In 1988, the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani, the most celebrated Arab poet of the modern era, wrote The Trilogy of the Children of the Stones. The poem was dedicated to the children of the first Palestinian intifada, who, in hurling stones at Israeli soldiers, became symbols of the era. The intifada was triggered in 1987 by frustration over the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and was characterised by civil disobedience, non-violent protest and, most iconically, those children.
“O Children of Gaza, don’t mind our broadcasts”, Qabbani wrote, counting himself as part of an older generation whose attempts at compromise with Israel had failed to deliver freedom for the Palestinians. “Don’t listen to us / We are the people of cold calculation … The age of political reason has long departed / So teach us madness.”
