An-Najah National University 
Faculty of Graduate Studies 

 

 

 
 

 

 
GHASSAN KANAFANI'S LITERATURE AND 

THE CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN CRISIS 
 

 
 

 
 

By 

Fathia Nael Ahmad Abu Madi 

 

 
 

 

 
Supervisor 

Dr. Ahmad Qabaha 

 
 
 

 

 

This Thesis is Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree  
of Master of Comparative Literature, Faculty of Graduate Studies, An-Najah 

National University, Nablus, Palestine. 
 

2025 



ii 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 
 

 
GHASSAN KANAFANI'S LITERATURE AND 

THE CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN CRISIS 
 

By 

Fathia Nael Ahmad Abu Madi 

 
 

This Thesis was defended successfully on 05/03/2025 and approved by: 

 

 

 



iii 

Dedication 

This thesis is dedicated to those who survived to tell their stories, to the nation 

where I belong. 

 

 

                                         

  



iv 

Acknowledgments 

All praise is due to Allah, the Most Gracious, and Merciful 

I want to express my gratitude to my family: my mother, father, and siblings, for always 

being by my side. I'm also grateful to my husband and son for giving me the strength to 

achieve my dreams; your support means everything to me, so thank you very much! 

I would also like to express my most sincere thanks to my supervisor Dr. Ahmad Qabaha 

for his unlimited support, patience, and encouragement throughout this Research and 

study. I have greatly profited from his knowledge, and from the notes he has generously 

lavished in the course of doing my thesis. I appreciate all the time and effort he 

contributed to make my MA experience productive and stimulating. 

My experience during my MA program was particularly informative and productive, 

thanks to the invaluable support of Dr. Abdel Karim Daragmeh, Dr. Nabil Alawi, Dr. 

Bilal Hamamra, Dr. Ahmad Qabaha, and Dr. Mohammad Hamdan. I am deeply grateful 

for their thoughtful efforts, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to each of 

them. 

This study also would not have been possible without this special program, which granted 

my research the suitable tools and broadened my knowledge. So, I deeply appreciate the 

chance that I had to be part of this precious program. 

 

  



v 

Declaration 

I, the undersigned, declare that I submitted the thesis entitled: 

 

GHASSAN KANAFANI'S LITERATURE AND 

THE CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN CRISIS 
 

 

I declare that the work provided in this thesis, unless otherwise referenced, is the 

researcher’s own work, and has not been submitted elsewhere for any other degree or 

qualification.  

Student's Name Fathia Nael Ahmad Abu Madi   

Signature:  

Date: 05/03/2025 

 

 

 

 

  



vi 

Table of Contents 

 

Dedication ....................................................................................................................... iii 

Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................... iv 

Declaration ....................................................................................................................... v 

Table of Contents ............................................................................................................. vi 

List of Pictures ................................................................................................................ vii 

Abstract .......................................................................................................................... viii 

Chapter One: Introduction and Background ..................................................................... 1 

1.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1 

1.2 Significance of the Study ............................................................................................ 8 

1.3 Objectives of the Study ............................................................................................... 8 

1.4 Questions of the Study ................................................................................................ 9 

1.5 Methodologies of the Study ........................................................................................ 9 

1.6 Limitations of the Study ........................................................................................... 10 

1.7 Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................. 10 

1.8 Literature Reviews .................................................................................................... 11 

Chapter Two: The Role of Ghassan Kanafani's Literature in the Contemporary Palestinian 

Crises: A Critical Reading of Symbolic Connotations .......................................... 15 

2.1 The Contemporary Palestinian Nakba: A Journey of Exodus, or a Dream of Return

 ............................................................................................................................... 15 

2.2 Kanafani's Symbolic Connotations & the Current Genocide in the Gaza Strip ....... 21 

2.3 Kanafani's "The Canon" & the Current Acts of Resistance in Palestine .................. 32 

Chapter Three: Abullhawa's Mornings in Jenin and Kanafani's Returning to Haifa:  A 

Comparison with Palestinian Current Crises ......................................................... 36 

3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 36 

3.2 The Scar (Star) of David and the Contemporary Crises in Palestine: Prognostication 

from the Past to the Present ................................................................................... 36 

Chapter Four: Conclusion ............................................................................................... 44 

References ....................................................................................................................... 48 

 ب ............................................................................................................................... الملخص 

 

  



vii 

List of Pictures 

 

Picture (1): "Pharaoh" Hatch in the Separation Wall, August 2020 .................................. 18 

Picture (2): The occupation army detains many Palestinian workers at the "Pharaoh" 

Hatch leading to the occupied interior ........................................................................ 18 

Picture (3): Tents and the Contemporary Misery of Palestinians in winter, in the Gaza 

Strip during the Genocide of 2023 ............................................................................... 28 

Picture (4): R efugee Camps in the Southern Gaza (Imposed displacements) ................. 30 

 

 

 

  



viii 

GHASSAN KANAFANI'S LITERATURE AND THE 

CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN CRISIS 
By 

Fathia Nael Ahmad Abu Madi 

Supervisor 

Dr. Ahmad Qabaha 

Abstract 

This study examines symbolism in Ghassan Kanafani's literature and the ongoing 

Palestinian refugee crisis. It mainly aims to compare the symbols and signs used in 

Kanafani's literary works and the Palestinians’ daily struggles under the military force of 

Israeli occupation. It also debates the language of resistance, themes, and symbols in 

Kanafani's novels and short stories as a predictable image of Palestinians' future after 

1948. It further debates Ghassan Kanfani's prediction of the contemporary Palestinian 

crisis, which depicts the refugee crisis after 1948 and the collective memory of return to 

Palestine. The thesis employs an up-to-date postcolonial reading of the novels and short 

stories to indicate that the current nakbas in Palestine and the crisis of refuge for 

Palestinians have continued after 1948, not only in refugee camps but also in their 

homeland Palestine.  

This study falls into two parts: the first compares the national allegories in Kanafani's 

literary works with the contemporary Palestinian situation and contemporary Palestinian 

literature inspired by Kanafani, like Abulhawa's Mornings in Jenin. The second part 

explores the attitude that Kanafani's literary allegories mirror in the Palestinian 

contemporary issue and contemporary works of literature that draw from Kanafani's 

symbolism.  These two parts will conclude by proving the prophecy of the continuous 

crises of Palestinians in Kanafani's literature. The thesis concludes that the voices of 

writers in novels and short stories could predict the future of their nations, and this has 

been proven by taking Ghassan Kanafani's literature as a base of this study.  

Keywords: symbolism; home, refugees, Palestinian crisis, ongoing Nakbas; Ghassan 

Kanafani 

 



1 

Chapter One 

Introduction and Background 

1.1 Introduction 

Home is where humans discover and realize their identity, create their memory, and build 

their future. In the land of Palestine (home), thousands of Palestinians are prevented from 

their rights of being at home, creating good memories, and building their future. In 1948, 

which marked the birth of Nakba in Palestine, Palestinians were expelled from their 

homeland and uprooted by force; According to the data documentation of 

www.palestineremembered.com, 800,000 Palestinian people were evacuated from their 

lands and lived in exile inside and outside Palestine. In my thesis, I illustrate the 

continuous nakbas, after 1948, of Palestinians and the urbicide [The concept refers to the 

premeditated and deliberate destruction of cities, their iconic architecture, and their 

identity] of Palestine through contemporary critical and analytical reading of Ghassan 

Kanafani's literature. As an example, I explore what is happening currently with 

Palestinians as Israel demolished any sign of civilization or identity in Palestine, 

especially in the Gaza Strip, to explore the powerful symbols, vivid imagery, and poignant 

allegories of Palestinian anguish as depicted in literature, and to critically examine how 

these representations reflect the harsh realities Palestinians endure today. The thesis also 

shows that the Nakba of 1948 wasn't the only Nakba Palestinians have faced, and the 

misery of it didn't end but continued. Like the author of Imagining Palestine, the thesis 

explains that Palestinians "re-lived in … daily nakbas" (Hamdi, 2023, p. 33). So, the main 

point here is to focus on the re-lived daily nakbas in contemporary Palestinian situations 

by considering Ghassan Kanafani's literature as a prediction of the Palestinians' nakbas 

today. 

Ghassan Kanafani is a Palestinian intellectual, journalist, and writer. He was born in Acre 

in 1936. Kanafani left Palestine in 1948 with many other Palestinians who were evacuated 

and expelled from their lands. He had lived with his family in Syria as a refugee before 

moving to Kuwait and Lebanon. He edited and wrote many short stories, novels, and 

political articles. In his literature, Kanafani represents the pain of displacement for a 

http://www.palestineremembered.com/


2 

Palestinian man who experienced the Nakba in his childhood. Due to that, Kanafani re-

lived the Nakba of his nation and rebelled against it in every short story or novel he wrote. 

As written about him in his obituary in Lebanon’s Daily Star," he was a writer, a 

commando who never fired a gun, whose weapon was a ball-point pen” (MEM, 2020). In 

these words, one can realize the power of his writings as a revolutionary writer and how 

a pen could be more powerful than a gun. For that reason, Kanafani was assassinated in 

Beirut on 8 July 1972; the Israeli Mossad had placed an explosive charge in his car, which 

killed him and his niece Lamees. By doing so, the Israeli Mossad thought they got rid of 

the truth. However, Kanafani's literature became more popular, translated into 16 

languages, and adapted into plays and films.  

Kanafani, as a writer, was distinctive in portraying the violations of Zionist occupation in 

Palestine; he was the first to allocate and deploy the notion of resistance literature ("adab 

al-muqawama"). In his literary works, he uses metaphors and signs to portray the 

atrocities the Israeli occupation committed against the indigenous Palestinians. He further 

documents the historical exodus of the indigenous Palestinians and transforms the 

traumatic memory of the past as part of the living present by using fiction and symbols. 

The thesis places Kanafani's literature in comparison with the contemporary Palestinian 

situation and contemporary literature, drawing from his works to show the predictable 

imagination of the writer as part of the present time. 

