The Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour was convicted Thursday by the Nazareth District Court of incitement to terrorism and support for terror organizations because of posts on social media.
Tatour, 36, a resident of the Galilee village of Reineh near Nazareth, was arrested in October 2015 after publishing, among others, a poem titled “Resist, my people, resist them.” The indictment against her includes a translation of the poem, which includes the lines: “I will not succumb to the ‘peaceful solution’ / Never lower my flags / Until I evict them from my land.”
“My trial ripped off the masks,” Tatour stated. “The whole world will hear my story. The whole world will hear what Israel’s democracy is. A democracy for Jews only. Only Arabs go to jail The court said I am convicted of terrorism. If that’s my terrorism, I give the world a terrorism of love.”
Tatour was arrested at time when lone-wolf stabbing attacks on Israelis were practically a daily event. She is charged with publishing on “various publications that call for violent acts or terrorism” on Facebook and YouTube, and “for praising and identifying with acts of violence or terrorism.”
A video clip that Tatour uploaded shows her reading the poem against the backdrop of masked people throwing rocks and firebombs at Israeli security forces. The indictment contains a translation of the poem into Hebrew and says that as of the charges being filed, it had accrued more than 200,000 views and several adulatory comments.
“The content, its exposure and the circumstances of its publication created a real possibility that acts of violence or terrorism will be committed,” the indictment claimed.
