Mahmoud Darwish and Tamar Ben Ami: The impossible love of a Palestinian poet and an Israeli dancer

In the early 1960s, in Haifa, Israel, the young Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish fell in love with Tamar Ben Ami, a Jewish Israeli dancer. Their romance was intense but brief. From this forbidden love, the writer composed a poignant poem, 'Rita and the Rifle,' which is still sung throughout the Arab world.