Palestinian Music in Exile

For more than a century, the music of Palestine has been shaped and influenced by exilic experience. With mass displacement propelled by the 1948 Nakba and subsequent confrontations with Zionist colonialism, locations of Palestinian exile gave rise to distinct musical currents and expressions of political culture. While many traditional and diverse forms, genres, and messages are transmitted through music within occupied Palestine, performers exiled from their land continue to develop outstanding contributions to Palestinian music.

Regional Music before 1948

By the turn of the twentieth century, Palestinian music was constitutive of the many communities and denominations that lived under Ottoman rule. Having long been places of regional and international exchange, the cities of Palestine and Jerusalem in particular were bustling with Armenian, Greek, Russian, and other ethnic groups. Palestinian rural traditions in song and music were predominant, but new technologies and regional connectivities allowed urban musicians to find wider audiences for music influenced by Cairo and other major centers. As Muhammad Abdel Wahhab, Umm Kulthum, Asmahan, and other regional stars came to perform in Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s, Palestinian artists recorded and released music on regional labels, traveling to neighboring countries to record. These included Rajab al-Akhal, Nimr Nasser, and Thurayya Qaddura, whose music appeared in catalogs of the Lebanese Baidaphon company in the mid-1920s, and Nuh Ibrahim, who recorded with the Syrian label Sodwa and composed songs of resistance to the British colonizers before they assassinated him in 1938.

Nakba: Music in Exile

In the years of mass displacement, traditional music and song connected to weddings and other social occasions continued in the camps and cities of Palestinian exile, while anthems of resistance and national identity were transmitted to new generations. During the Nakba, many prominent Palestinian musicians fell into obscurity, while others gained renown in regional population centers.

Prior to the Nakba, Nablus-born Ruhi al-Khammash performed, composed, and led choral and instrumental ensembles at the Palestinian Broadcasting Service (PBS) and toured the region as a prodigious oud player. He settled in Iraq and became a major figure in the Iraqi music scene. He taught at Baghdad conservatoires, worked in Iraqi radio and TV, and led many ensembles including the Fine Arts Quintet, incorporating many regional styles. Al-Khammash acquired Iraqi citizenship and died in 1998 during a period of western sanctions on the country.

Salvador Arnita was born in Jerusalem in 1914 and had trained as a pianist and organist before developing a compositional style using the influences of Western classical music. Like al-Khammash, he composed works at PBS. His early works hinted at political inclinations and, during his post-Nakba period in Lebanon, Arnita’s compositions ranged from children’s songs to the epic cantata Identity, based on the Mahmoud Darwish poem Sajjil ana Arabi (Write down: I am an Arab). Arnita’s work was influenced by the folk research of his wife and renowned musicologist, Yusra Jawhariyya Arnita. Vocalist Halim al-Rumi arrived in Lebanon in 1950 and also became a household name. In the wake of the Nakba, his work included singing the patriotic poem “Iradat al-shaʿb” (Will of the People) by Tunisian poet Abu al-Qasim al-Shabbi.

Going to Beirut via Cyprus, Sabri al-Sharif became a major figure in music broadcasting and scholarship. Prior to the Nakba he had been musical director of the Near East Broadcasting Service, based in Jaffa, then Jerusalem, and had studied music theater in London. Al-Sharif led the collection of folk tunes and saw it as his mission to complement indigenous musical forms through the use of harmony and orchestration. In Lebanon, this approach greatly influenced the Rahbani Brothers. In the decades that followed, al-Sharif was producer-director for more than fifteen Fairuz albums and live productions, including Andalusiyyat and The Days of Fakhr al-Din, along with the Palestine-themed Raji‘un (We are Returning) and al-Quds f-il bal (Jerusalem on My Mind) in 1957 and 1967, respectively.

Between 1967 and the early 1990s

Musical and political expressions of Palestinian exile were revolutionized with the rebirth of the national liberation movement, particularly after the 1967 defeat (Naksa). Singers and musicians directly linked to Palestinian resistance factions found opportunities to perform within and beyond locations of close displacement with notable support from the socialist bloc. Using English translations of poems by Muin Bseiso and Mahmoud Darwish, the album The Urgent Call of Palestine of Egypt-born songwriter Zeinab Shaath was released by the PLO in Lebanon in 1972, before she toured the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Soviet Union. The traditionally arranged political music of Palestinian Songs and Dances (1980) was recorded by the PLO Dancing and Singing Group in the GDR.