Out of my critical point of view, which I built based on Ghassan Kanafani's literature and 

the contemporary Palestinian crisis, the study argues that the checkpoints Palestinians 

cross daily, the contemporary violations they've faced every moment, and the destructions 

of their lands are portrayed and predicted in Kanafani's short stories and novels. All the 

events from 2019 to 2024 are predictable in his literature. In his novel Men in the Sun 

(1962), for instance, Kanafani represents the crisis of exodus by three characters who are 

allegories of all Palestinians after 1948, since the representation of the three refugees is a 

representation of Palestinian people as children, men and women. In the story, one can 

realize that the journey of the three refugees reflects the journey of the exodus that 

Palestinians have lived in their homeland under the military force of occupation from 



3 

1948 till now. Abu Qais, Marwan, and Asaad are representations of the Palestinians' crises 

nowadays inside and outside Palestine. They are reflections of the reality of Palestinians' 

current time under the power of occupation in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem. I 

argue in Chapter 2 that the representation of the characters in the novella and other short 

stories is a continuous prediction of the Palestinian contemporary crisis at home and I 

illustrate more how Kanafani's Men in the Sun & other literary works indicate the situation 

of Palestinians nowadays as a continuous journey of refuge in their homeland Palestine. 

The Nakba and the crisis of refugees didn’t end after 1948, it's not just part of Palestinians' 

past but it is part of the everyday present (Sa'di & Abu-Lughod, 2007) argue that: 

The Nakba is not just something of the past. It continues into the present in every house 

demolished by an Israeli bulldozer, with every village divided from its fields by the 

'separation' wall, and with every Palestinian who still longs to return to a home that is no 

more (Sa'di & Abu-Lughod, 2007, p. 103).  

The contemporary situation in Palestine is unstable and insecure. Palestinians experience 

the Nakba today with every house demolished and every village occupied by the Israeli 

Occupation. The land is divided into districts by the apartheid separation wall, and such 

a division separates the indigenous Palestinians from each other and their lands. It also 

makes Palestinians refugees at home since the word "refugee" in the Palestinian context 

in the current time doesn't mean leaving the homeland by force; it further means living as 

a nazih (refugee by force) inside the homeland. (Fox & Qabaha, 2021) argue that: 

Occupied Palestinians live in increasingly fragmented and isolated enclaves, separated by 

checkpoints, roadblocks, walls, and fences. As Israeli settlements continue to increase 

and expand, Palestinian territory shrinks. Different forms of confinement and restriction 

have come to define what it means to be Palestinian today: Gaza is an open-air prison and 

the West Bank is a collection of Bantustans (Fox & Qabaha, 2021, p. 4). 

The violations these words represent, reflect the images of nozooh (imposed 

displacement) that Kanafani portrays in his novels and short stories; since in such symbols 

and images of thousands of Palestinians in the past, Kanafani mirrors the true images of 



4 

today. In which the shrinking of Palestinian territory and the hegemony of the occupation 

make occupied Palestinians live in exile at home. Every checkpoint, roadblock, wall, and 

fence the occupation imposes on Palestinians' lives controls their movements and isolates 

them from each other; whenever the Israeli settlements expand, the Palestinian crisis 

increases, and the indigenous Palestinians become refugees at home. At the current time, 

every part of Occupied Palestine is a territory of itself and its people. Hence, people who 

live in Jerusalem can't freely come to the West Bank without any restriction, and people 

in the West Bank can't visit Jerusalem without obtaining permission from the Israeli 

occupation. Not only that, but also Palestinian citizens of the Gaza Strip can't move out 

of its borders at all; it's an-open-air prison (and currently becomes a collective cemetery), 

like the tank that imprisons the three refugees inside it until they die in Kanafani's Men in 

the Sun. In this case, we can notice that the contemporary Palestinian situation proves that 

the massive destruction of Palestinian territories did not end with the end of 1948, and the 

crisis of Nakba that  Kanafani portrays in his literature, of which Men in the Sun is one , 

anticipates the continuity of Palestinian nakbas at home. 

Inspired by Kanfani's literature, this thesis compares the ongoing socio-political effects 

of the Nakba of 1948, with the historical representation of the exodus Palestinian crisis 

in Kanafani's works of literature, and the contemporary Palestinian crises in Palestine. 

This thesis places in Chapters 2 and 3, the contemporary atrocities that the Israeli 

occupation has committed against the indigenous Palestinians; starting with borders, 

separation walls, and checkpoints, and ending with ethnic cleansing. It further discusses 

works that draw on Kanafan's literature to represent the continuity of the predictable 

images in contemporary writings and reality. 

Many writers and researchers have tackled Kanafani as a revolutionary figure in their 

studies and others describe his literature as part of the resistance force. Bashir Abu-

Manneh discusses Kanafani's theory of resistance and liberation by representing the 

thoughts Kanafani used in his novella Men in the Sun (1962). The same can be seen in 

Hamdi (2023) since her book "proposes to imagine Palestine post the 1948 catastrophe, 

an imagining that means to reconstruct after catastrophe, after rupture, after annihilation, 



5 

a picking up the pieces and beginning –again" (p. 2). In the book, the writer uses 

Kanafani's resistance theory by depending on Kanafani's Men in the Sun and Returning 

to Haifa to represent the imagining nakbas of Palestinians after 1948. She also focuses 

on the reconstruction of Palestine after the catastrophe by depending on these novellas 

and other literary works for other Palestinian writers. However, I realized that no one 

predicted "the destiny of the young man from Akka who died a martyr was that his fiction 

would usher in the future" (Khoury, 2013, p. 89). As can be indicated, researchers didn’t 

fully explain the connotations in Kanafani's novels and short stories as a prophecy of the 

present misery of Palestinians. They even focused on specific literary works in Kanafani's 

literature and didn’t focus that much on his short stories. In addition, the main focus was 

on representing Kanafani's resistance theory as a general theme, not as a significant piece 

of art that influences writers and predicts the contemporary Palestinian situation.  

 That's to argue that the major thematic explanations of resistance theory were taken from 

Men in the Sun, Returning to Haifa, and other books. Based on that, I argue that works 

such as Men in the Sun, and Returning to Haifa are not the only works of literature that 

portray the anguish of Palestinians, but also Letters from Gaza, Om Assad, and some short 

stories like "The Stolen Shirt", "Until We Return" and " The Cannon" are representations 

of Kanafani's future prediction of the contemporary crisis in Palestine. From this point, I 

aim to compare some of the previously mentioned works and others with the present 

Palestinian crises by focusing on some hidden symbols and connotations that have not 

been discussed. I also depend on other literature and fiction drawn on Kanafani's literature 

to represent how Kanafani's prediction is portrayed in modern literature and how it's 

inspiring other writers to describe the continuous misery of Palestine. 

In Susan Abulhawa's Mornings in Jenin (2010), which draws on Kanafani's Returning to 

Haifa (1969), the writer continues to build on the Nakba that Safia has faced in Haifa and 

the loss of her child, to represent the continuous nakbas of other Palestinian families and 

cities, same as Abulheja family in Jenin. As can be noticed, the loss of Khaldoon in 

Returning to Haifa, who becomes David later on, is the same as the loss of Ismael, who 

becomes another David and belongs to another family. At this point, I argue that 



6 

Abulhawa mirrors an intelligent representation of the story of Khaldoon and Ismael's loss. 

Thus, the children's names and the time of the anguish are different, but both Ismael & 

Khaldoon at the end become David. This illustrates that while the times may change, the 

incidents remain the same. Thousands of Palestinian children, despite having different 

names, share a similar fate in their occupied homeland. Most of them bear the scars of the 

David as they face daily struggles, violations, and restrictions on their movement by the 

Israeli occupation (the Star of David). 

The scar and the name of David, as the thesis argues in Chapter 3, symbolize and portray 

the scar of many Palestinian children whose childhood has been stolen from them. Also, 

it focuses on the trauma of Palestinian refugee children, the question of identity formation 

and how Palestinian identity is facing the danger of obliteration and the different kinds of 

absence and genocides Palestinian children face. The characters of Ismael in Abulhawa's 

novel & Khaldoon in Kanafani's Returning to Haifa (1969), represent Gazans' children 

and predict the contemporary re-lived nakba, displacement, and expulsion of more than 

1.5 million of them. Add to that, Khaldoon and Ismael's stories, are similar to many 

Gazans' children stories who witnessed different kinds of atrocities after October 7th.  

Many Palestinian children after this date, have been kidnapped, killed, and detained. As 

explored by media, (according to Israeli channel news), an Israeli soldier took a newborn 

baby from Gaza after killing the family and bombing the entire house. The soldier who 

died after taking the child to Israel was telling the story to other soldiers, and one of them 

told the story to news channels (Trtarabi, 2024). The baby who was kidnapped 

disappeared, and no one knows anything about him now. Based on my argument, such a 

story was predictable and portrayed in Kanafani's Returning to Haifa & continued in 

Abullhawa's Morning in Jenin. As pointed out in Abulhawa's portrayal in these lines 

While Dalia lay heartbroken, delirious with the loss of Ismael, Jolanta rocked David to 

sleep. While Hasan tended to his family’s survival, Moshe sang in drunken revelry with 

his fellow soldiers. And while Yehya and the others moved in anguished steps away from 

their land, the usurpers sang “Hatikva” and shouted, “Long live Israel!” (Abulhawa, 2010, 

p. 37).  



7 

The same as Safia and Dalia, thousands of parents in Gaza, and the West Bank are waiting 

in bitterness for their children to come back home, while the Israeli Zionist families are 

hugging their children and sleeping safely at home. While thousands of Gazans' children 

were slaughtered, turned into parts, and died under the rubble, thousands of Israeli Zionist 

children sang "Hatikva, all Palestinian children are terrorists and must die", As in 2023 

during the massive genocide in Gaza, Kan-Israel Public Broadcasting uploaded an Israeli 

children's song entitled “Children of the Generation of Victory”, which was written by 

Ofer Rosenbaum and Shulamit Stolero. As expressed in The Palestine Chronicle (2023) 

(November 20)," Kan aired the song under the title “We will annihilate everyone in 

Gaza,” but was later forced to remove the clip after it sparked angry global responses" 

(Palestine Chronicle, 2023). Thus the lyrics of the song were full of racist violations 

toward Palestinians. It calls for eliminating and annihilating Palestinians in Gaza, which 

is not new for Zionism since the song is an adaptation of the song "Evils," written by 

Haim Ghouri in 1948 Nakba. This takes the argument back to the point that emphasizes 

Kanafani's prediction of the contemporary crises in Palestine and Abullhawa's portrayal 

of the scar of David. As predicted in literature, while children everywhere live in peace, 

Gazan children are kidnapped and eliminated by the Zionist army, those who kidnapped 

a newborn baby to Israel and annihilated others under the rubble. Not only this incident, 

but also people have caught a soldier kidnapping a 10-year-old girl, her name is Doha, 

and the last time she was seen in a photo with the Israeli soldier on his Instagram. The 

story of these children is the same as that of Ismael and Khaldoon; they are kidnapped 

and disappear; in other words, no one knows what happened to them. They are taken to 

Israel and maybe they'll go back one day with another identity they've created for them, 

to be the real image of David. 

