“Between the Sword and the Neck” Educator and editor Hazem Jamjoum offers a fresh reading of the work of Ghassan Kanafani amid Israel’s ongoing genocide on Palestinians in Gaza.
Ghassan Kanafani (1936-1972) is widely known as one of the great Arab novelists of the 20th century. His ability to use simple, almost mundane stories to speak to the human experience of colonialism and freedom in novels like ‘Men in the Sun’ and ‘Returning to Haifa’ continue to teach those who read them.
But Kanafani was more than a novelist, he was also a key political thinker, strategist and revolutionary whose analysis of Zionism and imperialism continues to inform and shape anti-colonial thought across the globe today.
Hazem Jamjoum is a Palestinian educator and an editor with the recently-established publishing house Maqam Editions. His translation of Ghassan Kanafani's The Revolution of 1936-1939 in Palestine was published by 1804 Press in 2023, and his translation of Maya Abu al-Hayyat's No One Knows their Blood Type was released by the CSU Poetry Center in October 2024.
Ahmed Alnaouq is a Palestinian journalist from Gaza.
Purchase Hazem Jamjoum's translation of The revolution of 1936-1939 in Palestine - Ghassan Kanafani: https://www.maqam.uk/maqam-store/p/the-revolution-of-1936-1939-in-palestine-ghassan-kanafani
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0:00 Introduction
1:30 Hazem’s Palestinian family
2:38 Who is Ghassan Kanafani? Early life and childhood
4:00 Kanafani’s writings and role as editor
8:20 Resistance literature
10:20 On Zionist Literature
12:20 1967 war and the Palestinian liberation movement
14:00 1970 Jordan wipes out the PLO presence from its territory
15:00 Ghassan Kanafani turns to writing history
16:50 “Reactionary Arab leaders” explained
19:40 Ghassan Kanafani’s explanation of Anti-colonial national movements
23:30 Ghassan Kanafani’s Marxism
25:30 Kanafani’s analysis of culture and the development of a revolutionary consciousness
29:00 What does the “Palestinian left” mean?
37:00 Did anyone from the West support the 1936 revolt in Palestine?
39:50 UK Labour Party explained
43:00 How did Ghassan Kanafani understand Zionism?
45:50 Kanafani’s analysis of the so-called “Zionist left”
48:00 Anti-Zionist revolutionary Judaism
54:00 What was Kanafani’s vision for liberation?
57:00 The West Bank today
58:00 Why did Israel assassinate Kanafani?
1:03:00 Kanafani’s “striking imperialism” quote explained
1:10:30 Settler-colonialism explained
1:15:30 Israel is the imperial spearhead
1:19:00 US threats against ICC for considering issuing arrest warrants against Israeli leaders
1:23:30 Kanafani’s understanding of "Who are the enemies of Palestinians?"
1:27:30 Are the reactionary Arab leaders really the enemy of the Palestinian people?
1:36:00 Kanfani’s critique of the Palestinian leadership elite and “statehood as liberation”
1:41:00 What has today’s Palestinian leadership done to stop the genocide in Gaza?
1:45:00 “A conversation between the neck and the sword” explained
1:55:00 Fascism explained
2:06:00 What makes Israel a fascist state?
2:14:00 Gaza is an extermination camp
2:19:00 Injustice must be smashed
2:24:00 Zionist apartheid was a tool for genocide
2:26:00 Aimé Césaire’s understanding of fascism
2:28:00 Imperialism is fascism against the natives
2:28:00 Zionism must be smashed and defeated