For a Palestinian : A Memorial to Wael Zuaiter

For a Palestinian: A Memorial to Wael Zuaiter

By: Janet Venn-Brown  

Wael Zuaiter was a Palestinian intellectual, poet, and a spokesman for the Palestinian cause. He was assassinated by Mossad agents on October 16, 1972, who shot him 12-18 times (accounts vary) in the lobby of his apartment building in Rome. The Israeli government, under Golda Meir, had issued his death warrant on the claim that he was involved in “PLO terrorism.”

This book is a collection of essays, poems, memoirs, and drawings in memory of Wael Zuaiter, and is as much about the Palestinian people as about one man.

—————————————–

Wael Zuaiter, a spokesman for the Palestine resistance movement, devoted the last years of his life to making known the Palestinian cause. A man of exceptional talents and sensitivity, his involvements stemmed from his deep love of Palestine and his own humanitarian philosophy; the Palestinians, he pointed out, like all the peoples of the world, desire nothing more than to live in peace, stability and security. His most effective work was done in Italy, where he came to know many of the leading figures in Italian cultural and intellectual life. He was assassinated by the Israeli Secret Service in Rome in October 1972 at the age of 38, and this collection of tributes is dedicated to his memory.

Without propaganda or political rhetoric, this anthology of essays, poems, memoirs, and drawings provides a human approach to the Palestine issue. It is as much about the Palestinians in general as it is about a particular Palestinian. Anecdotes about Wael Zuaiter’s childhood in Palestine, his wanderings in other Arab countries, and his exile in Europe reveal him to be, in the words of the poet Rafael Alberti, ‘gentle, sensitive, tender, shy … the murmur of solitary waters in the half-shadows’. Interspersed with the biographical contributions are essays on larger issues such as “Anti-Islamic prejudice in Europe’, meditations on Darwish, the poet from Galilee, and ‘Anti-Semitism as myth, Judaeophobia as reality’. The book concludes with Zuaiter’s own passionate exhortation to the Jews – ‘who understand suffering, humiliation’ – to ‘accept the idea of living together with the Palestinians’.

Author Biography

Janet Venn-Brown was born in Australia but has spent most of her adult life in Europe. She studied painting at an Italian art school in Sydney and now lives and works as a painter in Rome.

Contributors include:

Rafael Alberti Bruno Cagli Olivier Carre Matta Elio Petri Ugo Pirro Maxime Rodinson Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti Alessandro Bausani Ennio Calabria Jean Genet Alberto Moravia Pietro Petrucci Ennio Polito Edward W. Said Fadwa Tukan

Language: English
ISBN: 0710300395
1985, Paperback, 217 pages