A statement from Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and the Palestinian Youth Movement
8 July 2022 will mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Ghassan Kanafani, a political and cultural icon of the Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian people. On 8 July 1972, Kanafani, the Palestinian revolutionary writer, was assassinated by a car bomb placed by the Mossad outside his home in Beirut, together with his niece, Lamees Najm. We urge all Palestinians, Arabs and internationalist supporters of the Palestinian cause to commemorate this anniversary by making it a day of cultural and political struggle and resistance for Palestine in cities and communities around the world. By holding actions and demonstrations in cities all over the world, and channeling our revolutionary imaginations towards liberation-focused lines of verse and imagery of righteous resistance, we collectively affirm that the legacy of Kanafani is alive and well, and that our people will never give up the struggle until total liberation and return.
We urge all groups, organizations and communities working on Palestine to mark this important anniversary that highlights the immortality of Palestinian resistance and creativity, despite the deliberate policy of targeting and assassination used by the colonizer against Palestinian leaders, freedom fighters and visionaries. This policy of targeting and assassination continues to the present day; on May 11, beloved Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh was shot dead by occupation forces as she covered their invasion into Jenin. From the assassination of Kanafani to that of Shireen Abu Aqleh, Palestinian voices of truth and resistance will not be silenced.
This anniversary is a time to celebrate Palestinian revolutionary and resistance arts inside and outside Palestine, highlight the struggles of the prisoners’ movement inside Zionist and imperialist prisons and organize for international solidarity with the Palestinian cause, for liberation and return to Palestine, from the river to the sea. It is a time to revel in the inherent interconnection between uprisings for anti-colonial liberation and the creative spirit, which Kanafani seamlessly embodied throughout his life and thought. To fight for freedom, to refuse to succumb to the subjugation of Zionist settler-colonialism is a deeply creative process, requiring the negation and dismantlement of the extant, oppressive order, and the bold lucidity to imagine what awaits us after.
In particular, we urge Palestinian youth to take inspiration from Kanafani’s multifaceted and brilliant legacy of struggle, in developing their role in renewing Palestinian revolutionary culture and leading the Palestinian struggle forward toward the achievement of liberation. Kanafani understood that culture is not supplementary to political efforts, but is in fact its own radical terrain of political struggle. We also note the deep collective and internationalist revolutionary tradition of Kanafani’s vision and political work; this anniversary is a Palestinian, Arab and international date not of mourning, but of building collectively upon the legacy created by Kanafani and his comrades.