THE 1936-39 REVOLT IN PALESTINE GHASSAN KANAFANI PUBLISHER: COMMITTEE FOR DEMOCRATIC PALESTINE CONTENTS 04 | Introduction 06 | Political Writings of Ghassan Kanafani 08 | Poem for Ghassan Kanafani 10 | Introduction to the 1936-1939 Revolt in Palestine COLOPHON 12 | Background: The Workers Published by the Tricontinental Society, London, 1980. “The 1936-39 20 | Background: The Peasants Revolt in Palestine” published, in addition, by Committee for a Democratic Palestine, New York, 1972. 26 | Background: The Intellectuals DESIGN & EDITING | design_atelier_ (kalimatmagazine.com/atelier) 35 | The Revolt TYPESET | Adobe Caslon Pro, DIN SOURCE | 61 | Letter From Gaza newjerseysolidarity.org/resources/kanafani/ 65 | A Tribute to Ghassan Kanafani 68 | Biography The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine Ghassan Kanafani | 4 The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine Ghassan Kanafani | 5 INTRODUCTION nationalist Palestinian liberation movement into being a pan-Arab revolutionary socialist move- to ment of which the liberation of Palestine would be a vital component. He always stressed that the Palestine problem could not be solved in isolation from the Arab World’s whole social and Ghassan Kanafani political situation.” This attitude developed naturally out of Kanafani’s own experiences. At the age of hassan Kanafani was born in Acre in 1936, and his family was expelled from Pal- twelve he went through the trauma of becoming a refugee, and thereafter he lived as an estine in 1948 by Zionist terror, after which they finally settled in Damascus. After exile in various Arab countries, not always with official approval. His people were scattered, Gcompleting his studies, he worked as a teacher and journalist, first in Damascus, and many of them making a living in the camps or struggling to make a living by doing the then in Kuwait. Later, he moved to Beirut and wrote for several papers before starting Al most menial work; their only hope lay in the future and in their children. Kanafani himself, Hadaf (The Target), the weekly paper of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine writing to his son, summed up what it means to be a Palestinian: (PFLP), in 1969. “I heard you in the other room asking your mother, ‘Mama, am I a Palestinian?’ When she an- To begin with, Kanafani was an active member of the Arab Nationalist Movement, swered ‘Yes’ a heavy silence fell on the whole house. It was as if something hanging over our the forerunner of the PFLP, but later, along with his comrade George Habash, he became a heads had fallen, its noise exploding, then – silence. Afterwards...I heard you crying. I could not Marxist, believing that the solution to the problems which faced the Palestinians could not move. There was something bigger than my awareness being born in the other room through your be achieved without a social revolution throughout the Arab world. bewildered sobbing. It was as if a blessed scalpel was cutting up your chest and putting there the Kanafani was killed when his car exploded in July 1972, murdered by Zionist agents. heart that belongs to you...I was unable to move to see what was happening in the other room. I His sister wrote: knew, however, that a distant homeland was being born again: hills, olive groves, dead people, torn banners and folded ones, all cutting their way into a future of flesh and blood and being born in “On the morning of Saturday, July 8, 1972, at about 10:30am, Lamees (Kanafani’s niece) and her the heart of another child...Do you believe that man grows? No, he is born suddenly – a word, a uncle were going out together to Beirut. A minute after their departure, we heard the sound of moment, penetrates his heart to a new throb. One scene can hurl him down from the ceiling of a very loud explosion which shook the whole building. We were immediately afraid, but our fear childhood onto the ruggedness of the road.” was for Ghassan and not for Lamees because we had forgotten that Lamees was with him and we knew that Ghassan was the target of the explosion. We ran outside, all of us were calling for “To our departed and yet remaining Comrade; you knew of two ways in life, and life Ghassan and not one of us called for Lamees. Lamees was still a child of seventeen years. Her knew from you only one. You knew the path of submission and you refused it. And you whole being was longing for life and was full of life. But we knew that Ghassan was the one who knew of the path of resistance and you walked with it. This path was chosen for you and had chosen this road and who had walked along it. Just the previous day, Lamees had asked her you walked with it. And your comrades are walking with you.” uncle to reduce his revolutionary activities and to concentrate more upon writing his stories. She had said to him, “Your stories are beautiful,” and