Recording in Syria, the band al-Ashiqeen (The Lovers) released popular cassette tapes across the region. Founded in 1977 by folklorist, composer, and arranger Hussain Nazik, the band featured mixed male and female musicians and dancers, sporting fida’i clothing and singing for Palestinian liberation. The group helped popularize historic material, too. “Min sijn ‘Akka” (From Acre Prison), composed by Nuh Ibrahim in the 1930s, was brought by al-Ashiqeen to the stage, TV, and widely duplicated recordings, while Nazik set the folk poem of displacement and resistance “Yamma mweil il-hawa” to a now well-known melody. Other Palestinian bands and artists performing in the Levant during this period included Abu Arab and two bands named Baladna in Lebanon and Jordan, from where the PLO-linked Al-Firqa al-Markaziyya found recruits among the refugees. Commitment to liberation and the right of return shaped these contributions. As author Tahrir Hamdi point out, Abu Arab’s singing in a rural Palestinian accent enabled his enduring popularity in refugee camps inside and outside occupied Palestine. Sung by generations of vocalists to come, “Haddi ya bahr” (Be Still, Ocean) epitomized the hope of this period:

O mulberry of our home, be patient despite time’s oppression.

We shall return despite the length of our journey.

Others, including Nazareth-born George Totari and Jerusalemites Mustafa al-Kurd and George Kirmiz, recorded and performed in Europe and North America, having faced repression under the occupation at home. Leaving Palestine in the wake of the 1967 Naksa, Totari formed Kofia band in Gothenburg, Sweden, working with activist musicians and performing bilingual resistance anthems such as “Leve Palestina” (Long Live Palestine) and “Sodra Libnan” (South Lebanon). The group recorded four albums between 1976 and 1988, returning to the stage in 2016 for a series of solidarity concerts and new recordings. Despite a May 2021 attempt by the Swedish government to ban the song from street protests due to its call to “crush Zionism,” “Leve Palestina” found renewed popularity in global mobilizations after October 2023.

Having performed as al-Baraem guitarist in the early 1970s, George Kirmiz found popularity as a solo artist in Michigan, United States, where he recorded and released a string of self-produced albums, including the debut Ana ismi sha’b Filastin (My Name is the Palestinian People) in 1981. Combining Arab and Western influences and recruiting local musicians, Kirmiz performed to US audiences and at events dedicated to the Palestinian struggle until the late 1980s. Kirmiz’s influence traveled back to Palestine, where his cassettes were shared widely. “Ana Ismi Sha’b Filastin” was performed by the Dar al-Tifl al-Arabi women’s choir at the 1987 al-Quds International Conference of Popular Palestinian Culture.

Exiled musicians contributed to collective Palestinian expression during the intifada of 1987-93. As in Sabreen, Washem and other Palestine-based bands, female vocalists came to the fore in many examples of exile musicianship. Recorded in West Berlin, the 1988 album Music of the Intifada featured Sabaya al-Intifada (Girls of the Intifada), the Palestinian Student Karmel Group, and others in political anthems dedicated to the uprising. Contemporaneously, Kuwait-based Al Fajer band, featuring vocalist Sima Kana‘an, performed original and known material to local crowds, also appearing on stages in Iraq and the GDR. Kana‘an sang the words of poet Samih al-Qasim in “Rubbama” (Perhaps):

Perhaps you will burn all of my poetry and books

Perhaps you will feed my flesh to the dogs

Perhaps you will remain a nightmare terrifying our village

But, enemy of the sun, I will not submit

Until my final breath, I will resist

The intifada further established the trend of exiled Palestinians contributing to the cause of national liberation internationally through song and music.

Palestinian Music in Exile after Oslo

Many Palestinian musicians searched for avenues for differing forms of aesthetic expression beginning in the 1990s. Born in Britain and raised in Kuwait, vocalist Reem Kelani arranged traditional, pre-Nakba songs from her childhood and later research in Palestinian refugee camps for ensembles featuring jazz musicians, releasing her debut album Sprinting Gazelle in 2006, following over a decade of touring and musical activism. Living in France after fronting the pioneering, Jerusalem-based Sabreen band from 1982 to 2002, Acre-born vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Kamilya Jubran recorded four albums as a solo artist, beginning with Wameedd (sparkle) in 2006.

