After the defeats of 1948 and especially 1967, the struggle in the sphere of culture was crucial in order to recapture an everyday Palestinian national identity, threatened by dispersion and ethnic/culture cleansing.
The PFLP saw the fight against Israeli occupation mainly as anti-colonial resistance. The period of 1970-72 was laden with political and armed activity, with Kanafani being a member of the PFLP politburo and serving as its spokesman. With a clear Marxist orientation, the PFLP was committed to resisting the occupation of Palestine and establishing a single state, with a new, secular society, based on social justice, in Palestine. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was founded in 1967, replacing the Arab Nationalists’ Movement, and Kanafani became the editor of al-Hadaf, the party’s organ. Kanafani was very prolific during the 1960s, both in literary and journalistic output, as the Palestinian resistance and armed struggle ramped up (the PLO was founded in 1965). In the 1961 he would marry Danish teacher Anni Hoover, who had come to Beirut to study the refugee situation and in 1962 publish his first major work, Men in the Sun, which was instantly acclaimed throughout the Arab world. After teaching for a few years in Kuwait, where he was diagnosed with severe diabetes, Kanafani would move to Beirut to join the editorial of al-Hurriyya (“Freedom”) magazine at Habash’s invitation. His experience in the camps would later transpire in much of his writing.ĭuring his Arabic Literature studies at Damascus University he started becoming interested in politics, and met George Habash, then leader of the Arab Nationalists’ Movement (ANM), with whom he began to work. Having lived in one pf them, he would later begin teaching at a UNRWA refugee camp to help support his family and continue his studies. He lived with his family in Jaffa until they were forced to leave in the 1948 Nakba (“catastrophe”), finally settling in Damascus. Kanafani was born on April 8, 1936, in Acre, Palestine. In this essay we look at Kanafani’s life and work, the impact of his writing as a chronicling of the Palestinian struggle and the relevance of his political thought to this day. A multifaceted Palestinian revolutionary, he was a renowned writer and journalist as well as an artist, and he was a leading figure in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). July 8th marked the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Ghassan Kanafani. All the PFLP posters below were authored by Ghassan Kanafani. Ghassan Kanafani in his PFLP office in Beirut, surrounded by revolutionary icons on the wall (Marx, Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara, George Habash).
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