Talk:Ghassan Kanafani

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Untitled[edit]

Possible exernal link: [1]

NPOV tag[edit]

Just a sampling of why this article doesn't conform to wikipedia npov guidelines:

  • "Kanafani was a part of the mass movement of Palestinians and knew first hand the terror the people faced."
  • "The Jews had kicked the Palestine’s out of their homeland and left them with no where to go."
  • "He used his anger that had bottled inside of him when he felt alone to further his dedication in the Palestinian cause."

I would hope these problematic passages speak for themselves, but you never know when it comes to this topic. 76.119.235.58 (talk) 19:38, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Another passage is this: "His pen was as threatening to Israel as the guerrillas rifles, if not more". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.183.12.161 (talk) 16:44, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The entire section in the Influence section, starting from "Some would say that Kanafani's greatest achievement..." to "...the young man's unremitting anger and shame." is definitely not neutral. If there are quotes from specific notable sources/people (eg a review from a major newspaper, or the opinion of a well-known writer) praising Kanafani, please quote them explicitly. A reference or two expressing such sentiments following the sentence "He was considered to be a leading novelist of his era and regarded as one of the foremost Palestinian prose writers in the Arab World." would also suffice. Otherwise, the text should be removed. Zincfingers (talk) 05:41, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV dispute[edit]

If there is no confirmation that Israel has this policy of assassination of PFLP members, and no confirmation that Israel killed him, why is it sttated twice? Gartogg 8:32, 6 Aug 2006 (EST)

Confirmation?[edit]

...who was assassinated by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad on July 8, 1972...

Can we unequivically confirm he was assassinated by the Mossad?

How was he killed? Several web articles said 'car bomb' but I wonder if they meant a 'bomb' in a 'car' (as opposed to a bomb so big it had to be built into a car to transport it).

He was killed with his niece (a bomb had been placed in his car). He was an official spokesperson for the PFLP at the time, there was an Israeli policy of assassinating Palestinian figures. Tiller1 17:04, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I reworded the intro and added that material. Thank you.


It was reported in a documentary that Yasser arafat heard the israeli agents infront of his office talking in hebrew that day, and we should mention that after his death Bassam Abu-Sharif took his office and after a while faced an assasination attempt in a envelope placed "post-bomb". H-CTR 19:29, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot find any source for the Mossad's alleged confirmation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.71.106.145 (talk) 15:23, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Expansion[edit]

There is a lot of room to expand his political activities.

Blanking material on page[edit]

Huldra etc, your edits and reverts are non factual. For instance, "baruch goldstein isn't??" - a bad faith edit right there. While Goldtein article clearly says : "He belonged to the Jewish Defense League (JDL), a militant Jewish organization founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane and designated as a terrorist organization by the United States. [1]" Therefore I respectfully ask again and for the last time - do not revert this sourced material of the designation of PFLP. It's approaching a level of pure serious violation that will enforce to take actions. Just so we're clear, the reason in adding this is the alleged assassination of his by Israeli forces. Therefore, it's important to note WHY he was assassinated possibly by Israel. If mention of Israel's possible involvement is dropped completley, so will this be dropped. But you can't possibly say  : "is widely believed to have been planted by agents of Israel, which had a policy of assassinating PFLP members" without stating the reason for that "policy". Fairly simple. Amoruso 08:01, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Firstly: my last edit summary was of course in response to your last edit summary (=("because it's a bio of a terrorist")). So I really cannot see that I have a more "bad faith edit" than you.
but your point was that the designation of a group he (loosely) was related to is also not mentioned. and it is mentioned. Amoruso 09:10, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Secondly: yes, the article say "Israeli security services were widely suspected of the killing," but then it goes on to say: "... but responsibility has never been claimed by them or any other party nor has the guilty party been established". So you want to have vague connection between the assasination&Israel "balanced" with solid connection between Kanafani&terrorism. Sorry, I "don´t buy" that exchange. (But if you want to remove the part futher down: "which had a policy of assassinating PFLP members.[citation needed]" -part, then I will not object...It is uncited, anyway.)
doesn't matter. It should be established why Israel would have any interest in killing him, I think that's obvious. Amoruso 09:10, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See below. Huldra 10:50, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thirdly: everything that is sourced is not neccessarely relevant. I can find a reliable source saying that Adolf Eichman considered himself to be a supporter of Zionism.. (It´s true!!!) ...or that al-Quada have used Menachem Begins book: "The Revolt" as a text-book.....Do you think that is relevant? (Then you can add it to the "appropriate" articles, I have not tried! ;-D ).
irrelevant examples.... Eichmann supporter of zionism is unfortunately not true. I'm having trouble to understand how a designation of an organization by Israel who's blamed for killing him is not relevant to the article. Amoruso 09:10, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, A.E. claimed he was.. (yes, I know it sounds sick..) But anyway: the whole point here is that you give the "terrorist-aspect" far too much weight in the article. As simple as that. Half a sentence about the possible involvement of Israel in his assasination does not merit 3-4 sentences on the "terrorist-aspect" of PFLP. That´s too good a deal  ;-P Huldra 10:50, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The bottom line is that whatever you feel about him, Amoruso, I think it is a fact that Kanafani is more known for his litterature that for his political activism (at least outside Israel). And I think the article should reflect that. Regards, Huldra 08:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's a fact he was regarded differently by Israel (and the western world) who is mentioned in the article, and therefore there's no getting around it. Amoruso 09:10, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I´m sorry, Amoruso, I don´t quite understand you here...could you please elaborate? Thanks. Huldra 09:17, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Basically, one has to detail how Israel is involved in the story if mention of Israel is being made. That's pretty basic IMO. Amoruso 10:04, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

