P4PD Education Committee

Palestine & Palestinians (2nd Edition)
by the Alternative Tourism Group

The Alternative Tourism Group (ATG) of Beit Sahour, Bethlehem, Palestine proudly announces its publication of more than just another ordinary tourist guidebook: “Palestine & Palestinians” provides an in-depth, updated journey through the entire range of Palestinian culture: ancient and modern history, archaeology, religion, architecture and politics, including the daily realities of Israeli Occupation. It describes places rooted in Palestinian memory: sites which bear witness to a history and identity created from contact with civilizations of the Middle East, Mediterranean, Europe and Arab Peninsula. It also presents the contemporary tragedy and struggle of a people seeking recognition of their rights and details of their ongoing search for an end to injustice through a viable peace and statehood.

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I like to introduce you to our poet Tarif Youssef-Agha. He is originally from the oldest city in the world, Damascus, Syria, where he earned 2 degrees in Engineering and Literature. He has been in Houston for about 25 years.

He started writing poetry when he was in collage.
The invasion of Gaza more than a year ago, inspired him to write a wave of poems that acted as an outcry to the world conscious, blowing the whistle about the war crimes the Israelis committed against civilians during the invasion.

These poems asked 2 simple questions:

1- How far Israel should be allowed to go before it can be held responsible for its crimes by the world body?

2- How cowardly the whole world can be by letting the Israelis continue doing what they are doing while the world keeps looking in the opposite direction?

Both, Aljazeera TV web site and Al-Madar Arabic newspaper of Houston were the first to publish his poems. Then, Dr. Mussa Abu Daqqa from Al-Aqsa University in Gaza published one of his poems in the 650 page poetry collection book (For You Gaza) that was released in 2009.

We are posting selective verses from his latest poem (Jerusalem, the Wound of History) that was hosted by the Arab American Cultural Center last September. The poem gained a significant recognition after it was posted on You-tub, in being hosted by a lot of cultural sites that care about the Palestinian cause.

http://sites.google.com/site/tarifspoetry

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Jerusalem …
The wound of History
When Poetry fights back with one hand, and heals the wounds with the other.
(Selected Verses)

Poem by: Tarif Youssef-Agha
April 7, 2010
Café Byblos. Houston, TX.