Inspired by contemporary Palestinian literature, which draws from Kanafani's literature, 

like Abulhawa's Morning in Jenin, I also investigate symbols, images, and connotations 

the writers portray in their literature, in comparison to the contemporary situation in 

Palestine, particularly after the 7th of October, to point out the impact of the current 

Palestinian crisis and the potential future nakbas as reflected in Kanafani's works. 



8 

1.2 Significance of the Study 

Because of the contemporary Palestinian crisis that began 77 years ago, and because of 

the unrelieved pain of thousands of innocent children, women, and men in Palestine, (and 

in Gaza at this moment of writing this thesis), this study is timely, original, and 

significant, as it discusses the loss of children, the loss of identity, and the struggles 

Palestinian people experience daily while they are always trying to reassert their identity. 

This study is important and original since it is based on real-life struggles and literary 

works compared to each other. The study aims to explain the future vision of Kanafani 

and how he anticipates what happens in Palestine based on the nature of the conflict in 

which children are the first victims. Therefore, the study comes from a new comparison 

of the unmentioned literary connotations Kanafani represents in his literature, which the 

thesis aims to discuss based on a contemporary Palestinian reading of the Palestinian 

crisis today. 

1.3 Objectives of the Study 

This study is expected to achieve the following objectives: it shows that the signs in 

Kanafani's literature are reflections of the contemporary Palestinian crisis at home. It 

further represents the connotations behind some symbols in Kanafani's literary works as 

predictable images of real struggles Palestinians faced in Palestine.  The study also 

explores literary works that have not been mentioned or discussed before by Ghassan 

Kanafani, to link with the current atrocities of the occupation and the difficulties 

Palestinians come through daily. Moreover, it discusses other literary works drawing on 

Kanafani's literature, to argue that the prophecy of the contemporary situation in Palestine 

is also part of contemporary Palestinian literature and reality. In short, this study falls into 

two parts; the first is comparing the national allegories like Khaldoon's name and scar, 

and its relation of the representation of Palestine in Kanafani's literary works with the 

contemporary Palestinian situation by having further readings of contemporary literary 

works that draw on Kanafani's literature and Palestinian reality, such as Abulhawa's 

Morning in Jenin. The second is the attitude that Kanafani's literary allegories mirror in 

the Palestinian contemporary issue and contemporary works of literature which draw on 



9 

Kanafani's symbolism.  These two sections will conclude by manifesting the future 

prophecy of Kanafani's symbols, images, and allegories, which significantly influence 

this study as it interprets the ongoing Palestinian crisis faced by the indigenous 

Palestinians in Kanafani's literature and exposes the iniquity of the occupation.   

1.4 Questions of the Study 

This study seeks to answer these questions: 

1. How do Kanafani's literary works predict the Palestinian contemporary issue?  

2. What are the resonances in Kanafani's literature and the Palestinians' contemporary 

situation? 

3.  What images and connotations are portrayed in Kanafani's literature and that mirror 

the contemporary Palestinian crises? 

4.  In what ways can modern literature leverage Kanafani's literature to establish a link 

between literature and real life? 

1.5 Methodologies of the Study 

To answer these questions, this study uses post-colonial theory to debate the allegories 

and connotations Ghassan Kanafani portrays in his novels and short stories by employing 

a comparative approach in analyzing texts and real current situations in Palestine that 

represent the ongoing occupation in the land today. It further depends on the analytical 

approach to compare the contemporary Palestinians' crisis with Kanafani's literature. It 

also tackles books and studies discussing the Palestinian refugee crisis and the atrocities 

they experienced from the Zionist occupation. The study depends on these books and 

theoretical frames to discuss the Palestinian situation and link it with predictable images 

written in Kanafani's novels and short stories to show how the writer had a future 

prophecy about the contemporary Palestinian crisis for thousands of Palestinians in their 

homeland, Palestine. For this purpose, I employ diverse approaches, including 

comparative and analytical. 

 



10 

1.6 Limitations of the Study 

In trying to employ the contemporary Palestinian situation and literature, in comparison 

with Ghassan Kanafani's literature, the researcher faces challenges in approving a 

comprehensive theory that confines all the related issues representing the ongoing 

Palestinian crisis from 2019 to 2024. The atrocities Palestinians faced were not new, but 

it has been ongoing for more than 77 years. Kanafani's literature divulged these atrocities 

by using signs, connotations, and symbols. The challenge is how to prove the prediction 

of the ongoing Palestinian crisis in Kanafani's literature and choose suitable literary works 

that mirror the real situation in Palestine. Interpretations of such a subject matter need a 

serious analytical reading and careful understanding of the interrelated topics. 

1.7 Theoretical Framework 

 In his book Bashir Abu-Manneh clarifies that "His [Kanafani's] literary engagement with 

Palestinian realities of dispossession pushed him to act politically" (Abu-Manneh, 2016, 

p. 72), and this is what Kanafani himself explained in an interview before: 

My political position springs from my being a novelist. In so far as I am concerned, 

politics and the novel are an indivisible case and I categorically state that I became 

politically committed because I am a novelist, not the opposite. I started writing the story 

of my Palestinian life before I found a clear political position or joined any organization 

(Stefan Wild, 1975). 

According to his words, one realized that literature is the reason behind making Kanafani 

politically committed, as his novels were his sound of politics when he described the 

misery of his people in Palestine. So, the main purpose of literature for him is writing the 

story of Palestinian people, and representing their displacement and their pain without 

following any political organization. In this thesis, I explain that Kanafani has not only 

been writing about the Palestinian past anguish, and his literature can't be just part of the 

past in a time when the Palestinian nakbas in Palestine are continued. So, it is considered 

in this study a predictable resource for the contemporary Palestinian crises today, 

especially during the current genocide in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.  



11 

The thesis also depends on Edward Said's, Nur Masalha's, and Ilan Pape's contributions 

to Palestine studies. For instance, it tackles Pappe's book to compare the ethnic cleansing 

that is part of the Zionist Israeli plans against Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the 

West Bank, and Jerusalem, with Kanafani's literary connotations that reflect the 

Palestinian reality. Additionally, I emphasize the description of the Palestinian 

displacement and expulsion by referring to Nur Massalha's book (1957). Massalha's 

descriptions of the concept of "transfer ", as I understand, stand against the image of 

victimizing the occupation atrocities against Palestinian people and bringing to light the 

real misery of them in Palestine today. Moreover, I include Qabaha's and Fox's book 

(2021), which describes the daily limitations on people's movements and lives in the land 

of Palestine, and clarifies that "contemporary Palestinian literature is shaped out of 

cultural memory, historical socio-political (and geographical) paradigms are continually 

being reformulated by the ongoing conflict" (Fox & Qabaha, 2021, p. 15). As I noticed, 

the writers represent the Palestinian cause in a way that helps in using it as a reference to 

the argument for this thesis, which transfers Palestinians' daily struggles based on literary 

connotations taken from Kanafani's literature. I also rely on Edward Said's book (1994), 

to articulate the Palestinians' right to return to their villages, cities, and land. I further 

tackled Said's theoretical points because I realized that Said's experience with exile was 

different from Kanafani's experience, the same as other Palestinians who had the same 

cause, which was the Zionist occupation. So, I believe that both of them mirrored the 

current Palestinian cause based on his experience and vision, the thing that insight 

underscores the claim and significance of this study. 

1.8 Literature Reviews 

This section shows how this study differs from other critical contributions of the 

Palestinian contemporary crisis based on Kanafani's literary predictions. The study's 

contribution differs on many levels in treating crucial issues related to the occupational 

hegemonic regime against Palestine and Palestinians as aboriginal civilians.  

In their study  "Ghassan Kanafani's Returning to Haifa: tracing Memory beyond the 

Rubble", Sumaya Alhaj Mohammed & Dania Meryan represent a new conception of 



12 

home that Kanafani's Returning to Haifa portrays, from a postcolonial point of view 

(2019). The writers explore the chasm between the imaginary utopian territory that's part 

of the Palestinian memory and the real site that exists geographically. They also argued 

that Kanafani's allegorical journey of Returning to Haifa transcends the indigenous 

Palestinians from the memory of the victimhood to that of resistance. The writers in their 

article depend on three physical sites to explore body, land, and text, which they described 

as "opened to the process of becoming"; the idea of becoming that they explored here is 

related to the imaginary part that is portrayed in the characters' minds inside the novella. 

Due to that, I see that Kanafani's portrayal of some characters transcends the anguish that 

Palestinians are living daily, and it also carries many meanings that can't be just related 

to the image of home and the idea of return that the article has discussed. 

In his study, "The Symbolism of the Sun in Ghassan Kanafani's Fiction: A Political 

Critique"  (2017), Shadi Neimneh shows the negative symbolism of the sun's portrayal in 

Kanafani's fiction, especially Men in the Sun (1963). As he mentioned "the sun is a 

naturalistic emblem standing for the harsh realities encountered by Palestinian refugees", 

and it is employed in the cited articles as a political metaphor for the "hellish" life of 

exiled Palestinians. As can be noticed, the writer describes one symbol of Kanafani's 

famous fiction that illustrates the negative image of the refugee crisis after the 1948 

Nakba and points out the hard reality of Palestinians. Similarly, in other articles, the writer 

argued about one symbol of one of Kanafani's well-known fiction and specified the 

argument to discuss one to two symbols or ideas related to the refugee crisis of 1948 

Nakba.  

Add to that, in her article, " The Spatial Symbolism in Ghassan Kanafani's Novel "Three 

Letters from Palestine": An Analytical Study", Al-Sheikh (2021) explores the spatial 

symbolism in Kanafani's Three Letters from Palestine, depending on the qualitative 

approach "in attempt to examine the symbolism of the spatial element in Three Letters 

from Palestine and its significant, and deep meaning behind the literal meaning of these 

symbols"  (p.2). The writer depends on an analytical study to explain the meaning behind 

the three places Kanafani represents in his novel, and how Kanafani intends to link the 



13 

reader's imagination with the three places he portrays in his book. She also explains how 

the places in the novel have deep meanings concerning the Palestinian heritage and 

identity. 

