He was 17 when love towards young jewish women knocked his door. It was the first love, he fell first and she fell harder. Her name was Tamar Ben-Ami, they met during the time his family returned to Israel and started living in a city named Haifa in northern Israel due to occupation of his village by israel army.
He also was a member of the Israeli Communist Party. Darwish joined the Party not because he felt ideologically in tune with it but for the reason that the Israeli Communist Party was “…the only political framework that gave legitimacy to the expression of Palestinian national sentiments.”
He used to send her intimate love letters for decades, Even at the age of 70 she has still preserved those letters carefully The relationship itself, the first for the poet as well as for Ben-Ami, who was sixteen when she first met Darwish.
but their love story had led to much heartache and sorrow for both.
During 1964 when [Mahmoud Darwish’s] wrote defiant poem, “Write Down, I am an Arab,” lands him in prison.
She visited him where Darwish wrote,
Between sand and water, she said, “I love you.”
And between desire and torture, I said, “I love you.”
And when the officer asked what she was doing here, she answered, “Who
are you? And he said, “And who are you?”
She said, “I’m his sweetheart, you bastard, and I’ve come with him all the
way to the gate of this prison to say goodbye. What do you want with him?”
He said, “You should know that I’m an officer.”
“I too will be an officer next year,” she said.
She brought out her military induction papers. The officer then smiled, and
pulled me away to prison.
The following year, the [1967] war erupted, and I was put in prison again. I
thought of her: “What is she doing now?” She may be in Nablus, or another
city, carrying a light rifle as one of the conquerors, and perhaps at this moment
giving orders to some men to raise their arms or kneel on the ground. Or
perhaps she is in charge of the interrogation and torture of an Arab girl her
age, and as beautiful as she used to be.
• He imagines tamar ben enlisting as a soldier for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), helping to incarcerate Arab men or interrogating and torturing a young Arab girl who is “as beautiful as she used to be.”
• She has transitioned from being a lover to taking on the role of his worst enemy.
• This becomes one of the tragic love story, along with of Romeo-Juliet and Laila-Majnun. They belong to warring social groups who have sworn enmity between them and want the destruction of the opposite camp.
• He had written five or six poems to her throughout the 1960s and 70s
• In 1992 The last time Darwish wrote a poem dedicated to her was after their meeting in Paris. It was titled “Rita’s Winter” Rita is the name he used in all his poems dedicated to tamar ben amir, his once beloved
Darwish says in the end Out of my ignorance, I called you a homeland
And I forgot homelands are taken away.”
You can read his one of the best peom about her called “ Rita and the rifle ‘
It expresses the depth of his love towards tamar ben amir
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