Tawfiq Ziad

Tawfiq Ziad (Arabic: توفيق زيّاد, romanized: Tawfīq Ziyyād; Hebrew: תאופיק זיאד, romanized: Ta'ufík Ziyád; 7 May 1929 – 5 July 1994), also romanized Tawfik Zayyad or Tawfeeq Ziad, was a Palestinian-Arab politician, poet, and activist who served in Israel's Knesset. He is best known for his advocacy on behalf of Palestinian citizens of Israel.^[1][2]

Tawfiq Ziad
توفيق زيّاد
Faction represented in the Knesset
1973–1977	Rakah
1977–1990	Hadash
1992–1994	Hadash
Personal details
Born	(1929-05-07)7 May 1929 Nazareth, Mandatory Palestine
Died	5 July 1994(1994-07-05) (aged 65) Jordan Valley, West Bank, Palestine

Biography

Born in Nazareth during the British Mandate, Ziad was active in the Israeli communist party. His nom de guerre was Abū l-Amīn (Arabic: أبو الأمين).^{[citation needed]} 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.^[3] Over the years he was arrested and imprisoned several times.^[4] In 1962–1964, he moved to Moscow to study at Higher Party School.^[5]

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.^[6] It was an appointment that was hailed a significant event in Israeli Palestinian political history.^[2][7] Ziad would serve as mayor for 19 years, until his 1994 death in office.^[8]

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."^[9]

Poetry

The theme of sumud, which became a major literary theme as a form of "resistance", played an important role in Ziad's poetry.^[10][11] 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.^[12]

Death

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.^[8] 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.^{[citation needed]}