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 f(fporfrrure soyAtm trl hatett hiMoooaadnur e:gc mhhZo oilfo in1Ati9cNi sraotetpn o o lowMenoiafsot ylnh a'tsusht2eg 0 oh)ots Bd tr raiawnttidtieht sgehhi ipcnl eN amayppetplidwoar onles e, a o dndianieiy tc csi t nsheiesv—v i eee rgMMteirha doeyldlo elfe es 1isn16 -7E1at9fhs8e9let, l n 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