Palestinians gave their national poet Mahmoud Darwish the equivalent of a state funeral in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday, attended by Palestinian dignitaries and family members who mourned the man who fought for the the Palestinian cause in words. Darwish died in Houston Texas last Saturday after undergoing heart surgery. Darwish a man whose work focussed on the plight of the  Palestinian people  refused to accept the Oslo Accords. In 1988 he wrote the official Palestinian declaration of independence and served on the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) until 1993, when he resigned in protest of the Oslo Accords. 08/13/08