Tawfiq Ziad (7 May 1929 – 5 July 1994), also romanized Tawfik Zayyad or Tawfeeq Ziad, was a Palestinian-Arab politician, poet, and activist who served in Israel's Knesset. He is best known for his advocacy on behalf of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Biography

Born in Nazareth, Palestine during the Mandatory Palestine, Ziad was active in communist circles since his youth. His nom de guerre was Abū l-Amīn. Ignoring the strict restrictions on movement of Arabs during Israeli military rule, he played an important role in calling a tax revolt, student strike, and agricultural workers’ strike in the Galilee. He was arrested at Arrabeh on 24 April 1954, and confined to Nazareth for half a year and therefore subject to restrictions on his personal freedom of movement. Under Israeli military rule (1948-1966) he was arrested and imprisoned several times. Between 1962 and 1964 he was educated at the Higher Party School in Moscow. After returning home, he was elected mayor of Nazareth on 9 December 1975, as the leader of the communist Rakah party in the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality coalition, a victory that is said to have "surprised and alarmed" Israelis and which was hailed a significant event in the political history of the Palestinian community inside Israel. Ziad would serve as mayor for 19 years, until his 1994 death in office. Elected to the Knesset in the 1973 elections on Rakah's list, Ziad was active in pressuring the Israeli government to change its policies towards Arabs. A report he co-authored on Israeli prison conditions which claimed torture of terrorists in Israeli prisons was reprinted in the Israeli newspaper Al HaMishmar. It was also submitted to the United Nations by Tawfik Toubi, and Ziad after their visit to Al-Far'ah prison on 29 October 1987. It was subsequently quoted from at length in a UN General Assembly report dated 23 December 1987, where it was described as "Perhaps the best evidence of the truth of the reports describing the repugnant inhumane conditions endured by Arab prisoners."

Poetry

The theme of sumud, which became a major literary theme as a form of "resistance", played an important role in Ziad's poetry. He is particularly well known for his poem Here We Will Stay:

Death

Ziad died on 5 July 1994 in a head-on collision in the Jordan Valley on his way back to Nazareth from Jericho after welcoming Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, back from exile. He was survived by his wife and four children. At the time of his sudden death, he was still Mayor of Nazareth, a member of the Knesset and "a leading Arab legislator". A street is named after him in Shefa-'Amr.

Footnotes