Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Daoud Turki, also known by his nickname Abu Aida (Father/Master of Return) (1927 - 8 March 2009), was a Palestinian Arab poet living in Haifa. He was the leader of a left-wing Arab anti-Zionist group called Musaben. He was found guilty of treason and spent 17 years in an Israeli prison in what the Israel Security Agency considers one of the most notorious in history.
Daoud Turki was born in 1927 to a Palestinian Christian family from the Galilee village of Maghar, between Nazareth and Lake Tiberias. He was raised in the city of Haifa. His father's name is Semaan Daoud, who died due to being shot by the British occupation forces in Haifa in the 1936-1939 uprising, and his mother, Sadia Khoury, is also from Maghar in the Galilee. His grandfather was a Turk who belonged to the Dawood clan of the traditional Palestinian Christian Maghar group. In 1948 when Israel was founded, his immediate family fled Haifa to the Druze village of Beit Jinn, which offered them protection and helped prevent them from becoming refugees. He was married to Khazna Dawood and had three daughters, Aida, Georgette and Nidal.
He was an Arab nationalist and Marxist. He was a founding member of the Haifa branch of the Palestinian Communist Party during the British Mandate period in Palestine and fought the British occupation in his homeland. After the founding of Israel, he joined the Israeli Communist Party, Mackie. He and his extended family were expelled from the Israeli Communist Party in 1963 for his pro-Chinese views and for his insistence on the right of return of Palestinian refugees. His family returned to the Israeli Communist Party after its pro-Zionist members left it and became known as Rakah, which is the main party in the Israeli political coalition called Hadash, the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality.
his death
He was arrested in December 1972 and sentenced to 17 years in prison in March 1973 for treason. He was released on May 20, 1985 in the framework of the prisoner exchange agreement between Israel and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. After his release, he published a collection of poems he wrote while behind bars called “The Wind of Jihad,” as well as his memoirs, “A Revolutionary from the Arab East.” Dawood Turki died at the age of 82 on March 8, 2009 AD.
Achievements and Awards
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