if Eichmann said he was a zionist I'd be interested to read about it. I added the compromise, it's not 3 sentences, it's barely half a sentence. I fail to see how that is undue weight and I hope it's settled then. Amoruso 11:03, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hannah Arendt: Eichman in Jerusalem.
I´m afraid I do not agree with your new version. Also: Amoruso, as far as I can see, you have now broken the 3RR rule (as even partial rv are counted). I would strongly advise you to self-revert, if you do not want to be reported. (I´m not going to edit more on this article today, as I do not want to risk breaking the 3RR rule). Regards, Huldra 11:15, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There's nothing possibly that could be said about what I wrote. If you don't accept, we'll keep edit-warring over this forever. There's no good faith reason that I can see to not accept this change as hard as I try to find. Amoruso 11:19, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I see you have self-reverted: wise. I´m certainly willing to look for a compromise: I did suggest one above. But as I have said: your insistance on listing the PFLP terror-status because Israel is mentioned as a suspect of the assassination; that´s what I have trouble with. Regards, Huldra 11:32, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
that doesn't make sense even. The line will be restored as it's sourced and relevant. If you don't like it, I'm sorry. Amoruso 11:36, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We apparetly have rather different views on what constitutes "making sense". Regards, Huldra 12:31, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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External links modified[edit]

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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion[edit]

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Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 8 July 2020[edit]

Hello, I am a Palestinian editor, I live in the West Bank, and I am a certified editor in Arabic Wikipedia. I would like to amend and place pictures for this article. Osps7 (talk) 22:50, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,and Welcome! If you have pictures relevant to Kanafani, the best thing would be to upload them to commons (=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page ) and then mark them with [[Category:Ghassan Kanafani]]. Huldra (talk) 23:27, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 9 October 2020[edit]

Change article image to a real picture of the figure considering many exist rather than a graffiti representation. Qwertykid12654 (talk) 19:44, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:37, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Qwertykid12654, as long as those pictures are not freely available; Wikipedia cannot use them. Unfortunately, the "real" pictures of Ghassan Kanafani are all copy-righted, AFAIK, Huldra (talk) 23:24, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 20 May 2021[edit]

Born in ʻAkkā in Palestine There was no Israel in 1936. Londoner1970 (talk) 14:30, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 Already done Born 8 April 1936 Acre, Mandatory Palestine ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:35, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Inaccurate description.[edit]

It labels him as a resistance leader, this is not accurate. Either change it to terrorist leader, since the organization fits the definition given the bombings and attacks against civilians and military personnel alike. Or it can be switched to a not as accurate but still an improvement, militant leader. Jake pres (talk) 21:54, 14 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There are no civilians in Israel. They are all colonial occupiers. 95.180.83.114 (talk) 22:44, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Kurdish family? seems inaccurate.[edit]

As a graduate student in Middle Eastern history who is well read on Kanafani's life this is first time I heard of Kanafani's family as being of Kurdish background. First, the source is questionable as it lists no author nor does it cite any credible sources for Kanafani's family being of Kurdish origin. Looking at portals of sources in google scholar, google books and scholarly portals like JSTOR it seems it is hard to find any bios that claims that he is Kurdish. Second, it seems there is a political aim behind this claim which seeks to deny Kanafani's Palestinian heritage.

Examples of important sources for his life is the scholar Hilary Kilpatrick's introduction to his life in the book Men in the Sun & Other Palestinian Stories (1999) where she translated his works from Arabic.

