Does Mahmoud Darwish Support Israel?

Maya Mizrachi Feb 27, 2025 Updated Aug 06, 2026 4 min read

Short answer: No. Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian national poet, did not support Israel as a state or its policies. He was born in the Galilee in 1941, lost formal residency status and lived for years as a stateless "internal refugee" after 1948, was placed under house arrest by Israeli authorities in the late 1960s over his political poetry, joined the PLO in 1973 (after which Israel barred him from re-entering the country), was elected to the PLO Executive Committee in 1987, and personally drafted the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in November 1988. Mahmoud Darwish died on August 9, 2008, in Houston, Texas, three days after heart surgery, at age 67, and holds no current position on anything. As of August 2026, the historical record shows a lifelong critic of Israeli occupation policy, though it also includes a well-documented youthful romance with an Israeli Jewish woman and some later conciliatory language about coexistence.

What Mahmoud Darwish has actually said and done

1941: Mahmoud Darwish was born in al-Birwa, in the Galilee, in Mandate Palestine, according to Wikipedia.
1948 and after: Darwish's family fled during the 1948 war; when they returned, they had missed the Israeli census and were classified as internal refugees, or "present-absent aliens," leaving Darwish without full citizenship status in Israel for years, per Wikipedia, corroborated by the Poetry Foundation.
Early 1960s: As a young man in Haifa, Darwish had a three-year romantic relationship with Tamar Ben-Ami, an Israeli Jewish dancer and choreographer he met through an Arab-Jewish friendship group. He later confirmed to French journalist Laure Adler, around 2007, that Ben-Ami was the "Rita" of his famous poem and song "Rita and the Rifle." Ben-Ami died in early 2026 at age 79, as reported by Haaretz and New Lines Magazine.
Late 1960s: Darwish spent time under house arrest by Israeli authorities because of his political poetry, and was jailed multiple times before eventually leaving the country, according to Wikipedia.
1973: Darwish joined the PLO, after which Israel banned him from re-entering the country, per Wikipedia.
February 1988: Darwish's poem "Those Who Pass Between Fleeting Words," published in Yediot Aharonot, was widely read by Israelis as demanding Jews leave the land and was quoted by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in the Knesset as evidence the PLO threatened Israel's existence. Darwish said he found it "difficult to believe that the most militarily powerful country in the Middle East is threatened by a poem" and maintained the poem was about ending occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, not Israel's existence, according to MERIP and the Christian Science Monitor.
November 1988: Darwish, then a member of the PLO Executive Committee (elected in 1987), personally drafted the Palestinian Declaration of Independence adopted by the Palestine National Council in Algiers, per Palquest / Institute for Palestine Studies and Wikipedia.
1993: Darwish resigned from the PLO Executive Committee in protest of the Oslo Accords, saying "all I saw in the agreement was an Israeli solution to Israeli problems," according to Wikipedia. His resignation over Oslo is also covered by Al Jazeera.
August 9, 2008: Darwish died in Houston, Texas, three days after heart surgery, at age 67. Tens of thousands attended his funeral in Ramallah on August 13, 2008, where he was buried, per France 24 and CBC News.

The full picture behind the headline

Mahmoud Darwish is widely regarded as the Palestinian national poet, and his life intersected with Israel in complex, mostly adversarial ways. He was born inside what became Israel, lost formal citizenship status as an internal refugee after 1948, was jailed and placed under house arrest for his poetry in the 1960s, and was later barred from re-entering the country after joining the PLO in 1973. He personally drafted the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence and served on, then resigned from, the PLO Executive Committee over his opposition to the 1993 Oslo Accords, which he felt gave Israel too much and Palestinians too little. None of this amounts to support for Israel; it reflects a career built substantially around Palestinian nationalism and criticism of Israeli policy.

That said, his biography was not one-dimensional. His three-year relationship with Tamar Ben-Ami produced "Rita and the Rifle," one of the most famous pieces of modern Arabic verse, later set to music by Marcel Khalife. Darwish also wrote fluently in Hebrew from his years living in Haifa, publicly rejected accusations of antisemitism directed at his most controversial 1988 poem, and in later interviews expressed some conciliatory sentiment about Jewish and Palestinian coexistence. These facts complicate a simple caricature, but they do not amount to political support for Israel, boycott refusal, donations, or friendly event appearances; no such record turned up in this research. He died in 2008, so he cannot hold or express any current view.

The bottom line

Mahmoud Darwish, who died in 2008, was a lifelong critic of Israeli occupation policy and the author of the Palestinian Declaration of Independence; he never supported Israel politically. His biography does include a genuine, well-sourced youthful relationship with an Israeli Jewish woman and some later conciliatory language, but that is personal and literary nuance, not political support.

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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.