Kanafani, Symbol of Palestine

181 Pages·1974·34.851 MB·English

by  George Hajjar

A
—.
Eilat ove
rt,

SYMBOL OF
PALSSUNE

George Hajjar
Dedicated to the memory of
the Iraqi revolutionary, Basil
Al-Kubaissi, who was cut down

by Israeli agents on the streets
of Paris, April 6, 1973.

The weak do not fight.
The strong fight for an hour, perhaps.
_ The stronger fight for many years.
But the strongest fight all their lives.

Such men are indispensable.
Bertolt Brecht.
Contents

Part | The Roots

1) The Pursuit of Bread 1

2) The Search for Identity 23

Part Il The Bride
3) Devotional Nasserism 47
4) Palestinian Solitude 75

Part III The Journey
5) Palestinian Revolutionism 105
6) Confessional Marxism 133

Part IV Conclusion
J} A ChildI s Born 159
Preface

Shortly after the assassination of Ghassan Kanafani on
July 8, 1972, | set out to write a biography about him.
Unhappily, not all the pertinent data was made available to
me. | had, therefore, to alter my strategy and write a study
based mostly on Kanafani’s writings, what | knew about him
and was able to gather from casual observers. The research was
carried out in the fall of 1972, the writing in the winter of
1973. In March of 1973, | circulated the manuscript among
some comrade intellectuals of Kanafani’s circle and anxiously
awaited for their critical evaluations and helpful suggestions.
Unfortunately, none came after six months of waiting.
Consequently, | decided to issue my study without being
able to include something substantive regarding Kanafani’s
party life, the role he played in the internal struggles and splits
of the P.F.L.P. and also the mystery surrounding his
assassination.
One last word: | wrote this book not as ‘‘Operation
Glorification or Deification’’, but because Ghassan Kanafani
was the first modern Palestinian Arab writer to die for the
cause of Arab revolution, martyred on the altar of criminal
negligence.
October 5_ “973,
Karoun, Bekaa ~ebanon.
Introduction

“You have seen our elders, simple militants or party workers,
white beards on the black rock of their faces: Did it remind
you of the snow on your mountain peaks? Not bad if so: It’s a
the snow of experience that no sun will ever melt, and we
respect it even if the dialectic of logic isn’t always on their
side. The elders are our museums, our libraries, our history
books — the present and the past. They speak well, too: The
struggle, that is the ‘’big lie’ that becomes the truth. They

have known how to believe in that lie so as to make it come
true, in spite of their doubts and for all the ineffaceable marks
of colonialism on their minds and their bodies. They can
rejoice only when dreaming of the future, but already they are
astonished by the present.”
Amilcar Cabral
CHAPTER!
The Pursuit Of Bread
An individual is born into a society that
byeeaarrss a sapreec ificd epehplyys ioginnofmlyu;e ncheids forbmy ativiets
traditions; he is shaped by it as a thinking
human being.
George Lukacs
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neal usd1ne9iic4sto8aIe.nnrd dm ethdecc aistefai,inz rdes tnt rhyeli enasd“taeeanlrndilct eees’,s’b rafAcvlcieertdlei y’z sea nnrddiye n fhleaetnbfhtid atetabd ne thssiu tnrhdres’ietarno dodedc riiestfdyoi. rr gmalinttysni zaectsid ht,eya
ene vcpaApeooishefnfrrrena rdyimncr s nsylNaocaesu)ncino w tdtp avhieealToefelrdfAhfi t m iortlsrbayysef c. beAeaxe oc crcpfshour t irureo asli rnotst2tsfidoy9i th:i rs,e no i e ncmaa 1 t“en.1ph ide9rJean o4 oTgenvfp9hwit ial,ei“ninse sAg-csi,hrth i uswU eab rnhrlbIaiissoe intttrc ihncaaehesehtSedp lmeta .o ab rwttiNdeoieeTthna ec” rhaatgo edn”tiePgh t oeannts nloeniro seforazc sptaeiwbtithtdtPeeidh,ii iar ne znroee etgtn c anhi H osetaan fritgnqaeooodeoca ulnff ts an e dttasoAesaRh ttcdptbhe r hewalseeciti; oo(i ttf slJfoh hui eg aAcwtmaAnrativiecdtlaeswor nhl bheeonty 2 . a 1
The fall of Haifa which was regarded as the citadel of Arab
defense on April 22, 1948, and the subsequent exodus of the
Arabs from the city to their partial and temporary settlement
in Acre, bringing to Acre the contagion of panic and the
meaning of Zionist terrorism, The combination of fear and
panic, the ill-preparedness of the Palestinians, the abolition of
independent Arab local government under the British
occupation and mandate (1917-1948) and the suppression of
Arab political activities by the mandatory authorities
converged and crystallized at a most inopportune juncture in
modern Palestinian history and operated to the absolute
disadvantage of the Palestinian masses in general and the
people of Acre in particular. The result was a foregone
conclusion, Israel had to be born on the ashes of Arab

