Reflection of Balfour Declaration on the modern Palestinian Poetry

This study deals with the reflection of Balfour declaration on the Palestinian modern poetry during the British Occupation of Palestine between 1917 and 1948. It has studied this poetry from two sides the objectives and artistic. The reasons for choosing this study is due to the importance of the role the poetry organized during the English Occupation of Palestine, so it got its material from political and military events that swept over Palestine in that period. Poetry resisted and fought the attempts that aimed at making Palestine a Jewish state and establishing native homeland for Jews, so it bore unanimous worry and care for the revolution. Palestinians memorized it, so it was a positive signs for resistance and challenge. What motivated me to this study is that this issue wasn’t studied in detail and most modern literary studies dealt briefly with it and under titles like “The life of the modern Palestinian literature since the beginning of renaissance till Nakba” by Abdul Rahman Yagi, and the “Poetry of the Palestinian resistance” by Husni Mahmoud. And the “National trends in modern Palestinian poetry” by Mhammad Abdalla Atwat or under the title Poetry samples in the book “Modern literary life in Palestine and Jordan by Naser Al-Deen Al-Asad and other studies. In this essay I followed the complementary method, the historical method in the introduction and descriptive, analytic and statistical in the first two chapters that is in the objective and artistic study in addition to the beauty method in the artistic study. For the study material, that is poetry said before Balfour Declaration, I got it from thirteen Collection of Poems (Diwan) for the poets who talked about this subject. They are: Ibrahim Al-Dabbagh, Ibrahim Tuqan, Iskandar Al-Khouri, Hassan Al-Buhairy, Abdul-Rahim Mahmud, Mhammad Al-Adnani, Mhammad Ali Saleh, Mohyi Al-Deen Easa Al-Safadi, Wadee Al-Bustani, and Haroun Hashim Rashid. But the poetry of Salim Al-Ya’qoubi, I got it from the book of “Hassan Falastin Salim” Abu Al-Iqbal Al-Ya’qoubi by Dr Sameer Shhada AlTamimi. The main results of this study are: A. This poetry has illustrated the catastrophe since the British announcement of the declaration and denies of promises to the Arabs. It clarified the British and Zionist plots against Palestine and her people in the period of study and warned citizens against it. B. It clarified the crimes of English Occupation and Zionist organizations and their catastrophe. C. It provoked for the armed revolution to resist the English Occupation, Zionist organizations and getting freedom and independence for the sake of dignitary life. On the artistic level, it turned out that poets who dealt with this issue were careful in creating the poem, method, poetry image and music without preventing them from expressing their meanings. The most important recommendations I reached is that I hope this study will be followed by other studies to continue what I have begun with, since there are areas of Palestinians poetry worth of the attention of researchers haven’t been studied yet. Like: A. Illustrating Palestinian’s lives its crimes and those of Zionist organizations during the English Occupation. B. Comparison between the poetry of Ibrahim Tuqan and Ibrahim AlDabbagh concerning method and music. C. Language in the poetry of Haroun Hashim Rashid and other fields and issues of Palestinian modern poetry from both sides. The best to end with “Thanks to ALLAH for everything”