Kanafani was born on April 8, 1936 in Acre, Palestine. He lived with his family in Jaffa until they were forced to leave during the Nakba (“catastrophe”) of 1948 and finally settled in Damascus. After living in a refugee camp, he later began working as a teacher in a refugee camp for the UNRWA to help support his family and continue his studies. His experience in the refugee camps is reflected in much of his works.

While studying Arabic literature at the University of Damascus he became interested in politics and met the then leader of the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM) George Habash, with whom he began to work. After teaching several years in Kuwait, where he was diagnosed with acute diabetes, Kanafani moved to Beirut to work on al-Hurriyya (“Independence”) magazine at the invitation of Habash.

In 1961 he married Danish professor Anni Hoover, who had come to Beirut to study the refugee situation and in 1962 he published his first major book, Men in the Sun *, immediately acclaimed throughout the Arab world. Both as a journalist and as a writer, Kanafani was very prolific in the 1960s when Palestinian resistance and armed struggle increased (the PLO was founded in 1965).

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was founded in 1967 to replace the Movement of Arab Nationalists and Kanafani became director of al-Hadaf, the party’s organ. With a clear Marxist orientation, the PFLP pledged to resist the occupation of Palestine and establish in Palestine a single state with a new secular society based on social justice. The period between 1970 and 1972 was rich in political and armed activity, and at that time Kanafani was a member of the PFLP politburo in addition to being its spokesperson.

The PFLP considered the fight against the Israeli occupation to be anti-colonial resistance. After the defeats of 1948 and, especially, 1967, the struggle in the cultural sphere was fundamental to recover a daily Palestinian national identity that was in danger due to dispersion and ethnic and cultural cleansing. It was the first step to recover his country.

He was assassinated along with his 17-year-old niece Lamees on July 8, 1972 in Beirut by a car bomb planned by Mossad and very possibly with the collusion of the Lebanese authorities.

– PFLP Ghassan Kanafani, Richard Carleton interview COMPLETE

– The Dupes, 1973 Syrian Film based on the book by Kanafani “Men in the Sun”

Hexbear links

reminders:

  • 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
  • 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
  • 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
  • 🌈 If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can reserve a spot here nerd
  • 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog

Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

Aid:

Theory:

  • dinklesplein [any, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    33 minutes ago

    if von der leyen actually caves to trump i will personally tie up every euro federalist and force them to self crit GCPR style in an actual literal struggle session

  • DickFuckarelli [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    50 minutes ago

    So what are we thinking? Are we heading for a depression, near term? Or does whatever the modern version of Allen Dulles is “fix the problem”? Or would it even matter at this point?

  • Blockocheese [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    12·
    2 hours ago

    Thinking about how after my siblings brain surgery, the surgeon, one of the best in the country, sat my adoptive parents down to tell them he had 30+ years of experience and had no idea what he removed and neither did anyone else on the team and they had to send it to a different lab than normal and after the lab did the biopsy that confirmed it was cancer, he just never elaborated on why no one “had ever seen anything like it” at first and now that my siblings dead it feel like I’m the only one who remembers that and wants an explanation blob-no-thoughts

    • copandballtorture [ey/em]@hexbear.netEnglish
      3·
      2 hours ago

      You and your sibling (are you blood related?) were adopted by people, and your sibling died of an exceedingly rare and uncommon brain cancer? And you have no other known relatives? Can you get yourself double and triple checked for the rare uncommon brain thing?

      • Blockocheese [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        4·
        1 hour ago

        They were my adoptive parents biological child so no relation but the type of cancer isn’t the kind you get from bad genes it’s just pure bad luck

        Brain cancer is graded differently but the type they had isn’t super rare, I think the issue was that the tumor itself didn’t look like a normal brain tumor but they didn’t elaborate on that at all or describe what it did look like

        I do appreciate your concern though, comrade meow-hug

  • MF_COOM [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    10·
    3 hours ago

    Rewatching Spike Lee’s malcolm-checks.

    It opening credits cut back and forth between the Rodney King footage and a slowly burning amerikkka flag over a Malcolm speech. Good start.

    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      5·
      2 hours ago

      I should watch that sometime. His autobiography is one of my all time favorite books. For people who don’t like their left wing material dry and boring, this is absolutely sopping wet and an absolutely gripping narrative. It’s a fantastic read not only for what it is but in the same way a good novel is a great read. It’s gripping.

  • Sol_Tradguy [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    7·
    3 hours ago

    @[email protected] the virgin top secret deep state superweapon armed with both an entire payload of apocalyptic nuclear weaponry & an unprecedented nightmare of mass surveillance technology; home to an eldritch consciousness intimately shaped by the dark noosphere of America, both insanity-inducingly beyond the knowable yet distinctly & undeniably manmade

    the chad four commercial airliners

    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      1 hour ago

      Crashing into the banks of New York City, Arsenal destroyed a sizable portion of the lower west side of the city, including all 28 batteries at Battery Park, as well as the destruction of Broadway and the Wall Street Stock Exchange before stopping at Federal Hall and flinging Raiden and Solidus onto the rooftop, allowing them one final battle atop the national monument. While on a collision course with New York, Arsenal destroyed several United States monuments, including the Statue of Liberty, which was pushed to the front of the Immigration Museum on Ellis Island.- from.the documents disc

    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      4·
      3 hours ago

      But those tool 4 whole people to fly! (Dude undercounted the number of hijackers for both scenarios forgetting every single one of the hundred thousand guards solidus has crammed somewhere on big shell but also forgetting that it wasn’t 1 hijacker per plane)

  • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    10·
    4 hours ago

    The dumbest guy ever making an argument that 9/11 would be a bigger deal than arsenal gear smashing through new York 8 years later in the metal gear universe.

    How is the number of vehicles relevant? Also Solidus had a special forces squad and a private Russian army help him take hijack arsenal gear.

    I just feel like something the size of like 4 aircraft carriers that is the most classified state secret possible and looks absolutely like nothing anyone has seen before bulldozed it’s way from the Hudson River to Federal Hall and the Dr Octopus’d up Corpse of a former President was found at the scene, it would be a bigger deal than guys hit building with plane