he had answered, “Go back to writing stories? I write well because I believe in a cause, in principles. The day I leave these principles, my stories will become empty. If I were to leave behind my principles, you yourself would not respect me.” He was able to convince the girl that the struggle and the defence of principles is what finally leads to success in everything. In the memoir which Ghassan Kanafani’s wife published after his death, she wrote: “His inspiration for writing and working unceasingly was the Palestinian-Arab struggle...He was one of those who fought sincerely for the development of the resistance movement from being a The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine Ghassan Kanafani | 6 The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine Ghassan Kanafani | 7 POLITICAL WRITINGS Seven years after its publication, the method and framework of analysis he presented of remain the most useful of approaches in conducting a critical evaluation of our predica- ment. Ghassan Kanafani Ghassan believed that a people who struggle for liberation must know their history. However, existing written history reflects the views of its writers – colonial history. To fill in the gap, he set out to write the modern history of the Palestinian people’s struggle. The n the last week of October 1977, the Israeli occupation authorities banned the perfor- initial piece was a study of the famous 1936-39 revolt in Palestine. Due to his assassination, mance of a theatrical adaptation of Ghassan Kanafani’s Men in the Sun. The play was he never completed the rest of the project. Ito be presented in Nazareth by a local theatrical group. In preventing the performance, Comrade Kanafani’s multi-dimensionality extends beyond his literary and political the Zionist authorities in effect expressed a profound fear of any literature and art that abilities. In addition, he was a painter and a skilful literary critic. Through his efforts, the expresses a sense of deep attachment to Palestinian identity. Arab reader outside Palestine was introduced to what he called the “Poets of resistance.” It was noteworthy that the banned play is written by a Palestinian writer who was as- Mahmud Darwish and Samih al-Qasim, two currently well-known Palestinian Arab poets sassinated at the hands of Zionist terrorists. Why was Kanafani a target of Zionist terror? were first discovered by Kanafani. Comrade Kanafani was not satisfied with studying Pales- Kanafani’s writings were influential and instrumental in evoking and crystallising the con- tinian literature, for he believed that to know one’s enemy one must study his literature. He viction that Palestinians, particularly of his generation, had a total and overriding duty to thus became the first Arab writer to interpret Israeli-Zionist literature. Comrade Kanafani remain Palestinian. His words, in a simple yet profound manner, expressed and articulated was perhaps the first Arab writer to be martyred in the course of the process of liberation. the Palestinian cause. His writings were a source for the rejection of the status quo, for he He consciously chose to abandon and forego many bourgeois opportunities and offers believed in a future that would deliver a free Palestine. as he delved more and more into political and organisational tasks within the framework of In one of his novels, Return to Haifa (1969) Kanafani emphasised that the PFLP. Such an option was basically consistent with one of the dominant themes per- “The greatest crime anybody can commit is to think that the weakness and the mistakes of others vading most of his literary writings. He expressed the idea that the Palestinian who prefers give him the right to exist at their expense.” his own private happiness to the destiny of the Palestinians is doomed to failure. Not surprisingly, Kanafani’s funeral was perhaps the biggest political demonstration in Moreover, in addition to being a prolific writer, Kanafani was an astute political com- Lebanon since Nasser’s death. As a martyr however, his impact on the Palestinian predica- mentator. “The Resistance and its Problems”, a pamphlet by comrade Kanafani, published ment and consciousness is an ever present fact. The Israelis tried to silence him, but his spilt by the PFLP in 1970, was, at the time of its publication, the most daring and responsible blood has served well in nurturing the militancy of the present and future generations of critique of the dynamics of Palestinian resistance. He identified the major drawbacks that Palestinians. prevent the forging of the Palestinian people’s victory. As a revolutionary, Comrade Kana- The Israeli occupation forces tried to silence and prevent our people from seeking to fani in subjecting the resistance movement to critical evaluation, sought through praxis to assert their new identity – liberation.