Collaborating with artists including Sarah Murcia and Werner Hasler, Jubran’s work directly influenced younger musicians, including Tamer Abu Ghazaleh and Huda Asfour, both of whom were based in Egypt in the early 2000s and who built their own styles and followings in underground and alternative scenes. With official platforms in the West largely unreceptive to Palestinian music during two intifadas and the Oslo ”peace” process, performers including Italy-based Handala band, 47 Soul, older ensembles such as al-Ashiqeen and various song and dance troupes carved out their own space among activist audiences and continued to tour internationally.

Spurred on by commitments to indigenous traditions and by global interest in Middle East musics, instrumental performers formed a key trend in Palestinian musicianship. Prior to the Nakba, the tarab performance culture found in Arab centers during the Ottoman period had been developing in Jerusalem, Jaffa, and other cities of Palestine, before the exile of al-Khammash (Iraq), Yahya al-Saudi (Syria), Yousef Radwan (Jordan), and other prominent players. Growing up in Irbid camp, Jordan, in the 1970s and 1980s, Ahmad Al-Khatib was taught by Ahmed Abdel Qasim, himself a Palestinian refugee living in Baghdad, initially developing a style within the Iraqi school of oud playing. While the occupation would prevent him from working regularly in Palestine, al-Khatib became an internationally recognized oud master, leading the Sabil ensemble alongside percussionist Youssef Hbeisch. With the oud subject to cultural appropriation by Zionist colonialism, Palestinian oud players and composers have been particularly active outside their homeland, including Simon Shaheen, Issa Boulos, Kamilya Jubran, Issa Murad, Trio Joubran, and Basel Zayed.

Palestinian exile experiences of music have been stylistically extremely varied and show the influence of rap and electronic musics, Western classical and pop styles, jazz, and genres referential to Palestine and its surrounding region. Palestinian rappers contributing to underground and mainstream scenes have included Iron Sheikh (US), Shadia Mansour (Britain), MC Abdul (Gaza/US), and Osloob (France), who formed a duo with oud player Issa Murad. The popularity of Western musical forms is by no means universal, however, and Palestinian refugee musicians have held firm to the preservation of traditional song and music. While tarab or classical music forms one strand of this process, other musicians devote themselves to the oral heritage of Palestinian folk song, with repertoires connected to rural Palestine, its weddings and other social occasions. In recent years, young musicians in Burj al-Shamali and other Lebanon refugee camps have formed bands where these songs are central, including al-Manfiyin and Firqat Mashq, with some crossover with tarab traditions, and with groups utilizing highland bagpipes in performances at weddings and national commemorations.

Global Palestinian Music after the War on Gaza, 2023-2025

Palestinian musicians formed part of the mobilization of Palestinian culture that confronted the Zionist genocide on Gaza from October 2023, taking to international stages and recording music in solidarity with resistance on the ground. Itself the most concentrated region of Palestinian exile, Gaza continued to contribute musically in the face of daily Israeli massacres and atrocities. Sol Band wrote, recorded, and led music sessions among the displaced before leaving Gaza in Spring 2024, while young oud player Samih Madhoun also garnered support on online platforms. Having lived through previous onslaughts on Gaza, oud player Reem Anbar toured internationally as a soloist and with Gazelleband in a campaign to support family in Gaza City, while songwriter Ahmad Haddad recorded new material in Turkey, and Sarraj Alsersawi played oud with a Palestinian Maqam ensemble in Egypt.

Other Palestinian musicians actively performing over this period included oud players Clarissa Bitar, Nizar Rohana, and Saied Silbak; vocalist Reem Kelani; qanoun-playing singer Christine Zayed; pianist Faraj Suleiman; and bands including 47 Soul and Sol. From Germany, Rola Azar sang a series of songs dedicated to the struggle, including “Ajras al-Awda” (The Bells of Return) and “Ikhla‘ na‘luka ya Musa” (Cast off your Sandals, Moses), a song by Lebanon-based Fadi Zaraket:

Cast off your sandals, Moses

And scale Mount Sinai

Toss the jasmine flowers

On the plains of Palestine

Even her roses resist

As do her olives and figs