Leve Palestina
1978 Swedish song
"Leve Palestina" (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈlêːvɛ palɛsˈtîːna]; transl. "Long Live Palestine") is a 1978 protest song by Swedish-Palestinian band Kofia, written by its leader George Totari. A popular song at socialist protests since its release, it has gone viral since the onset of the Gaza war in 2023.
History
The band Kofia (Swedish for 'keffiyeh') was formed in Gothenburg in 1972 by George Totari (born 1946 in Nazareth), a Palestinian musician who moved to Sweden in 1967 amid the Six-Day War and became naturalized, alongside four other musicians: Palestinian percussionist Michel Kreitem (born 1946 in Jerusalem), whose family was forced to relocate to Jordan between 1948–1952, and who moved out in 1967 following his Swedish girlfriend; Swedish singer Carina Olsson; Swedish flute player Bengt Carlsson; and Swedish guitar, mandolin and oud player Mats Lundälv. The band, whose formation changed various times over the years, was active in demonstrating against the Vietnam War and South African apartheid during the 1970s.
"Leve Palestina", which Totari wrote as a protest song in response to the limitations on openly criticizing Israel and the denial of Palestinian identity in the country at the time, was released as the last song of the 1978 album Mitt hemlands jord / أرض بلادي under the title "Demonstrationssången / تحيا فلسطين", and has subsequently become Kofia's best-known work. The lyrics of the song depict the harvesting of wheat and olives in Palestine and the throwing of rocks and firing of rockets at her enemies. "Leve Palestina" invokes the socialist struggle against imperialism, calling for the downfall of Zionism and liberation of Palestine. Kofia is recognized as the first case of a group singing about Palestine in a language other than Arabic, something which was met with mixed feelings among Arabs.
The song has been regularly chanted at demonstrations in Sweden since it was written, and has been censured by the Swedish authorities. On the International Workers' Day in 2019, pro-Palestinian activists sang "Leve Palestina" at a demonstration in Malmö, drawing condemnation by both right-wing press and the ruling Social Democratic Party.
The public source identifies “Leve Palestina” as 1978 Swedish song. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Leve, Palestina and Swedish.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q123291106. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1978, 2023, 1972 and 1946.
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This entry incorporates text from “Leve Palestina” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.