\n<\/span><\/i>Edited by <\/span>Louis Brehony<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Tahrir Hamdi<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/a>Pluto Press<\/span><\/a> 2024<\/span>
\n<\/span>ISBN 9780745349374<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Farah-Silvana Kanaan<\/span><\/h4>\n <\/p>\n
\u201cBodies fall, but ideas endure.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u2014Ghassan Kanafani\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\nThe short but stunning line above has haunted us in heavy rotation the past 17 months. Whether in tributes on social media, on placards at protests, or peppered throughout personal conversations \u2014 in lamentation or in awe, or both \u2014 one of Palestine\u2019s most memorable martyrs\u2019 immortal words have been used to commemorate everyone from Yahya Sinwar and Refaat al-Areer to Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and the now hundreds of Palestinian journalists killed by the relentless Israeli murder machine.<\/p>\n
The undeniable fact that ideas linger on and far outlive those who once brought them to life would most presciently, yet inevitably, one day apply to Kanafani himself. While outside of the Arab world, Kanafani was perhaps mostly known for his novellas, Men in the Sun<\/em> or Return to Haifa<\/em>, or for his evocative and deeply nostalgic paintings and political posters, or even for his role as a spokesperson for the Marxist revolutionary organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), he was, fundamentally, a voracious reader and a leading political thinker and strategist. A true renaissance man of the resistance, Kanafani has been a crucial compass and incandescent revolutionary to Palestinians \u2014 and many other Arabs \u2014 from one generation to the next. He lived and breathed the Palestinian cause. As his late wife Anni Kanafani wrote in her 1973 biography, \u201c[he] was always busy \u2026 working as if death was just around the corner.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Ghassan](\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Ghassan-Kanafani-Selected-Political-Writings-cover.jpg\")
<\/a>Ghassan Kanafani: Selected Political Writings<\/em> is published by Pluto Press<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nUnfortunately, for many decades, aside from the critical political themes that starkly shone through and were even the backbone of his fiction, much of Kanafani\u2019s political thought was mainly accessible to those versed in Arabic. In fact, although he enjoys quite the notable reputation in the Arab world, for decades, outside of academia, little attention was paid to his political thought by influential \u2014 or rather, more mainstream \u2014 luminaries in the realm of international cultural production.<\/p>\n
Luckily \u2014 and perhaps indicative of the unprecedented times in which we find ourselves \u2014 a veritable Kanafani renaissance seems to have occurred. In the past two years alone, in addition to this selection of political writings, two new translations of Kanafani\u2019s non-fiction work have been published: a new translation of his seminal work The Revolution of 1936\u20131939 in Palestine<\/em><\/a> by Hazem Jamjoum, and the first English translation of On Zionist Literature<\/em><\/a> (Fi al-adab al-sahyuni<\/em>, 1967). The latter, which ostensibly concerns itself with literary analysis of Zionist works, showcases not only much of Kanafani\u2019s political thought but also his voracious appetite for getting intimately acquainted with the enemy\u2019s mind \u2014 an intellectual variation on \u201ckeep your friends close but your enemies closer\u201d \u2014 to further strengthen his ideas on the necessity and embodiment of perpetual Palestinian resistance, in all its forms. His razor-sharp and meticulous analysis of early Zionist texts reveal their connection to the systematic efforts to eradicate the Palestinian people and the colonization of their land.<\/p>\nIn Ghassan Kanafani: Selected Political Writings<\/em>, edited by Louis Brehony and Tahrir Hamadi, non-Arabic readers can now contemplate the heart of Kanafani\u2019s political thought and unyielding convictions, the subtleties of his strategic prowess and his innate ability to articulate not only the Palestinian struggle for liberation within the framework of global anti-imperialist resistance, but the urgency of what he deemed to be a universal fight against colonialism and other forms of oppression.<\/p>\nThis collection cements Kanafani\u2019s position in the pantheon of revolutionary intellectuals, not only as a literary lion \u2014 but as a political analyst and freedom fighter whose works remain timeless in their resonance and cutting in their critique.<\/p>\n