Not only these articles but also El-Hussari's (2009) "The Symbolic Conflation of Space 

and Time in Ghassan Kanafani's novel Ma. Tabaqqa La-kum (All that's Left to You )", 

argues the conflations between time and space in Kanafani's All That's Left to You, 

explains the composites between place and time for the characters, and debates how such 

combination creates the protagonist's human experience that builds his individual 

experience. So the writer of this article contends that the time and space in Kanafani's 

novel are not personal, but national, since the protagonist is used "to produce an orderly 

historical but critical interpretation of the Palestinian national plight, where the characters 

speaking for their people", and there they find themselves looking for their national 

identity, which has no sense except in time and space. However, time and space are taking 

place in other articles that talk about the Palestinian situation separate from Kanafani's 

literature or fictional books. 

In their article, "The Nakba Continues: The Palestinian Crisis from the Past to the 

Present", Ahmad Qabaha and Bilal Hamamra argue the continuity of the Nakba of 1948 

from the past to the present time by depending on the evidence that shows the continuous 

anguish that Palestinians live inside their homeland; "Palestinian Nakba is a living 

presence that is communicated and enacted through the ongoing Israeli displacement and 

expulsion of Palestinians who share the scars of collective memory" (32). Thus 

Palestinians are living the same Nakba their ancestors were living in 1948. They faced 

the same struggles and shared "the scars of the collective trauma" that they have 

experienced daily. The writers also explain that "the affirmation of the Jewish identity 

and home is based on the negation of the Palestinian identity, an identity deemed the other 

to the Israeli and Jewish one" (32) since the Zionist law has given the right of residence 

for those who have the Israeli identity. To reach their goals, the occupation also displaced 

thousands of Palestinians, deprived their rights of return, and demolished their identity to 

establish their own identity "the Israeli one" on the rubble of the Palestinian inhabitants. 



14 

Based on my research, I realize that no academic or professional study has yet compared 

Kanafani's literature and the contemporary Palestinian situation from 2019 to 2024, 

especially in the West Bank (and Gaza while I'm working on this thesis) although they 

are highly comparable in terms of the issues they portray, the experiences between 

reality& the characters, and the symbolic connotations in which they are mirrored. So to 

the best of my knowledge, the studies that I previously tackled discussed Ghassan 

Kanafani's fiction separated from the contemporary Palestinian situation and literature, 

and other academic articles tackled the continued Nakba in Palestine as a study from the 

past to the present based on a political point of view to represent the Palestinian refugee 

crisis. However, they didn't study Kanafani's literature as a prophecy of the contemporary 

Palestinians' struggles at home. Even though some articles discussed some symbols in 

Kanafani's fiction, like the sun, they discussed it as a metaphorical image without linking 

it to real current situations concerning the Indigenous people.  

That's to point out the originality of this thesis since it's the first academic study that 

compares images, symbols, and plots in Kanafani's literature with other contemporary 

literature that draws on it, and the real current atrocities in Palestine. The difference 

between this study and the previous ones is the representation of Kanafani's short stories 

and novels as predictable images that Kanafani predicts in his writings about the 

contemporary Palestinian situation. In the study, I transcended and adapted images from 

short stories and novels and compared them with real events in the land of Palestine to 

prove the prophecy about the continuous Palestinian crisis at home.  

The study based on this view is divided into three Chapters: "Introduction & 

Background," "The Symbolic Connotation in Kanafani's Literature and the Contemporary 

Palestinian Crisis," and "Contemporary Literature and Activists that Draw on Kanafani's 

Literary Works". 

 

  



15 

Chapter Two 

The Role of Ghassan Kanafani's Literature in the Contemporary 

Palestinian Crises: A Critical Reading of Symbolic Connotations 

2.1 The Contemporary Palestinian Nakba: A Journey of Exodus, or a Dream of 

Return 

Literature is a simulation of the reality of nations' contemporary issues, and it is an 

important point that writers tackle in their studies to focus on the struggles of the 

indigenous inside and outside the land of origin. The role of resistance literature took 

place in the Palestinians' lives after the 1948 Nakba; writers depend on it to rebel against 

the displacement they've lived through and to document the misery of Palestinian people 

who are facing the occupation's atrocities. In their article, Qabaha & Hamamra (2021) 

argue that "the Israeli military occupation has been striving to wrest control from 

Palestinians over Palestine physically and linguistically. Israel has the advantage of 

controlling narratives, which cast Palestinians outside public discourse and history" ( p. 

5). Unlike the writers and despite the fact of Occupation control of the Palestinian 

narratives, I argue in the following chapter that Kanafani in his literature wrested control 

back from the occupation and documented the collective Palestinian narratives in his short 

stories & novellas. Additionally, his works of literature were not only documentation of 

the past but also predictable documentation of the contemporary anguish in Palestine. 

Kanafani's literature, such as Men in the Sun (1962) mirrors incidents Palestinians 

witnessed from 2019 to 2024, in which the refugee crisis was one of them. As Ibrahim A. 

El-Hussari explores " Kanafani’s narrative art makes use of the crowded memories, 

released by principal characters under manifold obligations, not excluding stress, to 

produce an orderly historical but critical interpretation of the Palestinian national plight 

where characters, speaking for their people" (El-Hussari, 2009, p. 1007). Like El-Hussari, 

I believe that Kanafani's literature speaks for his people through words, which, in my 

point of view, are not only about the characters but are also related to signs and images. 

Kanafani himself aims to use it to reflect the national anguish of his people. For example, 



16 

Kanafani describes the route of the three refugees in Men in the Sun after 1948 as " the 

road of black destiny" (Kanafani G. , 1962, p. 21) since the three men have no one to help 

or a place to stay in, and they struggle in movement from one place to another. They are 

so much like Palestinians who face the ongoing struggles at checkpoints while they are 

going to their work or universities; both the characters and Palestinians experience the 

same situation, but the only difference here is that the three refugees are allegories of the 

true ongoing Palestinian nakba for Palestinians. So, the story reflects the suffering of 

Palestinian people since 1948 in refugee camps, highlighting the socio-political 

challenges faced by the three refugees as Palestinians, which parallels the current 

situation of Palestinians in Palestine in a time when thousands of Palestinians experience 

socio-political challenges daily with the ongoing occupation in the land of Palestine. 

From this point, I argue that Kanafani's description was not a matter of fiction but a future 

prediction that drew on his childhood experience & other Palestinians during the 1948 

Nakba. As I also contend that Men in the Sun is not confined to the three refugees' 

economic or political crises after 1948. It's a story of the collective memory of occupied 

Palestinians, who are experiencing the refugee crisis at home nowadays.  

Due to that, I contend that the plot and symbols in Kanafani's Men in the Sun (1962) are 

a portrayal of the contemporary Palestinian crises at home. The journey of the three 

refugees mirrors the journey of many Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and 

Jerusalem. The same as the three refugees, the vast majority of Palestinians have 

limitations on movements from one Palestinian territory to another. Many of them move 

with their identification cards or passports to prove their belonging to the land at every 

checkpoint they have to cross. Yet, sometimes passports and identification cards are not 

useful to cross Israeli borders, since one of the greatest obstacles that Palestinians face 

nowadays is being politically rejected by the Israeli occupation. The same as Men in the 

Sun, Palestinians who are politically rejected become refugees at home and start to think 

of solutions to their miserable situation as refugees. In the end, they face this kind of 

rejection in two ways; the first one is avoiding any movement out of their country or 

village; the second is crossing some Israeli borders illegally. In both, Palestinians struggle 



17 

and put themselves in danger so much like Abu Qais, Marwan, and Assad, who struggle 

and die at the end of their journey. 

The journey of exodus within Palestine was fraught with dangers, just like the journey 

outside the land of Palestine. In Men in the Sun, the characters embark on their journey 

in search of a better life for their families following the crisis of 1948. During their 

journey, they encounter smugglers, including one known as the Fat Man, and another 

named Abul Khaizuran. Throughout the story, one notices that these smugglers are human 

traffickers, and they are driven solely by greed. Abul Khaizuran, in particular, shows no 

concern beyond his desire for money. This scenario reflects similar situations currently 

happening in Palestine. Hence the representation of the smugglers in Kanafani's novella 

mirrors the experience of many Palestinian workers during the pandemic from 2019 to 

2021. Throughout COVID-19, numerous Palestinians faced significant economic and 

social challenges, promoting them to seek alternative income sources to support their 

families. For that reason, they try to take permits from the Israeli settlers in occupied 

Palestine (Israel), to work and get some money. However, many of these permits that 

Palestinian workers buy from other Palestinian smugglers have been rejected by the 

Israeli occupation. So, Palestinian workers decided to cross the Israeli borders and enter 

the countries of the 1948 Nakba through some Israeli gaps (holes) in the separation wall. 

These gaps in the separation wall were kept open for Palestinians to enter the other side 

of occupied Palestine easily. Anyhow, this is how it looks for the first time, but that was 

not the case for many Palestinians. The journey of Palestinian workers was not easy, it 

was as portrayed in Kanafani's Men in the Sun (1962), "a journey to nowhere". On the 

road of their journey, every night was full of fear, darkness, and danger "(they) he could 

not tell exactly whether (they) he was trembling because of the desert cold, or from fear, 

or exhaustion" (p. 34). The guides of their journey were not there, they left them alone as 

many guides and smugglers Kanafani portrayed in the novella. They "took advantage of 

(their) innocence and ignorance, tricking (them)" and left them in front of a dark gap in 

the separation wall surrounded by barbed wire. They all talked about roads and how it is 

easy to cross a border in the separation wall "They said: “You will find yourself  on the 

road!” And all they knew of the road was its blackness and its pavements"(Kanafani, 



18 

1962, p.30). In this dark road of departure, many Palestinian workers have been 

assassinated, humiliated, and imprisoned at the hands of Israeli forces. 

Picture (1) 

"Pharaoh" Hatch in the Separation Wall, August 2020 

 

Picture (2) 

The occupation army detains many Palestinian workers at the "Pharaoh" Hatch leading 

to the occupied interior 

 

By exploring the incidents that Palestinian workers have faced in Palestine from the 

Israeli military force, one can point out that Kanafani's portrayal in Men in the Sun 

predicts the continuity of the refugee crisis for many Palestinians in occupied Palestine. 



19 

The continuity of the refugee crisis imposed on Palestinians to relive the Nakba of 1948 

in the present time. As Tahrir Hamdi argues. 