The Lebanese writer and intellectual Elias Khoury's essay "Remembering Ghassan Kanafani, or How a Nation was Born of Storytelling" in the peer-reviewed Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. 42 No. 3, Spring 2013 which includes a background of Kanafani's life. The essay is open source and can be viewed here:

https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/162557

Lastly it appears that this is an inaccurate claim of Ghassan Kanfani's life, I would like to request it to be deleted if possible so that it wouldn't confuse the general reader learning about his life. Talibaltarikh (talk) 15:43, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The source doesn't seem great, but here's a question: do other sources actually contradict it? Iskandar323 (talk) 16:24, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know there are no responses to the claim to that specific article:
Another site besides that one is from the Kurdish Peace Institute (A non-academic policy institute in the U.S) makes this claim: https://www.kurdishpeace.org/research/history/the-descendants-of-kurds-fight-over-jerusalem/
Yet it cites a source from an Arabic website which doesn't mention the full name Ghassan Kanafani and has also no author and credible sources, just the claim that Kanafani is a Kurdish surname.
Here is the article in Arabic:
https://info.wafa.ps/ar_page.aspx?id=9502
After searching more I can't find anything other than copy pastes from this wikipedia article on social media.
If you find anything else we can talk about it too. Talibaltarikh (talk) 16:50, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would be better to place [better source needed] beside the source in the text don't you think? Talibaltarikh (talk) 20:57, 15 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not Kurdish[edit]

There is an unreliable source with statement saying he is of Kurdish background, but this is condradicted in every other source I can find. Dwasirkaram (talk) 16:28, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

He was not Kurdish, nor did he ever state that in any of his publications. Wikipedia is still keeping his Kurdish background to undermine his Palestinian background. It's a crime to fake someone's background. Shame on you Wikipedia! 84.65.231.239 (talk) 09:21, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Translation into Brazilian Portuguese[edit]

Please add this link. Kanafani's text translated into Brazilian Portuguese - https://opiniaodissonante.blogspot.com/2023/10/ghassan-kanafani-uma-carta-de-gaza.html 2804:14D:5C9B:827A:7B64:74D5:D8E6:CB3D (talk) 22:19, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 30 October 2023[edit]

In the summary of "Return to Haifa," remove "Their other son, Khalid, with them in Ramallah, had joined the fedayeen with his father's blessing." This is inaccurate to the text as Khalid is not a member of the fedayeen, and Sa'id only claims he is to prove a point and win an argument. BKrebsbach (talk) 07:48, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Done I know nothing about this topic, but nobody has commented on this in more than a month, so here we go. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:56, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 18 December 2023[edit]

Please change X: 'Kanafani was born in Acre in 1936 to a middle-class Sunni family of Kurdish descent.'

Please change to Y: There has been no proof of Ghassan Kanafani being from a Kurdish background. The submitted "references" are vague and do not prove his ethnic background. Moreover, Ghassan himself has never attributed himself to any Kurdish background, not in any of his interviews nor in any of his published books. He has always stated that his background is Palestinian only and not the latter. 84.65.231.239 (talk) 09:16, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Deltaspace42 (talkcontribs) 09:47, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No reliable sources on Kurdish background claim[edit]

Citation number two which is pg. 35 of Kamal Abdel-Malek's The Rhetoric of Violence: Arab-Jewish Encounters in Contemporary Palestinian Literature and Film, Springer (2016) states that "He was born in Acre in Palestine to a middle-class Sunni family and received his early education in French missionary schools, until he and his family were forced into exile during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war." It does mention he is of Kurdish descent. Citation number three “The Palestinian who was all Palestine” by Qods News Agency does not provide any any references for a Kurdish background. The first source does not mention it and the second one is questionable as it provides no references. In a time where factchecking is essential on the internet it is problematic that a claim that Kanafani is of Kurdish descent is still as there hasn't been any proof of such claim. I request that the Kurdish background part be removed as there hasn't been any reliable sources added.

Please remove the sentence "Kanafani was born in Acre in 1936 to a middle-class Sunni family of Kurdish descent" as it is not accurate and change it to "Kanafani was born in Acre in Palestine to a middle-class Sunni family. According pg. 35 of Kamal Abdel-Malek's The Rhetoric of Violence: Arab-Jewish Encounters in Contemporary Palestinian Literature and Film, Springer (2016) states that "He was born in Acre in Palestine to a middle-class Sunni family and received his early education in French missionary schools, until he and his family were forced into exile during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war." Talibaltarikh (talk) 19:58, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 20 April 2024[edit]

Under translated works, All The is Left for You was first published in English translation by the University of Texas Press in 1990 (ISBN: 0-292-707-18-6). LazyMFTX (talk) 21:36, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Shadow311 (talk) 22:03, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]