Resist, my people, resist them.
In Jerusalem, I dressed my wounds and breathed my sorrows to God.
I carried the soul in my palm
for an Arab Palestine.
I will not succumb to the ‘peaceful solution’,
never lower my flags
until I evict them from my homeland
and make them kneel for a time to come.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist the settler’s robbery
and follow the caravan of martyrs.
Shred the disgraceful constitution
that has imposed relentless humiliation
and stopped us from restoring our rights.
They burned blameless children;
As for Hadeel, they sniped her in public,
killed her in broad daylight.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist the colonialist’s onslaught.
Pay no mind to his agents among us
who shackle us with illusions of peace.
Do not fear the Merkava [Israeli army tanks];
the truth in your heart is stronger,
as long as you resist in a land
that has lived through raids and victory.
Ali called from his grave:
resist, my rebellious people,
write me as prose on the agarwood,
for you have become the answer to my remains.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist, my people, resist them.
— the Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour, 2015
Tatour was arrested and imprisoned by the Israeli state for writing that poem. “A poem that can send you to prison is a powerful poem. A state threatened by a poem is an immoral state.”
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