This repetition of catastrophe enables Palestinian youth who have experienced numerous 

horrors, to re-live and re-imagine the Nakba, a memory that is more than a memory as it 

is lived and re-lived in the daily nakbas of the Palestinian people (Hamdi, 2023, p. 11). 

The daily nakbas of the Palestinian people, the violations they faced from the Israeli 

settlers, and the dream of return, have been imposed on Palestinians to re-live the 1948 

Nakba and the exodus currently. These words shed light on the point that this thesis aims 

to explore, which is the daily nakbas that young Palestinians re-live, and the future 

imagination in Kanafani's literature that is built from the experience with the repetition of 

catastrophe years ago.  

The symbolic prediction in Kanafani's Men in the Sun is not limited to the contemporary 

refugee crisis for Palestinians in Palestine. It also predicts the journey of return for 

Palestinians through Pharaoh's Hatch. The journey of return that's lived in the 

contemporary time in Palestine by Palestinians who depend on smugglers to return to the 

countries of 1948, was mentioned in different parts of the novella, especially in a 

conversation between Abul Khiuzuran and Assad "Haj Rida believes that smuggling 

people on the return journey is a trivial matter, so he leaves it to you" (Kanafani G. , 1962, 

p. 50)." Or do you think he doesn’t know you smuggle people on the return journey?" (p. 

51). Kanafani's repetition of the" different route on the return journey" (p. 48) that Haj 

Rida or Abul Khaizuran decided to follow in smuggling refugees is a prediction of the 

different routes that Palestinians are using to return to the occupied Palestinian territory. 

In other words; these routes are predictions of the current routes Palestinians cross to 

return to the areas of 1948 today. Haj Rida and Abul Khaizuran are similar to the 

Palestinian smugglers who are" smuggling people on the return journey" (Kanafani G. , 

1962, p. 50) and transporting them to Pharaoh's Hatch.  

 



20 

As can be realized, the nostalgic feeling for the land makes Palestinians ready to cross the 

illegal Israeli borders that have distanced them from their land since 1948. So, regardless 

of the fear of being murdered by Israeli Zionist forces many Palestinians cross the 

separation wall and return to the land of their ancestors as tourists for the first time in 

2019. According to the Al-ayyam newspaper, "Pharaoh's Hatch gave Palestinians a chance 

to come from the West Bank, Gaza, and even Jerusalem to visit occupied Palestine (Israel) 

without permits from the Israeli government". Pharaoh's hatch was a good chance, 

especially for Palestinian refugees who are on the black list and dream of returning to 

their occupied lands, the same as Abu Qais who dreams of a "return to the ten olive trees 

that (he) you once owned in (his) your village" (Kanafani G. , 1962, p. 29). For instance, 

the same portrayal of Abu Qais can be realized in an interview with Said Khalid, a 44 

year- old Palestinian man from the West Bank, who says" I wasn't allowed to return to 

the land of my grandfather in Haifa, even as a visitor because I spent half of my life in 

the Israeli prisons and that was enough to be politically rejected" (Khalid, 2022). Khalid 

adds that "the first time I was allowed to return to my grandfather's land in Hifa was in 

2019 through Pharaoh's hatch, I was happy with this return even though it was for a short 

time but I've returned" (Khalid, 2022). In a few sentences, he describes the contemporary 

Palestinians' dream of return that was predicted and portrayed in Kanafani's Men in the 

Sun. Khalid's dream is similar to many other Palestinians' dream of return, which is not 

only for Palestinian refugees outside Palestine but also for Palestinian refugees inside 

Palestine. That's to conclude, the dream of return is a human right for Palestinian refugees 

inside and outside Palestine". No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his 

own country" (Said E. W., 1980, p. 47), and "everyone has the right to leave any country, 

including his own, and to return to his country" (p. 47). So, the contemporary atrocities 

the Israeli settlers have committed against many Palestinians to deprive them of their right 

of return are considered a violation of human rights that Kanafani's Men in the Sun 

predicted part of them. From this point, I consider Kanafani's literature a speech of 

resistance that indicates the journey of exodus for the three refugees in Men in the Sun as 

a map line of the contemporary journey of return for Palestinian people in Palestine. 

 



21 

2.2 Kanafani's Symbolic Connotations & the Current Genocide in the Gaza Strip 

 In this section, I argue that the images portrayed in Men in the Sun (1962), can be read 

as a prediction of the contemporary Palestinian situation in the Gaza Strip. During the 

contemporary genocide in Gaza, the smugglers took advantage of their nation's misery. 

In the land of Palestine, several dealers are the same as the smugglers in Men in the Sun, 

and they are blood dealers because, in any genocide of Palestinians, you find them silent, 

telling nothing and doing nothing except watching and listening to the pain of their nation. 

They get benefits from the land without any fight, they let thousands of innocent 

Indigenous people be slaughtered and killed while they are just commenting and writing 

messages about them. They are blood dealers, and none of them is clean-handed; Abul 

Khaizuran helps the three men by putting them in the tank to be transferred, but then, he 

takes money from them as a price of their survival, and during the journey, he forgets 

about them in the office while he was talking with other Arabs in the building at the 

boarders between Kuwait and Iraq. He was worried about the three men, but he said to 

himself they would knock the tank if needed. 

The same story is seen today in the Gaza Strip. Innocent Gazans are under attack, their 

houses are bombed, their dreams are faded, and more than 44.000 of them (up to this 

moment) were brutally killed by the Israeli occupation. On the other side, people in the 

Arab countries act the same as the dealers did; they are waiting for Palestinians to knock 

on the tank. Even when they knock on the tank and call for help, no one is there for them 

since the rest of the Arab nations, as mentioned by Kanafani, didn't accept Gazans 

crossing any borders to enter their countries; that makes Gaza for Gazan people, as the 

tank for the three refugees. They are stuck inside it (Gaza) without any exit, surrounded 

by heat, thirst, hunger, and death. 

Similar to the three men who hid in the tank to cross the borders and find anything that 

helped them in their struggle, Palestinians hid from the Arab border crossing and tried to 

find any sign of help, but they wouldn't open for any chance of survival. For instance, 

today in the Gaza Strip, some injuries need emergency transforming in Egypt due to 

medical conditions, but Egyptian smugglers ask people to pay too much money just to 



22 

write their names on a survival list. They did so at a time when the Rafah border crossing 

had been closed in front of the Gazan people since the very beginning of the Israeli attack 

on the Gaza Strip. So, even though when people wanted to leave Gaza, that was 

impossible, since brokers had asked them to pay a high amount of money that Gazans 

couldn't even afford in such a condition to pay for their survival (Ahmed & Michaelson, 

2024). Based on The Guardian investigations on the 8th of January, 2024, "Palestinians 

desperate to leave Gaza are paying bribes to brokers of up to $10,000 (£7,850) to help 

them exit the territory through Egypt". Yet, very few Palestinians had the chance to leave 

Gaza through the Rafah border crossing. Add to that, "those [who are] trying to get their 

names on the list of people permitted to exit daily say they are being asked to pay large 

“coordination fees” by a network of brokers and couriers with alleged links to the 

Egyptian intelligence services". In other words, in the story of Men in the Sun, the three 

men were not allowed to cross any Arab borders, and smugglers from different origins 

asked them for money to let them go, however, they took them down a dark road that led 

to their deaths.  

Similarly, Gazans today, after the 7th of October struggle inside Gaza and no Arab 

country helps them to avoid death from hunger, thirst, and bombings, but instead, they 

normalized with the Occupier and helped it to kill more and more Palestinians. They 

dragged Palestinian civilians inside the tank, the same as the three men who were 

suffering from thirst, hunger, and heat, and lost their lives in the darkness of the tank. 

Even when they tried to transfer the atrocities they've faced to the world the occupation 

hid their crimes by cutting off the internet connection, and electricity to let 2.3 million 

Gazans be buried like the three Palestinians in Men in the Sun, who were buried in the 

tank, to commit massive destruction towards civilians without letting the world see their 

crimes as they did before for 77 years of occupation. In short, this evidence ends up with 

the fact that in such cruel atrocities, the Gazan people are facing today, one can realize 

that the power of the Arab countries was misused during the Israeli genocide in Gaza, as 

thousands of Gazans left alone inside the Strip to face their destiny. This leads to the fact 

that fear is the author of misery in both cases. 



23 

 At the end of the story, when exploring Men in the Sun, one also notices the words "Why 

they didn't nock the tank " and links to the fact that in the Gaza Strip today, all the 

Palestinian people who are under air strikes, calling for help and knocking on the door of 

the tank thousands of times but all they find are deaf ears and blind eyes to see the misery 

of their nation. Hence, in Men in the Sun, the three refugees were afraid of knocking on 

the tank, but today, 2.3 million Palestinians knock on the blackness of the tank with their 

cries for help to open it but nothing except murdering and torturing they get. Moreover, 
smugglers in Men in the Sun, are similar to the smugglers of Arabs (Arab countries) who 

refused to help Gaza but helped Israel by " alternative overland routes to transport goods 

from the Far East to Israel via Saudi Arabia and Jordan", to avoid any attacks on the 

Israeli ships from Yemen (The Houthis). As Mentfield CEO Omer Izhari told The Times 

of Israel "Ships coming from China and India unload containers in the ports of Bahrain 

and Dubai, and then the cargo is loaded onto Jordanian trucks and is transferred overland 

to Israel via the King Hussein border crossing with Jordan, where Israeli trucks await the 

goods", and that was depending on normalizing agreements between these countries and 

Israel, as was exploring by The Times of Israel (Wrobel, 2024); "Jordan has had a peace 

agreement with Israel since 1994, and the UAE and Bahrain signed the Abraham Accords 

normalizing ties with Israel in 2020, Saudi Arabia has no diplomatic relations with Israel 

— though some progress has been made in that direction under US auspices". The thing 

that flagged up another misused power by the Arabs during the genocide in the Gaza 

Strip.   

Not only that but also Kanafani's Men in the Sun mirrors the ethnic cleansing of 

Palestinian people in Palestine. Pappe explores ethnic cleansing as an inhuman act 

committed by a racist group of people to expel them from their lands and turn them into 

refugees or corps. Pappe (2006) mentions in his book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine 

that "ethnic cleansing is designated as a crime against humanity in international treaties, 

such as that which created the International Criminal Court (ICC), and whether ‘alleged’ 

or fully recognized, it is subject to adjudication under international law"(p. 23). He further 

argues that "the Hutchinson encyclopedia defines ethnic cleansing as expulsion by force 

to homogenize the ethnically mixed population of a particular region or territory" (p. 40). 



