A long-time member of the Israeli communist party and resident of the northern village of Rameh, near Safed, Qasim was arrested several times by Israeli security forces.

He also worked as a journalist and was editor-in-chief of the Arab Israeli weekly, Kul al-Arab.