Samih al-Qasim

Samih al-Qasim was born in Zarqa, Jordan, where his father was serving in the Arab Legion, and grew up in the Galilee village of Rameh. A Palestinian Druze who steadfastly refused compulsory military service in the Israeli army, he was repeatedly imprisoned, placed under house arrest, and fired from teaching posts for his political activism.

Together with Mahmoud Darwish and Tawfiq Ziad, Qasim formed the supreme triumvirate of Palestinian resistance poetry (adab al-muqawama). His defiant anthem 'Muntasib al-Qamati Amshi' (Erect I Walk) was sung across the Arab world as an anthem of steadfast defiance, publishing over seventy books of poetry, plays, and novels.