Tawfiq Ziad

Born in Nazareth during the British Mandate, Ziad was active in the Israeli communist party. His nom de guerre was Abū l-Amīn ({{langx|ar|أبو الأمين}}).{{Citation needed|date=November 2024}} As an activist, he helped to organize a protest on taxation, a student strike and an agricultural workers’ strike in the Galilee. He was arrested in April 1954 and confined to Nazareth for half a year.{{cite web |first=Hatim |last=Kanaaneh |url=https://mondoweiss.net/2020/12/sumud-crucifixion-and-poetry-the-life-of-palestinian-leader-tawfiq-zayyad/ |title=Sumud, crucifixion, and poetry: The life of Palestinian leader Tawfiq Zayyad |work=Mondoweiss |date=19 December 2020 |access-date=14 July 2024}} Over the years he was arrested and imprisoned several times.{{harvnb|Sorek|2020|p=37-40}} In 1962–1964, he moved to Moscow to study at Higher Party School.{{harvnb|Sorek|2020|p=55-56}}

In December 1975, Ziad was elected mayor of Nazareth, serving as leader of the communist Rakah party in the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality coalition.{{Cite web |last=Beinin|first=Joel|date=2023-07-28 |title=A century after its founding, the Israeli Communist Party is at a crossroads |url=https://www.972mag.com/israeli-communist-party-maki-century/ |access-date=2024-05-15 |website=+972 Magazine |language=en-US}} It was an appointment that was hailed a significant event in Israeli Palestinian political history.{{Cite book |last=Matar |first=Dina |url=https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9780755610891 |title=What it Means to be Palestinian: Stories of Palestinian Peoplehood |date=2011 |publisher=I.B.Tauris |isbn=978-0-7556-1460-8 |pages=82 |doi=10.5040/9780755610891}} Ziad would serve as mayor for 19 years, until his 1994 death in office.{{cite web |title=Tawfik Ziad, 65, Mayor of Nazareth |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/06/obituaries/tawfik-ziad-65-mayor-of-nazareth.html |work=The New York Times |agency=The Associated Press |access-date=30 July 2021 |language=en |date=6 July 1994}}

Elected to the Knesset in the 1973 elections on Rakah's list, Ziad was active in pressuring the Israeli government to change its policies towards Arabs. A report he co-authored on Israeli prison conditions which claimed torture of terrorists in Israeli prisons was reprinted in the Israeli newspaper Al HaMishmar. It was also submitted to the United Nations by Tawfik Toubi, and Ziad after their visit to Al-Far'ah prison on 29 October 1987. It was subsequently quoted from at length in a UN General Assembly report dated 23 December 1987, where it was described as "Perhaps the best evidence of the truth of the reports describing the repugnant inhumane conditions endured by Arab prisoners."{{cite web|title=Report of the Special Committee To Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories|publisher=United Nations General Assembly|date=23 December 1987|url=http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/7d840be973b61252052567fa0053fc31!OpenDocument}}{{Dead link|date=June 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=no }}

The theme of sumud, which became a major literary theme as a form of "resistance", played an important role in Ziad's poetry.{{cite journal |first=Abdelwahab M. |last=Elmessiri |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2536461 |title=The Palestinian Wedding: Major Themes of Contemporary Palestinian Resistance Poetry |journal=Journal of Palestine Studies |volume=10 |issue=3 |date=Spring 1981 |page=77-99, 93-94|doi=10.2307/2536461 |jstor=2536461 }}{{cite journal |first=Khaled |last=Furani |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41968269 |title=Dangerous Weddings: Palestinian Poetry Festivals during Israel's First Military Rule |journal=The Arab Studies Journal |volume=21 |issue=1 |date=Spring 2013 |page=79-100, 81-82|jstor=41968269 }} He is particularly well known for his poem Here We Will Stay:

:::::In Lydda, in Ramla, in the Galilee,

::::: we shall remain

:::::like a wall upon your chest, and in your throat

:::::like a shard of glass

:::::a cactus thorn,

:::::and in your eyes

:::::a sandstorm,

:::::We shall remain

:::::a wall upon your chest,

:::::clean in your restaurants,

:::::serve drinks in your bars,

:::::sweep the floors of your kitchens

:::::to snatch a bite for our children

:::::from your blue fangs.{{cite journal |first=Honaida |last=Ghanim |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40608203 |title=Poetics of Disaster: Nationalism, Gender, and Social Change Among Palestinian Poets in Israel After Nakba |journal=International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society |date=March 2009 |volume=22 |issue=1 |page=23-39, 37|doi=10.1007/s10767-009-9049-9 |jstor=40608203 }}

Ziad died on 5 July 1994 in a head-on collision in the Jordan Valley on his way back to Nazareth from Jericho after welcoming Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, back from exile. He was survived by his wife and four children. At the time of his sudden death, he was still Mayor of Nazareth, a member of the Knesset and "a leading Arab legislator". A street is named after him in Shefa-'Amr.{{fact|date=November 2023}}

{{reflist}}

• {{citation|title=Remembering Palestine in 1948: Beyond National Narratives|last=Ben Ze'ev|first=Efrat|year=2011|publisher=Cambridge University Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1qBjAW1rm4IC|isbn=978-0-521-19447-1}}
• {{Cite book| first=Tamir| last=Sorek| title=The Optimist: A Social Biography of Tawfiq Zayyad| publisher=Stanford University Press| year=2020| isbn=978-1-503-61274-7| url=http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=26216}}

• [http://www.zayyad.com/ Tawfiq Ziad home page] {{in lang|ar}}
• {{MKlink|id=147}}
• {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20081011204636/http://www.toarab.net/poet32.html Ziad's poetry]}} {{in lang|ar}}
• [http://www.salem-news.com/articles/may152011/unidakum-tk.php Tawfiq Ziad; Israel and 'Unadikum'] {{in lang|en}}. By Tim King. Salem News, 15 May 2011.

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{{s-bef|before=Committee (1975)
Seif el-Din el-Zoubi (1974)}}

{{s-ttl|title=Mayor of Nazareth|years=1975–1994}}

{{s-aft|after=Ramiz Jaraisy}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ziad, Tawfiq}}

Category:1929 births

Category:1994 deaths

Category:20th-century Israeli poets

Category:20th-century Palestinian poets

Category:Arab members of the Knesset

Category:Hadash politicians

Category:Israeli poets

Category:Maki (political party) politicians

Category:Mayors of Nazareth

Category:Members of the 8th Knesset (1974–1977)

Category:Members of the 9th Knesset (1977–1981)

Category:Members of the 10th Knesset (1981–1984)

Category:Members of the 11th Knesset (1984–1988)

Category:Members of the 12th Knesset (1988–1992)

Category:Members of the 13th Knesset (1992–1996)

Category:Palestinian politicians

Category:Politicians from Nazareth

Category:Road incident deaths in Israel