24 

Also, he mentions that " ethnic cleansing is an effort to render an ethnically mixed country 

homogenous by expelling a particular group of people and turning them into refugees 

while demolishing the homes they were driven out from" (p. 25). All of these definitions 

mirror the Palestinian genocidal crises and the destruction that they have experienced 

because of the hegemonic Israeli Occupation. For many years Palestinians have suffered 

from the atrocities of the Israeli occupation; many houses were demolished, thousands of 

lands were confiscated, and hundreds of innocents were murdered. The criminal machine 

began its cruelty toward Palestinians in the 1948 Nakba and continues with its murderers 

and humiliations till today. Kanafani's Men in the Sun flags up the criminal side of the 

Israeli occupation after 1948 and predicts the continuity of the criminal acts toward the 

indigenous Palestinians today. From this point, I argue that the Israeli settler force 

committed illegal massacres for 77 years against Palestinians, and aims to demolish any 

sign of Palestinians' authority over the land. I also debate the ethnic cleansing that Zionist 

settlers currently committed against Palestinians and the portrayal of it in Kanafani's Men 

in the Sun. 

In his famous book, The Pen and the Sword: Conversations with David Barsamian 

(1994), Edward Said says that: 

This is a unique colonialism that we’ve been subjected to where they have no use for us. 

The best Palestinian for them is either dead or gone. It’s not that they want to exploit us, 

or that they need to keep us there in the way in Algeria or South Africa as a subclass. 

They do that in the West Bank and Gaza (p. 54). 

Israeli Occupation is a hegemonic power that wants to get rid of Palestinians inside and 

outside their homeland. Zionist settlers played a big role in the cleansing of Palestinians 

for years. Not only that, "but also (they) took part in some of the worst atrocities that 

accompanied the systematic dispossession of the Palestinians" (Pappe, 2006, p. 28). Said 

in his words clarifies the role of occupation in the land of Palestine for years. The same 

Kanafani in his literature shows that the purpose of the occupation is not just the land but 

getting rid of all the Palestinians in and outside Palestine, since the best Palestinian for 

them is either dead or gone. 



25 

Kanafani's Men in the Sun has transmitted this cruelty and how it affected the collective 

memory of Palestinians. Abu Qais, Marwan, and Assad were driven by the painful 

memories that captured their imagination during their journey of refuge. In the novella, 

the characters always remember the violations that the Israeli settler army has caused to 

them. The land of Abu Qais, for instance, was taken and demolished by Zionist settler 

gangs in 1948. The scene itself is seen thousands of times in Palestine today. On the 11th 

of May 2022, a Zionist settler gang attacked a Palestinian house in Nablus city and drove 

its people out of it by force. Yet, the Israeli occupation demolished several houses in 

Silwan, Jerusalem, Al-Esawea, and Beit-Hanina from 2019 to 2022; they further 

completed their atrocious acts in Gaza and the West Bank that started on October 7th, 

2023, and continue at this moment while this thesis is being written. Not only that but 

also they've executed many Palestinians, one of them was the famous Palestinian 

journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a veteran Al Jazeera correspondent in Palestine; Israeli 

forces shot and killed her with live fire as she was reporting from Jenin, and she was 

wearing a press vest and helmet. Her colleague and eyewitness to her murder said that an 

Israeli sniper directly targeted Shireen, shooting her near her ear, which was not covered 

by the helmet. The way that Abu Akleh was killed reflects the racist ways of ethnic 

cleansing which were used with the indigenous Palestinians to silence the voice of truth. 

The assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh wasn't the only one, an unlimited number of 

activists and journalists were and are targeted by the Israeli occupation. At the time of the 

7th of October, the occupation committed genocidal crimes toward the Gazan people, as 

many young journalists raised their voices and documented their crimes. The thing that 

made the occupation did its best to silence their voices by targeting them since they were 

the only eyewitnesses of their atrocities inside Gaza. In explaining this point, I aim to 

argue that history repeats itself, and the assassination of Ghassan Kanafani in 1972, is re-

imagining the contemporary assassination of Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip 

during the Israeli genocidal war on Palestine. The same as Kanafani's assassination, in 

2023 Hamzah Dahdoh (a young Palestinian journalist from Gaza) and other Journalists 

were targeted and murdered in car explosions. That concludes the fact that, the massacres 

that the occupation committed in 1948 Nakba, which stuck in Marwan, Assad, and Abu 



26 

Qais's minds continued after this date against the Palestinians in their homeland Palestine. 

Add to that, the same act that was committed against Ghassan Kanafani in 1972 was 

committed over again toward Palestinian journalists in 2020/2024. 

Apart from that, the contemporary Israeli massacres against Palestinians are different 

from the old ones, Palestinian people in the past experienced the Nakba of 1948 and left 

their homeland by force while Palestinians today re-live the Nakba inside Palestine at 

every checkpoint might be crossed, every house might be demolished, and at every 

Palestinian might be killed. The Nakba of today is more dangerous, and cruel than before, 

since in contemporary times Palestinians refused to be silent in front of the hegemonic 

Israeli acts. People began to resist through social media to give the Palestinian issue a 

clear voice, and of course, this is something the Israeli occupation can't accept. For that 

reason, the occupation has used violence against many Palestinians to give up their issue. 

From May 2021 to the first of October 2024, more than 50,000 Palestinians in the Gaza 

Strip were executed with no mercy, and many buildings were demolished. The Israeli 

military force attacked the innocents there; they killed more than 60,000 children, women, 

and men; many children lost their families and others lost parts of their bodies the same 

as Shafiqa in Men in the Sun," who had lost her right leg during the bombardment of 

Jaffa" (Kanafani G. , 1962, p. 40). It's a bloody ethnic cleansing war against the 

indigenous Palestinians in their place of origin. This genocidal war and the other crimes 

that the Israeli occupation committed against the citizens in the Gaza Strip ascertain that 

the Israeli Occupation doesn’t ask or care about your gender, race, age, or religion, it's 

enough to be Palestinian or support Palestine to be killed. 

Kanafani's symbolic connotations were not just part of his representation of the refugee 

crisis and the dream of return in Men in the Sun. Still, it is also portrayed in other literature 

that was not fully discussed in different studies. In his short story "The Stolen Shirt" 

(1958) & his novellas Om Saad (1969) and Returning to Haifa (1969), Kanafani predicts 

and mirrors the current crises that Palestinian people underwent, especially in the Gaza 

Strip. These literary works carry symbols and images that I debate in this Chapter as 

connotations of the ongoing Palestinian crisis in Palestine. On October 7th, 2023 Gazans 



27 

and Palestinians' lives changed forever; an act of armed resistance happened from Hamas 

(a resistance group that was founded in 1987) in the Gaza Strip, and it was the first time 

that Palestinians invaded the borders and entered the Zionist settlements (the occupied 

land) since 1948. This act of resistance threatened Israel, which made them go into the 

most cruel war weapons to get rid of Gazans. So, on October 9th, 2023, the Defense 

Minister of Israel Yoav Gallant announced a full blockade siege of Gaza, as published in 

The Times of Israel by Emanuel Fabian, Gallant said" I have ordered a complete siege on 

the Gaza Strip (Fabian, 2023). There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything 

is closed". He also added that "[They]…we are fighting human animals and we are acting 

accordingly", which means that they are going to use whatever it costs to destroy 

Palestinians and so they did. The same as the story portrayed in Returning to Haifa, 

Gazans were forced to be displaced, "the streets in Haifa [Gaza]… turned into a disarray, 

and the horror surrounded the city" (Kanafani G. , 1969, p. 14). Gazan people have been 

expelled "Nozooh" (imposed displacement) from their houses and moved from Northern 

Gaza to the South. However, none of the places were safe for them, since the Israeli 

occupation used intensive bombardments all over Gaza and bulldozed any sign of 

civilization on the ground. According to The Electronic Intifada (2023), "The health 

Ministry said on Tuesday that 3,000 people, including at least 850 children, have been 

killed in Gaza since 7 October" and these numbers were just a few days after the incident 

happened. In other words; the number of Palestinians who were killed or been missed 

under the rubble today -after a year of the genocide- is more than 48,000, and yet, the 

contemporary genocide is still ongoing in the Gaza Strip as well as the West Bank. In this 

part, I argue that "The Stolen Shirt ", which was written in 1958 by Kanafani predicts and 

mirrors the contemporary exodus "Nozooh" (imposed displacement) of Palestinians from 

their houses to settle in tents and experience hunger and thirst under massive airplane 

strikes and bombardment. I also shed light on the representation of the missing human 

aid and the role of Human Organizations that should be available for people who are 

living in displacement " Nozooh" (imposed displacement) with no food, no electricity, or 

fuel for a year in the Gaza Strip, based on signs that Kanafani portrayed in his story, which 

I indicate as a prediction of the contemporary crises in Gaza and the West Bank today. 



28 

Picture (3) 

Tents and the Contemporary Misery of Palestinians in winter, in the Gaza Strip during 

the Genocide of 2023 

 

The scenes of the contemporary images of exodus "Nozooh" (imposed displacement), 

tents, flour, and children's hunger or fear in Palestine are mirrored and portrayed in 

Kanafani's "The Stolen Shirt". The story, written in 1958, represents a story of exodus for 

a young man named Abu-Alabed and his family, it begins with darkness on a cold rainy 

night, and Abu-alabed's trembling hands while he is digging the ground to make a canal 

around the tent to save his family from the rain and the mud outside, "he feels the darkness 

in the clouds as they gather and break apart. It looks like a night filled with heavy rain 

and he should stay outside digging the ground for a while" (Kanafani G. , 1958, p. 7). The 

place, as is noticed, was unknown and full of darkness as if Kanafani didn't want it to be 

confined to a specific time, to make it symbolize the misery of refuge for every Palestinian 

who experienced the forced evacuation inside and outside Palestine. So, I consider the 

story of Abu –Al abed sitting outside the tent thinking of a way to feed his family, to be 



29 

the same as the story of many Gazan men today, who experience the same struggles 

during the massive attack on the Gaza Strip. 

