Palestinian Tarweedeh: traditional song with secret encrypted messages

The Palestinian Tarweedeh is a traditional song sung by women in the early 20th century holding a secret encrypted message.

The message helps the Palestinian women to communicate with their loved ones held in jail during the British mandate in the 1920s and 1930s.

Dating back even before the Israeli state was created, it was created to help an overwhelming number of Palestinians to escape after they were thrown in jails for speaking up against the brits.

Prisons at that time had windows, so the Palestinian women would walk around these windows chanting a little folklore song.

To the occupiers, it is no threat, a random woman singing and communicating with her loved ones.

Little did they know that it is actually a secret message to help her father, husband, brother, or son escape from their prison cells.

The women would add the letter {L} in between words, to send the message they want to say.

To the Brits or the Israelis, it sounds like some gibberish or some other Palestinian dialect.

The songs also used poetry, analogies, and symbolism showing the richness of the Arabic language.

Hundreds of thousand Palestinians have been thrown in jails with absolutely no crime other than calling for their independence and human rights.

Going from one occupier to another, from the Ottomans, to the British, to the Israelis, Palestinians have never known freedom and independence.

However, their resilience and their ways to relate simple everyday things to their land and their identity continues to impress the world.