One could easily argue that this text is fundamental reading for anyone who purports to support the Palestinian cause. Kanafani\u2019s political essays are inseparable from his personal history and the collective trauma of the Palestinian people. Unlike with many other political theorists, his writing is rooted in the lived realities of the dispossessed, making these texts both evocatively empathetic and \u2014 especially in the ongoing struggle of the Palestinian people \u2014 timeless.<\/p>\n
While each of the 16 essays in this collection offer invaluable insight into Kanafani\u2019s mind (all of them feel eerily fresh and relevant today), there are a few that seem most crucial in the context in which we find ourselves, when it comes to the Palestinian cause, and particularly the role of resistance.<\/p>\n
\n![\"Kanafani](\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/kanafani-graffiti-quote-1024x576.jpg\")
Kanafani graffiti reads, \u201cBodies fall, but ideas endure.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\nFirst, in \u201cResistance is the Essence,\u201d originally published in October 1967 in Al Adab<\/em><\/a> \u2014 an avant-garde existentialist Arabic literary print magazine \u2014 Kanafani criticizes journalist Ahmad Baha\u2019iddin\u2019s call for a creation of a state in partitioned regions of Palestine, which were then directly under Zionist occupation. As Louis Brehony writes in his introduction to the text, Kanafani rather than off-handedly dismissing Baha\u2019iddin\u2019s recommendations; he \u201chinted at the now heightened influence of communist-led anti-colonial movements on Palestinian Marxism.\u201d Kanafani\u2019s criticisms of statehood as an end goal in itself \u2014 pushed for decades later by the mistrusted and widely reviled Palestinian Authority \u2014 in lieu of emphasizing the power of the \u201cfighting people\u201d in the path towards liberation, read as \u00a0perplexingly prophetic, because that same Palestinian Authority has turned its weapons on its own people in the West Bank, effectively doing Israel\u2019s dirty work for them.<\/p>\nIn his conclusion, Kanafani offers \u201can objective justification\u201d of Baha\u2019iddin\u2019s suggestions by noting that \u201cthe Palestinian resistance in the occupied territories is more capable of linking the fate of the West Bank and Gaza than resistance elsewhere.\u201d He insists that there is no doubt that \u201cthis resistance, in its later stages, will be more capable of achieving two inseparable aspects of our proposal: the creation of the state with a message, and the creation of a fighting people.\u201d However, the prescient qualities of the \u201cdangerous caveats\u201d he mentions are simultaneously awe-inspiring and almost impossible to stomach when looking at the current context of Palestine:<\/p>\n
First, that this state is considered the solution to the Palestinian cause. Second, that it will be an excuse for the international public opinion to liquidate the Palestinian cause, based on the erroneous understanding that the Palestinian cause is a refugee issue. Third, that this State will fail to achieve sufficient international recognition. Fourth, its ability to become, like Pakistan, split down the centre or on the other hand, like West-Germany under the imposition of the Holstein agreement. And fifth, the ability of this state to remain steadfast in the face of Israeli retaliations.<\/p>\n
Although most of his criticisms and caveats have ultimately materialized and are still crushingly accurate today, it is his insistence, on the other hand, that \u201cthe movement to create a Palestinian state\u201d must inevitably go \u201chand-in-hand\u201d with the \u201ccreation\u201d of \u201ca new Palestinian human.\u201d Remedying, in his eyes, the lamentable fact that the relationship among Palestinians has become one of exile and displacement, rather than a revolutionary one is particularly heartening to read, especially (and perhaps despite of) the current context of a bleeding and broken Palestine. For his fervent wish seems to have, if not completely come true, monumentally gained traction in mainstream popularity: the fact that the Palestinian cause was and still is one that is revolutionary <\/em>at its core and must thus be led by revolutionary<\/em> principles and fought, first and foremost, by fighters. <\/em>Kanafani believed that Palestine would not be liberated by corrupt politicians, nor by empty slogans, nor by vultures capitalizing on its martyrs. It would not be liberated by compromises, and certainly not \u2014 as the past 17 months and 78 years have shown us \u2014 by counting on the so-called human values of \u201cthe international community.\u201d<\/p>\nPalestine can only be liberated physically, <\/em>by defending and reclaiming the indigenous land that was stolen and sacrilegiously shattered.<\/p>\n![\"Readers](\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/The-Revolution-of-1936-1939-Ghassan-Kanafani.jpg\")