After the 9 of October, 2.3 million Gazans were forced to evacuate their houses and 

crowded in a small area in Southern Gaza, as they were expelled and set in tents, which 

they made of whatever material they had. The current tents where they've lived in, are 

similar to Abu-Alabed's tent which is portrayed and closely identified in Kanafani's "The 

Stolen Shirt", as well as the plot mirrors the living genocide and the collective punishment 

of Gazans today. It must be known that Palestinians lately have suffered from the cruelty 

of war in the Gaza Strip. 2.3 million Gazans are starving as many people ran out of food 

and began to live in refugee tents without flour or any supplements, while the UN places 

during that were crowded with supplements and people couldn't reach them. The starving 

of Palestinian children makes them go to these places to take some supplements to feed 

their families and help them survive. In Kanafani's story, the same portrayal can be seen 

when Abu-Alabed talks to himself and says "The UN places are close to the tents, it full 

of rice and flour so if he wanted to steal some flour he can…these things can not be for 

anyone" (Kanafani G. , 1958, p. 8). By analyzing that, I contend that Kanafani's portrayals 

of Abu-Alabed, flour, and the tent in the story mirror the image of the Palestinian people 

in the Gaza Strip when they looked for some flour in the UN repository to feed their 

children who had been starving for months. I further believe that the characters of Abu 

Sameer, Abu-Alabed's wife, and son were described and mirrored the Palestinians' 

situation now in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. 

  



30 

Picture (4) 

Refugee Camps in the Southern Gaza (Imposed displacements) 

 

By investigating that, I've noticed that previous studies and research indicated that the 

main purpose of the Zionist forces was to demolish the signs of authority and israeling 

the land of Palestine (Itchybutt68, 2023). As pointed out in Nur Masalha's Expulsion of 

the Palestinians, "[Zionism] did not mean that there were no people in Palestine, but that 

there were no people worth considering within the framework of the notions of European 

supremacy that then held sway" (Masalha, 1992, p. 6). So, for the Zionists, it was and still 

is easy to urbicide the land and murder thousands of aboriginal civilians who were 

considered within the framework of European supremacy worthless. The symbol of the 

tent and the image of Abu-Alabed's son" trembling from the cold as a wet cat" (Kanafani 

G. , 1958, p. 8), mirror this fact of hegemony and predict it as part of the contemporary 

time of Palestine and Palestinians. As today the same suffer from cold and fear, Gazan 

children have experienced with their families after the exodus from their homes in 

Northern Gaza. Families after the evacuation were not able to save their bodies, or even 

children from the rain and cold. Tents were full of water and many Gazan men began 



31 

making canals around the tents to save their families, too much like the image transferred 

through Abu - Alabed's character and his suffering. On the other hand, one can see another 

greedy image in the story, for a man named Abu Sameer. The image of this man is the 

same image of the greedy dealers in the Gaza Strip, those who use the genocide of their 

nation as a credit to collect more money. So, they stole the trucks of supplements and sold 

them to people at high prices, they also acted the same as Abu Sameer when they stole 

the flour that came to Gazans for free after months of hunger and sold it for high prices. 

Abu Sameer who is dealing with "the white–blond American man" (Kanafani G. , 1958, 

p. 12), as described, was a hand for the West and the occupation force in the hunger crime 

against innocent civilians, most of them children. His character is seen today, not only in 

the greedy dealers but also in the Arab countries that throw humans aids from the sky of 

Gaza after months of the Israeli collective punishment against Palestinians. Abu Sameer 

as well as the white man metaphorically reflect an inhumane image, since they were the 

reason that "makes some children had to wait in the refugee camp for more than ten days 

to eat a piece of bread" (Kanafani G. , 1958, p. 12). The white man in the story is a symbol 

today of the double standard in the USA, during the genocide in Gaza. Thus, the same 

Western governments that gave the occupation many cruel weapons, warplanes, and 

missiles, bring flour as a source (aid) for Gazans who are facing death a year from now. 

Such an image was described by Kanafani when he mentioned people who offered aid 

"They are this kind of people (western governments) who kill the one and then came to 

his funeral" (Kanafani G. , 1958, p. 8), which means they are the reason behind the 

Palestinian misery. At one point, all they gave as help was some food while the Israeli 

occupation was killing and torturing Palestinians. In other words, they helped the 

occupation with their crimes, and all they brought for Palestinians in Gaza was some 

coffins to bury their dead bodies (which is not available at the moment in Gaza as the 

genocide continues). Similarly, Arab human aids that fly in the air for thousands of 

Palestinians who are facing collective execution today, are considered meaningless and 

inhumane since many of these aids carry coffins and some flour for people, which most 

of them couldn't even touch. Add to that, at some points, these aids proved to be death 

aids since some of the heavy wooden boxes fell on people and killed them. The same as 



32 

what happened on the 19th of October 2024 for a Gazan child, as announced in everyday 

Palestine ," Sami Mohammad Ayyad died after a box of human aids fell on him in Khan 

Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip, and such an incident was not the only one. As the 

vast majority of Palestinians, a year from now, were facing death from hunger, thirst, 

airstrikes, and tanks, add to them the human aid which became death aid for most of them. 

In short, Kanafani's "The Stolen Shirt", as analyzed, predicts and reflects the struggles 

Gazans witnessed at the current time, during the ongoing Israeli genocidal war in Gaza.  

2.3 Kanafani's "The Canon" & the Current Acts of Resistance in Palestine 

This chapter also debates another short story that reflects the prediction in Kanafani's 

literature about Palestine, namely "The Cannon" (1957). The previously mentioned 

literary works portrayed symbols that reflect the forced displacement, ethnic cleansing, 

and urbicide crises due to the ongoing Israeli atrocities in Palestine. But, "The Cannon" 

mirrors new symbols that portray the act of resistance against the occupation atrocities, 

which I consider a reflection of the contemporary armed resistance in Palestine. Sa'ed al-

Hemdone, the man who was detained before by the Zionist occupation, has decided to 

complete his resilience in front of Zionist atrocities to keep his people inside their land of 

origin (alSalamah, a village close to Yafa). The story as it represented the village, was 

not controlled by the Zionist gangs as Haifa, Yafa, and other Palestinian cities which were 

controlled and destroyed in 1948 by the occupation. At a point all of these places were 

got israeled (occupied), alSalamah was fighting to survive and get rid of the Zionist 

control in their land and houses. Looking closely at the incidents in the story, the image 

of alSalamah and the symbols of resilience mirror the same signs of resilience in the Gaza 

Strip today. Whereas many Palestinian cities, as been known, were controlled in 1948 

Nakba by Zionist occupation, Gaza was fighting to keep itself free from any Zionist 

control, and they did so for years. It has been clear that, despite the fact of full siege, 

(almoqawama) kept Gaza free from any Zionist borders, fences, or tanks inside the strip 

itself.   

By exploring the historical facts, I've realized that alSalameh was destroyed and its people 

were forced to evacuate their houses and lands. The Zionist gangs occupied the village 



33 

and settled in the homes, hospitals, and schools as their own.  But, Kanafani in his story, 

as I explained, portrayed a new different image that stands against the historical reality. 

Therefore, I debate the image that he mirrors as a prediction of the future resilience of 

many Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip currently. Closely I argue that the 

representation of Sa'ed al-Hamdone is a prediction of Yahya Al-Sinwar's birth and the 

current armed resistance in the Gaza Strip by depending on critical analysis of the images 

portrayed in the story in comparison with facts Al-Sinwar and Gazans have experienced 

these days until his death. I also debate that the story transfers an image of armed 

resistance that mirrors the power of Somoud (an Arabic word means strength and 

resistance) for the Palestinian people in Gaza. Also, I argue that al-Hamdone's act of 

armed resistance and his journey in prison are pre-prediction by Kanafani of Yahia Al-

Sinwar's resistance story.  

Al-Hamdone was a symbol of resistance in people's eyes. Young youths "see in his face 

all the feelings that they imagine of a great man", who saved the land and the village. He 

was "like a newborn man created from the cruel experience" (Kanafani G. , 1958, p. 25). 

He was a leader of the revolution for which he was detained for years, and then he was 

released from prison and back to the revolution battle over again.  Similarly, Yahya Al-

Sinwar, the man who was born from the womb of suffering, was a Palestinian leader of 

the armed revolution for Hamas in Gaza. He originated from Majdal Ashkelon, located 

northeast of the Gaza Strip, occupied by the Israeli occupation in 1948, and changed its 

name to Ashkelon. Al-Sinwar was born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in 1962. His life 

journey was not that easy as a Palestinian revolutionary man, hence he was detained by 

the Israeli occupation for 22 years, then he was released from prison in 2011 "as part of 

the Wafa Al-Ahrar deal, in which Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was released in exchange 

for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners" (TRT, October 17, 2024). After being in Gaza again, Al-

Sinwar went back to the leadership of a revolution against the Israeli occupation. He and 

a group of young men begin to prepare for an act of armed resistance to get the freedom 

of Palestine from the ongoing atrocities against the Palestinian people in the West Bank, 

Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem. This act of armed resistance took place on 7 October, a year 

from now.  



34 

In the story, Kanafani also portrays the Cannon as part of the revolutionary body. It is the 

hope they have to liberate the land. Al-Hamdone and the Cannon, as Kanafani mirrored, 

are not separate and can't be "Sa'ed Al-Hamdone completed the Cannon now when people 

talk about Sa'ed, they feel as if he's part of the Cannon, as its Cascable or Barrel" 

(Kanafani G. , 1957, p. 27). The Cannon here symbolizes the armed revolution against 

the occupation and reflects the power of the collective national memory of resistance in 

Palestinian literature and reality. Such an image is proven when Al-Hamdone integrates 

with the Cannon as a body in front of the Zionist gangs " The Cannon was sleeping as a 

dead child on the branch, everything was calm except weak bullets come from the old 

weapons that did the best to face the Zionist cruel attacks" (Kanafani G. , 1957, p. 29). 

The Cannon was not as strong as before, and it needed to be part of a powerful body like 

Al-Hamdone, so he decided to use the power of his hand as a Cascable in the Cannon. 

"Listen, I'll drag the cascabel to the Cannon middle by my hand, and you shoot" (Kanafani 

G. , 1957, p. 29).  He was not afraid of the Zionist settlers who shot at them, or the hot 

bullets that burned his hand, all he was saying was, "Shoot… shoot!" (p. 30). The image 

of Al- Hamdone as I analyzed, mirrored Al- Sinwar and Gazans' armed resistance, 

especially in the last battle he had with the Israeli soldiers that led to his execution on 

October 17, 2024.  

