Here’s another translation from an Arabic language publication by MEMRI, featuring two poems that were printed recently in Al-Watan: Yes,
I Am A Terrorist.

They have destroyed my world
Let them reap what they have sown.
If on my lips and in the cells of my blood
The globalization of destruction has borne fruit
Here I say it. I write, I draw it
I imprint it upon the forehead of the West
with my wooden shoe:
Yes, I am a terrorist!
An earthquake has its reasons.
If you understand them
You will understand my reasons.
I shall not carry a pen, but my claws
I shall not hone ideas, but my teeth
I shall never be kind,
Until I see the law of the jungle
And all its adherents
Returning to the jungle.
Yes, I am a terrorist.
From now on, I advise any informer
who follows me barking
To clothe himself with a tank
Because I will smash his head in
If one day he knocks at my door.

Another poem titled “The Ape” is accompanied by that joke picture of President Bush with a screaming chimp. You know the picture. I thought it was funny when I saw it during the presidential campaign. But I don’t think Nasir Thabet was trying to be funny when he wrote this.

The Ape
By Nasir Thabet(4)

An ape is ruling this world
From Washington to China.
It doesn’t matter,
But
The Arabs make him the prophet of the age.
Prostitution takes many forms.
* * *
The Arabs said: “He will soon become a human being.”
I said: “You can count years and centuries.”
* * *
They made me lose my temper when they said:
“What a just man!”
I shouted like a madman:
“Does he even know the language of reason and law?”
* * *
He [the ape] told them that day he would deliver his great speech.
They sat [waiting] like children for years in their chairs…
The accursed ape did not come.
They said: “It won’t take long, he has reasons that we don’t know.”
And [still] the accursed ape did not come.
They left all their honor in the toilet
And kept waiting for wisdom [to issue] from the madman.
They abandoned their children, and their subjects’ predicament, and
their Honor.
But the accursed ape did not come.

Seems like standard Arab hate speech; look at me I’m a big bad terrorist, call the president of the US an accursed ape, you know, the usual.

But what makes it unusual is that these hate poems were published by Al-Watan—the Arab-American weekly whose mailing address is right down the street from Disneyland, in Anaheim, California.