<\/a>Readers may also be interested in this title, available from Open Books<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u2014Ghassan Kanafani\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n The short but stunning line above has haunted us in heavy rotation the past 17 months. Whether in tributes on social media, on placards at protests, or peppered throughout personal conversations \u2014 in lamentation or in awe, or both \u2014 one of Palestine\u2019s most memorable martyrs\u2019 immortal words have been used to commemorate everyone from Yahya Sinwar and Refaat al-Areer to Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and the now hundreds of Palestinian journalists killed by the relentless Israeli murder machine.<\/p>\n The undeniable fact that ideas linger on and far outlive those who once brought them to life would most presciently, yet inevitably, one day apply to Kanafani himself. While outside of the Arab world, Kanafani was perhaps mostly known for his novellas, Men in the Sun<\/em> or Return to Haifa<\/em>, or for his evocative and deeply nostalgic paintings and political posters, or even for his role as a spokesperson for the Marxist revolutionary organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), he was, fundamentally, a voracious reader and a leading political thinker and strategist. A true renaissance man of the resistance, Kanafani has been a crucial compass and incandescent revolutionary to Palestinians \u2014 and many other Arabs \u2014 from one generation to the next. He lived and breathed the Palestinian cause. As his late wife Anni Kanafani wrote in her 1973 biography, \u201c[he] was always busy \u2026 working as if death was just around the corner.\u201d<\/p>\n Unfortunately, for many decades, aside from the critical political themes that starkly shone through and were even the backbone of his fiction, much of Kanafani\u2019s political thought was mainly accessible to those versed in Arabic. In fact, although he enjoys quite the notable reputation in the Arab world, for decades, outside of academia, little attention was paid to his political thought by influential \u2014 or rather, more mainstream \u2014 luminaries in the realm of international cultural production.<\/p>\n Luckily \u2014 and perhaps indicative of the unprecedented times in which we find ourselves \u2014 a veritable Kanafani renaissance seems to have occurred. In the past two years alone, in addition to this selection of political writings, two new translations of Kanafani\u2019s non-fiction work have been published: a new translation of his seminal work The Revolution of 1936\u20131939 in Palestine<\/em><\/a> by Hazem Jamjoum, and the first English translation of On Zionist Literature<\/em><\/a> (Fi al-adab al-sahyuni<\/em>, 1967). The latter, which ostensibly concerns itself with literary analysis of Zionist works, showcases not only much of Kanafani\u2019s political thought but also his voracious appetite for getting intimately acquainted with the enemy\u2019s mind \u2014 an intellectual variation on \u201ckeep your friends close but your enemies closer\u201d \u2014 to further strengthen his ideas on the necessity and embodiment of perpetual Palestinian resistance, in all its forms. His razor-sharp and meticulous analysis of early Zionist texts reveal their connection to the systematic efforts to eradicate the Palestinian people and the colonization of their land.<\/p>\n In Ghassan Kanafani: Selected Political Writings<\/em>, edited by Louis Brehony and Tahrir Hamadi, non-Arabic readers can now contemplate the heart of Kanafani\u2019s political thought and unyielding convictions, the subtleties of his strategic prowess and his innate ability to articulate not only the Palestinian struggle for liberation within the framework of global anti-imperialist resistance, but the urgency of what he deemed to be a universal fight against colonialism and other forms of oppression.<\/p>\n This collection cements Kanafani\u2019s position in the pantheon of revolutionary intellectuals, not only as a literary lion \u2014 but as a political analyst and freedom fighter whose works remain timeless in their resonance and cutting in their critique.