Darwish said the howls of disapproval raised over left-wing Education Minister Yossi Sarid's plans to have his poems taught in Israel secondary schools "would seriously damage the much heralded efforts to achieve a historic reconciliation between the two peoples.

"This affair raises many questions about the nature of the current peace process - is it really just a matter of new security arrangements?" the celebrated poet said in an interview.

"A genuine peace requires Israelis to accept the other side, the Palestinians, with all the different facets of their historical and cultural identity, as well as acknowledging their right to sovereignty and independence," he said.

An opinion poll published on Tuesday in Israel's top-selling daily Yediot Aharaont found a majority of respondents opposed to the teaching of Darwish's works in Israeli schools.

Fifty-three per cent of those questioned were opposed to their children studying his poems against 37 per cent in favour, in the poll which was carried out by the Dahaf Institute among a representative sample of 514 Israelis, including the Arab minority.

Darwish expressed disappointment at the poll's findings, saying that he had really dared to believe the launch of the peace process had led to a sea-change in Israeli Jews' conceptions of the Palestinians.

"I had naively thought the Israelis had perhaps finally understood they lived in the heart of the Arab world with its own cultural and human heritage," said the poet, who runs a literary journal in this West Bank town.

The poems in question are considered controversial in the Jewish state because they deal with his time in Israeli jails and the harsh treatment he received there as a Palestinian prisoner.

(Agencies via Xinhua)