A Date with a Literary Scholar : Refaat Alareer

A Date with a Literary Scholar : Refaat Alareer

History of Palestine

Palestine (Arabic: فلسطين‎ Filasṭīn, Falasṭīn, Filisṭīn; Greek: Παλαιστίνη, Palaistinē; Latin: Palaestina; Hebrew: פלשתינה Palestina) is a geographic region in Western Asia between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It is sometimes considered to include adjoining territories. The name was used by Ancient Greek writers, and was later used for the Roman province Syria Palaestina, the Byzantine Palaestina Prima and the Umayyad and Abbasid province of Jund Filastin. The region is also known as the Land of Israel (Hebrew: ארץ־ישראל Eretz-Yisra'el),the Holy Land, the Southern Levant, Cisjordan, and historically has been known by other names including Canaan, Southern Syria and Jerusalem.

Situated at a strategic location between Egypt, Syria and Arabia, and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, the region has a long and tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. The region has been controlled by numerous different peoples, including Ancient Egyptians, Canaanites, Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, the Sunni Arab Caliphates, the Shia Fatimid Caliphate, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mameluks, Ottomans, the British and modern Israelis and Palestinians.

Boundaries of the region have changed throughout history, and were last defined in modern times by the Franco-British boundary agreement (1920) and the Transjordan memorandum of 16 September 1922, during the mandate period. Today, the region comprises the State of Israel and the State of Palestine.

Evolution of Mandate Palestine and modern Palestinian Territories

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1916-22 Proposals: Three proposals for the post World War I administration of Palestine. The red line is the "International Administration" proposed in the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement, the dashed blue line is the 1919 Zionist Organization proposal at theParis Peace Conference, and the thin blue line refers to the final borders of the 1923-48Mandatory Palestine.

1947 (Actual): Mandatory Palestine, showing Jewish-owned regions in Palestine as of 1947 in blue, constituting 6% of the total land area, of which more than half was held by the JNF and PICA. The Jewish population had increased from 83,790 in 1922 to 608,000 in 1946.

1947 (Proposal): Proposal per the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine(UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (II), 1947), prior to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The proposal included aCorpus Separatum for Jerusalem, extraterritorial crossroads between the non-contiguous areas, and Jaffa as an Arab exclave.

1948-67 (Actual): TheJordanian occupied West Bankand Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip (note the dotted lines between the territories and Jordan / Egypt), after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, showing1949 armistice lines.

Current: Extant region administered by thePalestinian National Authority(under Oslo 2).

Famous Palestinian Poets (Written in Arabic)

- Mahmoud Darwish

- Tamim Bargouti

 Famous Palestinian Poets (Written in English)

- Rafeef Ziadah (We Teach Life, Sir)

- Susan Abulhawa (Wala!)

- Remi Kanazi

Poetry: How it all started

1. Read a lot of good and high quality poetry

2. Believe you can write good stuff

3. Have the will to do so

4. Scribble your thoughts down. Always

5. Imitate

What is in my poetry?

- Dialouge

- Performance / Drama

- About Palestine

Questions that were asked by some of the students to the Scholar.

1. Who are your favourite poets and why?

Answer : John Donne

2. What was the style of poetry written before the war came to Palestine?

Answer : Personal poetry that was distinticve. It was pretty much the same style before the was began.  Poetry became intense after the war broke out in Palestine.