Danielle Alma Ravitzki
Mondoweiss
When I first heard of Dareen Tatour's story, I had this terrible feeling deep inside. I am a musician myself, I know what it is like to express oneself through art. I imagined myself in her place, being arrested and persecuted for my art. Dareen is a Palestinian poet placed under house arrest since 2015, indicted for incitement to violence against the Israeli regime through a poem she posted on Facebook. Then it dawned on me that this could not actually happen to me, since I am a Jewish citizen of Israel, not a Palestinian. Israel has this tendency to oppress minority groups, and non-Jews specifically, through its homicidal apartheid regime. I reached out to Dareen, and we immediately connected. I met a beautiful young woman, so intelligent, so loving. We became friends immediately.
This April, after an extended legal saga of over two-and-a-half years, I joined Dareen at her final court hearing in Nazareth. Driving for hours on my way there, I had an ominous premonition. Her story is nothing but Kafkaesque, and her condemnation will most probably give rise to a wave of schadenfreude on the part of Israelis, quick to rejoice at the misfortune (and injustice) of weaker populations. When I walked into the courtroom, the judge was whispering and reciting her verdict very fast: "Dareen is convicted of incitement and support of terrorism." She said it in such a low voice, she was asked to repeat her words louder a couple of times. Her stance was that after Dareen published her poem, there were many terrorist attacks against Israeli Jews. Yet, was the judge not deliberately ignoring the numerous attacks made towards Palestinians at that same time exactly? The verdict had a strong air of discrimination, it is unjust, and it is down-right detrimental to the freedom of speech and expression. This verdict not only silences art, it criminalizes it.
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Mondoweiss
When I first heard of Dareen Tatour's story, I had this terrible feeling deep inside. I am a musician myself, I know what it is like to express oneself through art. I imagined myself in her place, being arrested and persecuted for my art. Dareen is a Palestinian poet placed under house arrest since 2015, indicted for incitement to violence against the Israeli regime through a poem she posted on Facebook. Then it dawned on me that this could not actually happen to me, since I am a Jewish citizen of Israel, not a Palestinian. Israel has this tendency to oppress minority groups, and non-Jews specifically, through its homicidal apartheid regime. I reached out to Dareen, and we immediately connected. I met a beautiful young woman, so intelligent, so loving. We became friends immediately.
This April, after an extended legal saga of over two-and-a-half years, I joined Dareen at her final court hearing in Nazareth. Driving for hours on my way there, I had an ominous premonition. Her story is nothing but Kafkaesque, and her condemnation will most probably give rise to a wave of schadenfreude on the part of Israelis, quick to rejoice at the misfortune (and injustice) of weaker populations. When I walked into the courtroom, the judge was whispering and reciting her verdict very fast: "Dareen is convicted of incitement and support of terrorism." She said it in such a low voice, she was asked to repeat her words louder a couple of times. Her stance was that after Dareen published her poem, there were many terrorist attacks against Israeli Jews. Yet, was the judge not deliberately ignoring the numerous attacks made towards Palestinians at that same time exactly? The verdict had a strong air of discrimination, it is unjust, and it is down-right detrimental to the freedom of speech and expression. This verdict not only silences art, it criminalizes it.
Read more
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