<\/p>\n One could easily argue that this text is fundamental reading for anyone who purports to support the Palestinian cause. Kanafani\u2019s political essays are inseparable from his personal history and the collective trauma of the Palestinian people. Unlike with many other political theorists, his writing is rooted in the lived realities of the dispossessed, making these texts both evocatively empathetic and \u2014 especially in the ongoing struggle of the Palestinian people \u2014 timeless.<\/p>\n While each of the 16 essays in this collection offer invaluable insight into Kanafani\u2019s mind (all of them feel eerily fresh and relevant today), there are a few that seem most crucial in the context in which we find ourselves, when it comes to the Palestinian cause, and particularly the role of resistance.<\/p>\n First, in \u201cResistance is the Essence,\u201d originally published in October 1967 in Al Adab<\/em><\/a> \u2014 an avant-garde existentialist Arabic literary print magazine \u2014 Kanafani criticizes journalist Ahmad Baha\u2019iddin\u2019s call for a creation of a state in partitioned regions of Palestine, which were then directly under Zionist occupation. As Louis Brehony writes in his introduction to the text, Kanafani rather than off-handedly dismissing Baha\u2019iddin\u2019s recommendations; he \u201chinted at the now heightened influence of communist-led anti-colonial movements on Palestinian Marxism.\u201d Kanafani\u2019s criticisms of statehood as an end goal in itself \u2014 pushed for decades later by the mistrusted and widely reviled Palestinian Authority \u2014 in lieu of emphasizing the power of the \u201cfighting people\u201d in the path towards liberation, read as \u00a0perplexingly prophetic, because that same Palestinian Authority has turned its weapons on its own people in the West Bank, effectively doing Israel\u2019s dirty work for them.<\/p>\n In his conclusion, Kanafani offers \u201can objective justification\u201d of Baha\u2019iddin\u2019s suggestions by noting that \u201cthe Palestinian resistance in the occupied territories is more capable of linking the fate of the West Bank and Gaza than resistance elsewhere.\u201d He insists that there is no doubt that \u201cthis resistance, in its later stages, will be more capable of achieving two inseparable aspects of our proposal: the creation of the state with a message, and the creation of a fighting people.\u201d However, the prescient qualities of the \u201cdangerous caveats\u201d he mentions are simultaneously awe-inspiring and almost impossible to stomach when looking at the current context of Palestine:<\/p>\n First, that this state is considered the solution to the Palestinian cause. Second, that it will be an excuse for the international public opinion to liquidate the Palestinian cause, based on the erroneous understanding that the Palestinian cause is a refugee issue. Third, that this State will fail to achieve sufficient international recognition. Fourth, its ability to become, like Pakistan, split down the centre or on the other hand, like West-Germany under the imposition of the Holstein agreement. And fifth, the ability of this state to remain steadfast in the face of Israeli retaliations.<\/p>\n Although most of his criticisms and caveats have ultimately materialized and are still crushingly accurate today, it is his insistence, on the other hand, that \u201cthe movement to create a Palestinian state\u201d must inevitably go \u201chand-in-hand\u201d with the \u201ccreation\u201d of \u201ca new Palestinian human.\u201d Remedying, in his eyes, the lamentable fact that the relationship among Palestinians has become one of exile and displacement, rather than a revolutionary one is particularly heartening to read, especially (and perhaps despite of) the current context of a bleeding and broken Palestine. For his fervent wish seems to have, if not completely come true, monumentally gained traction in mainstream popularity: the fact that the Palestinian cause was and still is one that is revolutionary <\/em>at its core and must thus be led by revolutionary<\/em> principles and fought, first and foremost, by fighters. <\/em>Kanafani believed that Palestine would not be liberated by corrupt politicians, nor by empty slogans, nor by vultures capitalizing on its martyrs. It would not be liberated by compromises, and certainly not \u2014 as the past 17 months and 78 years have shown us \u2014 by counting on the so-called human values of \u201cthe international community.\u201d<\/p>\n Palestine can only be liberated physically, <\/em>by defending and reclaiming the indigenous land that was stolen and sacrilegiously shattered.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n
\n<\/a>