Al-Sinwar was the same as Al-Hamdone, strong and fought to the end without fear, he 

spent most of his life underground tunnels with many other men from Hamas, those who 

couldn't see their families or stay at home because of the Israeli occupation who killed 

anyone of their families if they know their places. Al-Hamdone as Kanafani portrayed, is 

a man who has a cause to fight for, and that was as he mirrored in Al-Hamdone's words 

"The Palestinian blood is good, I bought the Cannon with my blood, if you want to keep 

it yours, ask Hassan and Hoseen, my children. They know how to go to give their blood 

there" (Kanafani G. , 1957, p. 31). The image of blood stands for the armed resistance 

which never ends until the land is liberated. I indicate that Kanafani's words are prediction 

messages for the young generation to complete the armed resistance in the land of 

Palestine. As he mentioned, "The cause is a cause of the milk we took, a cause" (p. 32), 

if one is dead or killed, thousands will come again out of the rubble to fight for their rights 



35 

of being safe, and free. For that reason, Al-Hamdone mentioned his children those who 

are reflections of the present armed revolution for Hamas in the Gaza Strip currently. Yet, 

another prediction of Kanafani's words in the story reflects the fact that Palestinians 

witness today, which is the attacks of the Zionist Israeli occupation in the Northern Gaza 

Strip. As Al-Hamdone said to his people before his death" If the Zionist gangs left now, 

they will be afraid to be back from this side again, you have to move the Cannon to the 

North… since their next attack will come from the North" (Kanafani G. , 1957, p. 32). In 

the present time, the prediction messages from Kanafani's "The Cannon" have come true, 

since the Israeli occupation attacks in the North of the Gaza Strip began a year ago on 

October 7, 2023, and are still ongoing. Hence, the atrocities against Palestinian Gazans 

who are living there never end. Also, the armed resistance of Al-Sinwar and Gazans 

young men came out from the North of Gaza and this is something all the world witnessed 

when the occupation documented their execution of the Palestinian leader Al- Sinwar 

who had fought the drone at the end of his battle, with a stick he has thrown in the air as 

a last symbol of resistance. I conclude by considering the old Cannon of Al-Hamdone, 

the same as Al-Sinwar's stick, both would never touch the ground. In the story, the 

Cannon was taken from Al-Hamdone after his death, to the North, which was mirrored in 

reality as northern Gaza witnessed an act of armed resistance on the 7th of October. 

Similarly, Al-Sinwar's stick was also taken after his revolutionary hand to the young 

generation who will continue the armed resistance against the occupation until they’ve 

got their land and people's freedom. 

 

 

  



36 

Chapter Three 

Abullhawa's Mornings in Jenin and Kanafani's Returning to Haifa:  A 

Comparison with Palestinian Current Crises 

3.1 Introduction 

This chapter explores the Palestinian cause currently based on modern novels drawn from 

Kanafani's literature. The chapter aims to point out the continuous Palestinian anguish 

through modern literature that represents truths about Palestine and Palestinians after the 

Nakba of 1948. It also discusses that Palestinian writers merge the images of the 

Palestinian crises, which were portrayed in Kanafani's literature as it was happening in 

the occupied Palestinian cities in the past, with the current crises but in other Palestinian 

towns and cities today. Such a thing transfers Kanafani's prediction messages from the 

past to the present of literature and awakens the Palestinian collective memory of return. 

Yet, it mirrors the fact that Palestinians witness hard conditions because of the Zionist 

occupation, which is part of every city and village in Palestine till today.  

To explain it in more detail, I analyze Abullhawa's Mornings in Jenin, as an example of 

modern literature that's drawn from Kanafani's famous work of literature, Returning to 

Haifa, to discuss symbols that carry different connotations, I see it as reflecting on the 

Palestinian current time. Based on that, I'm focusing on the core of the two literary works, 

The Scar of David, and how it could reflect today's crises for many Palestinian families 

in Palestine. I also argue that this symbol mirrors several issues in Palestinian lives that 

should be taken into a serious analytical study by shedding light on important metaphors 

such a symbol points out.  

3.2 The Scar (Star) of David and the Contemporary Crises in Palestine: 

Prognostication from the Past to the Present 

The scar of David mirrors the Star of David that represents the state of Israel today, as it 

can be noticed that the portrayal of the scar of David in Returning to Haifa (1969), which 

was also literarily portrayed in Abullhawa's Mornings in Jenin (2010) was not out of the 

blue. It comes as a representation of the continuous Israeli atrocities over the land of 



37 

Palestine. It also portrayed the Zionist control over Palestinians' identity, rights of 

movement, and the power of resilience since childhood. The image as it was seen, is not 

part of the past and not related to specific horrific issues the occupation committed against 

Palestinians, but emerges from the current living time of thousands of Palestinians in the 

West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem, as in every country, Palestinians carry this scar but 

differently. In this chapter, I explore the connotations behind this symbol in the two 

literary works and compare it with the current Palestinian crises.  

Palestinians' identity contains many important things that prove their belonging to their 

origin, starting with the land, and ending with children who are the seed of freedom. The 

scar of David came to put a sign of change in Palestinians' identity and created a gap 

between the nation and the land to make it easy for them to control the land and displace 

the indigenous Palestinians.  

Starting with Returning to Haifa (1969), Kanafani mirrors this scar in an explicit portrayal 

with the image that it was representing when the Zionist family settled in Said & Safia's 

house, then they kidnapped Khaldoon to be their David. The idea of occupation has been 

summarized in these two acts by the Zionist family that imagined the same atrocities 

Palestinians came through for more than 77 years of occupation. As in the land of 

Palestine, Palestinians in the occupied land (the land of 1948 Nakba), lose their 

Palestinian identity by force. Hence, every place after the Nakba became Zionist property, 

as well as Palestinians, were not allowed to have their own houses or land. Not only that, 

but they also lost their identification cards and carried blue identification cards that 

symbolized their belonging to the new government (Israel). I argue that this blue 

identification card is a scar imported by the Star of David to demolish Palestinians' roots 

and rights in Palestine. Yet, the scar that the Star of David caused on Palestinians aims to 

destroy any sign of Palestinian authority over the land and change the land of Palestine 

to become the land of Israel. For that reason, Palestinians are not allowed to access their 

roots which may make any of them a landowner again. In Returning to Haifa, Said 

described this loss as can't be cured if Palestinians have a picture of their places or a 

memory carried in their heart to return when he said:" I'm looking for the real Palestine. 



38 

Palestine that's more than a photo or a memory, it's more than a feather or even a son …" 

(Kanafani G. , 1969, p. 73). The picture, the son, or the memory Palestinians had in their 

hearts or minds can't be the home. Palestine is not a memory or an imaginary land that 

people dream of being in again, it's a cause for a nation deprived of their rights of peace 

and safety, in the story, Said was looking for Palestine as it was before without the Scar 

of David in its lands, homes, or children. So, unlike the thoughts that have been explored 

in Hamdi's Imagining Palestine, I explain that Palestinians especially writers who wrote 

about Palestine didn’t look for "a utopian future or hope" (p. 75). But they are mirroring 

and predicting living atrocities in their land of origin by portraying images of people 

looking for a free Palestine and wishing all of that did not happen. This image was 

exemplified by Kanafani's character Said when said:" Did you know what home is, Ya 

Safia? Home is where that has never happened" (p.73). Since home is not an imaginary 

thought of utopic land, it is more than a picture or a house, it is a scar that marked the 

land and people, and it has been translated into literature and reality for years. In other 

words; unlike Hamdi's Imagining Palestine, I realized that the Palestinians' cause as 

represented by Kanafani and continued to be represented by Abulhawa's Mornings in 

Jenin, was not by imagining Palestine as a utopian place that contradicts the facts that 

Palestinians have lived, but instead it was via imagining the current Nakba with a clear 

belief that imagining and having the old photos didn't help in finding a solution for the 

real struggles in daily life. These struggles, as seen, have been portrayed in parts of these 

works as "The Scar of David" and it's been predicted currently in modern literature as 

well as reality based on Kanfani's works of literature.  

Similarly, the scar that the Star of David caused for Palestinians in 1948, as portrayed by 

Kanafani, is also drawn on Abulhawa's Mornings of Jenin, to represent the atrocious pain 

the scar continues to cause for Palestinian cities in the West Bank. This pain is as Amal 

described when she witnessed Haj Salem's anguish after his loss; 

They kicked us off the land and they took all the furniture I had made.” Then he would 

walk away, leaving us to the naggings of curiosity. But in our camp, his story was 

everyone’s story, a single tale of dispossession, of being stripped to the bones of one’s 



39 

humanity, of being dumped like rubbish into refugee camps unfit for rats. Of being left 

without rights, home, or nation while the world turned its back to watch or cheer the 

jubilation of the usurpers proclaiming a new state they called Israel (Abulhawa, 2010, p. 

66). 

In the land of Palestine today, thousands of Palestinians experience the same experience 

Haj Salem has with the occupation. A large number of Palestinians evacuated their houses 

in Tulkarem, Jenin, and Gaza.  So, in this part the writer brings to light the image of 

destruction, which is drawn from previous images Kanafani also portrayed of the land of 

Palestine in 1948, to show the continuity of the Nakba and to prove that the scar of David 

continues in different parts of Palestine. Abulhawa's contemporary literature, as I debate 

in this study, continues to predict new crises Palestinians have lived these days in Jenin, 

Tulkarem, and Nablus, especially in the refugee camps of these cities. Additionally, it 

reflects and portrays incidents and characters that mirror the same incidents that 

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have witnessed and experienced. As of this day(while this 

thesis is written), many youths have been killed by bombing their cars, more than 48,000 

Gazans have been assassinated, large numbers of Palestinians in Jenin and Tulkarem have 

been displaced, and several houses and buildings have been demolished. That makes one 

conclude that the scar of David was not portrayed as a physical mark on a hand or a face 

and it was portrayed to carry deep meanings related to the Palestinian crises over the years 

of occupation.  

In Returning to Haifa, one can realize that Khaldoon as a name carries a deep meaning in 

Arabic, "eternity," which contradicts the changes he faces in his life or personality as a 

reflection of the scar the Zionist occupation made on the Palestinian people and land. The 

choice of the name for the character, which later changes to David, highlights the ongoing 

atrocities that have left deep scars on Palestinians. These scars impose limitations on their 

lives and reflect the power dynamics established by Israel in occupied Palestine. 

Khaldoon, as a Palestin