Palestine and the dispersion of its people.
Here was a city of approximately 15,000 inhabitants.
They were a melange of Arabs and the descendants of Greeks,
Italians, Crusaders and almost 500 Jews. Jews did not live in
Acre in large numbers not because they were not permitted to
do so, but probably because of religious proscription of the
city. Indeed, the Bible specifically prohibits Jews to live in
Acre because it is a strange city that fails outside the borders
of the ‘Holy Land.’ Apparently, this classification of Acre
“as strange’ was arrived at after numerous attempts on the
part of ancient Israelites to conquer the city. Moreover, the
Talmud forbade the eating of its vegetables for fear that their
leaves would carry “the accursed atoms of its soil’ and
therehy contaminate the “righteous” Israelites. The Talmud
also banned the burial of Jews within Acre’s territory on the
grounds that “AKKO” or “Until Here” is a city of “infidels’’.
Talmud or‘no Talmud, now, according to the 1970 census,
40,000 Jewslive in Acre.
The Zionists — a messianic political sect of Judaism —
sought to estabiish a ‘Jewish home” in Palestine to further
God's will and that of imperialism by ‘‘the ingathering of the
exiles’. Thus in this land of prophets, quacks and interlopers,
God, -man,. American, British and Soviet arsenals united in
holy matrimony and implanted the Zionist cancer in the heart
of the Arab homeland, The hapless inhabitants of Palestine
and Acre were mere spectators in a well-scripted play that was
2
enacted before their very eyes. They could only watch as the
unfolding drama inexorably moved towards their foretold
extinction and the grand proclamation of Israel. Since most
decisions concerning Palestine were made outside of Palestine
and without the knowledge and consultation of the
Palestinians, they had only three choices to act upon:
submission to the conquering enemy, panicky flight and
self-rescue, or heroic resistance and death in the battle-field.
But unfortunately for the resisters, panicky flight
predominated. Consequently, more than 700,000 people left
with less than their personal belongings in most instances,
over 200,000 accepted submission to conquest and Zionist
servitude, while thousands resisted sporadically in groups or
fell individually before the enemvy’s juggernaut. In the midst
of this mass exodus and confusion, Acre became a forlorn city
of 3,500 people! It is believed that this incredible ‘‘other
exodus’’ occurred because most, if not all, Palestinians who
left, anticipated the liberation of the homeland by ‘‘the heroic
Arab armies’’ in a matter of days, if not hours. This belief led
most escapees to camp in nearby places awaiting the day of
return which never came and turned into a mirage as the Arab
armies retreated, the Arab states negotiated and the
Palestinian “‘leadership" ensconced itself in distant and secure
places in Amman, Cairo, Beirut and Damascus.
The Kanafani family of Acre, whose third son, Ghassan, is
our subject matter, left as did others in the midst of chaos.
According to Anni Kanafani, Ghassan’s Danish wife, the
family departed on April 9, 1948, the day of the massacre of
Deir Yassin at the hands of Zionist-Irgun terrorists and the
twelfth birthday of Ghassan. In other words, the Kanatanis
.left about 5 weeks before the fall of Acre and certainly before
any significant disturbances took place in Acre itself. Prior to
April 9, the only important recorded incident in the city’s
history of the preceeding month is a potential confrontation
between the Haganah and the people of Acre that was averted
on March 17, 1948, when the Haganah turned back its convoy
of supplies to Naharia, rather than submit to a meticulous and
thorough inspection of its cargo by the local branch of ‘The
Palestine National Committee’. If anything, this ‘‘small’’
victory should have raised the morale of the people and given
3

e
g
n
a
them a feeling of momentary triumph. Nothing else besides
this episode and flamboyant speechmaking by local
commanders of the ‘Arab Liberation Army” took place in
Acre. But turbulence and widespread terror had become
rampant throughout Palestine in the aftermath of the
Partition Resolution (November 29, 1947). The Kanafani
family, following in the footsteps of most middle- and
upper-class Palestinian families, departed relying on the Arab
armies to do their own fighting while théy watched
prayerfully on the sidelines. Put bluntly, when the ruling
classes of Palestine — the effendi and comprador — had
abdicated politically by becoming absentee landlords and
agents of foreign powers and corporations, its feeble client
class, the petit bourgeoisie of small entrepreneurs and
professionals such as lawyers and doctors, were incapable of
assuming the leadership of the national movement and of
struggling along with the masses to defend and safeguard the
homeland. As a dependent, parasitic social stratum, the petit
bourgeois sought private safety in Arab countries and left the
peasants on their own to defend the country or to scurry for
their own individual safety in an orchestra of organized chaos.
In this set of circumstances, Muhamed Fayez Abdul Razak
Kanafani, lawyer and father of Ghassan, consequently packed
his six children, his wife Aisha arid some of their belongings
and headed for safety in Lebano:: before the breaking of the
storm.
Ghassan Kanafani was 12 y. ars old when he was uprooted
from his homeland. His family settled briefly in Saida, then
moved to Ghazia, Lebanon, which as Kanafani saw it in his
writings was “a little closer to the borders of Palestine’.

Within a year, the family moved to Zabadani, then on to
Damascus, Syria, where the father stil! resides and practices
iaw. The family had spent whatever little savings it had
accumulated before departure from Palestine as the elder
Kanafani had just built himself a new home in Acre and a
building in Jaffa; but when liberation didn't come and their
savings were running low, the father resorted to selling
groceries on the streets of Damascus while ihe children sold
newspapers and engaged in sundry other activities. In those
formative years, there was nothing exceptional about young
4