Democratic Palestine : 10 (ص 31)
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- Democratic Palestine : 10 (ص 31)
- المحتوى
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such visits. Though they dare not speak
of it, what they both anticipate is finding
their son, Khaldoun, who was only five
months old on April 21st, 1948, when
Zionist bombardment drove the Palesti-
nians of Haifa to the seaside, from where
they were evacuated in boats.
Now Sayed and Safiya meet their
son as a young man named Dov, clad in
the uniform of an Israeli reserve soldier.
They meet his adoptive mother, a Polish
Jewess, and learn that his. adoptive
father died fighting in the Sinai in 1956.
The tragic irony of the situation is rein-
forced as Kanafani flashes back to the
past of all the characters.
We learn how the young wife,
Safiya. left her son for a few minutes,
she thought, when the artillery began, to
search for Sayed. When they finally
found each other, they were caught in
the throng of refugees, mercilessly dri-
ven toward the harbour with no physical
possibility of returning to find their son.
We learn as well how Sayed, in the first
years of their exile from Haifa, tried
many times to return to search for Khal-
doun, but was always prevented.
The story flashes back to how Efrat
and Miriam, the adoptive parents,
arrived in Palestine, fleeing fascism in
Europe, but with little idea of what they
were coming to. Soon after their arrival,
Miriam saw Zionist soldiers throwing the
blood-covered body of a child on a
wagon «like it was a stick of firewood.»
She knew immediately that it was an
Arab child, for as she told Efrat, «If it had
been Jewish they certainly wouldn't
have done like that.» For Miriam this
evokes memories of her younger
brother being killed by the Nazis as he
approached her house to tell that their
father had been taken to Auschwitz,
where he later died. From the time she
Saw the Arab child being loaded on the
truck, the experience of settling in Pales-
tine soured for Miriam. For that reason,
Efrat was overjoyed that they could
adopt the small child who had been
«abandoned» in the house assigned to
them by the Jewish agency.
Sayed and Safiya are confronted
with the reality that their son ts not their
son. Dov has been raised as a Jew who
identifies the Arabs as enemies. His
loyalties are with the parents who raised
him and to the Zionist state
From this discovery stem a mul-
titude of new thoughts. «Sayed felt that
the walls within which he had lived for
twenty years had collapsed. and that he
was now able to see things more
Clearly.» He begins to question if the
homeland, Palestine, is the past which
he and his wife had stored up in their
memories, epitomized in the lost son. Or
isnt Palestine the future, and the future
of their other son, Khaled, who wants to
join the freedom fighters?
Ghassan’s voice cannot be
silenced
Though descriptive in style, «Re-
turn to Haifa» is in essence thought-pro-
voking. To the international audience, it
conveys a broader understanding of the
nuances of the Palestinian dilemma and
cause. To Palestinians, it is a point of
departure for examining their own think-
ing, commitment and means of struggle.
Kanafani's political writings had the
same effect on a different level: He was
highly articulate in conveying the pro-
gressive essence of the Palestinian
cause to people around the world. In the
Palestinian and Arab arena, he was a
persuasive mobilizer. For this dual abil-
ity, the Zionists sought to silence his
voice once and for all. Yet though they
succeeded in their physical liquidation,
they failed to quell Ghassan’s political
and cultural expressiveness. Ghassan
Kanafani, his voice, his writings and his
example, remain with us as an inspira-
tion and integral part of the ongoing lib-
eration struggle. - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 10
- تاريخ
- أغسطس ١٩٨٥
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
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