Kamal Nasser

Kamal Nasser was born in 1925 to Butrus and Wadia Nasser. The Protestant Christian Nasser family was one of the most well-known families in Birzeit. He was born in Gaza City, where his father was then working. He had two brothers (Sami and Wadih) and three sisters (Aline, Laurice, and Salwa).

Nasser was educated at Birzeit College and then enrolled at the American University of Beirut, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1945. He also began writing poetry and working as a journalist while still a youth. After returning to Palestine, Nasser worked as a teacher at the Patriarchal School of Zion in Jerusalem. He then enrolled in the city’s Law Classes, and in 1947, he was appointed as a professor of Arabic literature at Al-Ahliyya College in Ramallah.

Nasser started publishing poetry and short stories in the fall of 1947 in the weekly magazine al-Qafila [The Caravan] and the daily newspaper Filastin, both of which were based in Jerusalem. In March 1949, he took part in launching the daily newspaper al-Baath in Jerusalem, but it was shut down just a few months after it began publishing. He had already joined a Baath group in Ramallah and Jerusalem, which had been formed following the visit of founding Baathist ideologue Michel Aflaq to Palestine and his meeting with Jordanian Baath leader Abdallah al-Rimawi.

In late 1949, Nasser acquired a license to publish an illustrated political weekly, al-Jil al-Jadid [The New Generation], and became its editor-in-chief; he worked with Hisham Nashashibi and Issam Hammad on producing it. The magazine was based in Jerusalem and carried on its masthead the motto “Hope, Conviction, Struggle.” However it was not to last long. In 1952, Nasser (and the members of the Baath Group in Ramallah and Jerusalem), joined the Jordanian branch of the Baath Party, which was allowed to operate in the open in 1955.

After a short stint working in Kuwait, Nasser returned to Jerusalem. He ran in the Jordanian parliamentary elections in October 1956 on the Baath Party ticket and was elected as a member of parliament representing the Ramallah district. In one session, he proposed legislation guaranteeing women’s rights, especially their political rights. In response, tribal chieftain Shaykh Hamad Jazi jumped up and brandished his sword, announcing, “Women are to live, die and be buried inside the home. Whoever demands rights for women is just like them, and with this sword I shall sever his head.” The proposal was defeated.

After the coup of April 1957 against the Arab nationalist government of Suleiman al-Nabulsi, Nasser was forced to go underground. He remained on the move, going from village to village for a year and a half, after which he managed to escape to Syria, which was then part of the United Arab Republic. In Damascus, he taught English and wrote for various newspapers.

Nasser published his first collection of poetry in March 1960, titled Jirah tughanni [Singing Wounds], published by al-Taliʿa Press in Beirut. The poems covered a variety of themes, including his life while he was pursued by the authorities and elegies to friends. His poems about Palestine described the experience of becoming a refugee and the Arab nation’s history of struggle and combat in different Arab countries.

After the dissolution of the union between Syria and Egypt in September 1961, Nasser left Damascus and sought refuge in Cairo. In 1963, he embarked on an extensive tour of the Soviet Union, France, Italy and Britain. During this journey, he was introduced to several European writers and intellectuals, including Jean-Paul Sartre. After the Jordanian government declared a general amnesty for opposition political activists in 1965, he returned to the West Bank and settled in his hometown Birzeit.

After Jerusalem fell into the hands of the Israeli occupation forces in June 1967, Nasser began to actively struggle against the occupation. He was arrested by the Israeli military authorities, imprisoned in Ramallah, and then expelled from his homeland on 23 December 1967 along with Ibrahim Bakr.

In February 1969, Nasser was elected to the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and became the organization’s official spokesperson. He was also chosen to chair the Permanent Committee for Arab Information, established by the Arab League.

In 1972, the Palestinian National Council (PNC) adopted a resolution to establish a unified Palestinian information institution, and Nasser was entrusted with the task of overseeing this new framework, called the Unified Information Office. Nasser was also editor-in-chief of the PLO’s official weekly magazine Filastin al-thawra [Revolution Palestine], which began publication in June of that year in Beirut, and he continued to hold this post until he was assassinated. He left his distinctive personal mark on the magazine through the positions he articulated in his editorials, which he often wrote based on his personal beliefs and his vision, and which often quickly became the official positions adopted by the PLO. For example, in 1972, when the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat decided to expel Soviet advisers from Egypt, Nasser wrote an editorial in which he took a clear, firm position hat sparked widespread debate in Palestinian and broader Arab political circles. His position was expressed in the editorial’s title itself: “In Defense of Ourselves, and not in Defense of the Soviets.” In doing so, he was expressing the stance of the Palestinian leadership headed by Yasir Arafat without causing them any embarrassment.

On 10 April 1973, Israeli Mossad agents infiltrated the Verdun neighborhood in the heart of the Lebanese capital Beirut and assassinated three Palestinian leaders: Nasser and senior Palestinian leaders Kamal Adwan and Muhammad Youssef al-Najjar. As requested in his will, Nasser was buried in the Martyrs’ Cemetery in Beirut, next to his friend Ghassan Kanafani, who had been assassinated the previous year. (After attending Kanafani's funeral, Nasser had exclaimed, “Incredible! This is how a writer’s wedding with martyrdom should be celebrated!” and wondered, "Will I get to have a funeral like this one day?”)

The Palestinian Nakba of 1948 had a profound impact on Nasser's personality. He expressed this in his memoirs: “In the early years after the defeat of 1948, I would wake up from my sleep in panic as a result of nightmares that tormented me constantly. They reminded me of the fake battles, the surrender, and the spectacle that was enacted on the land of Palestine. These nightmares continued to haunt me, depicting in my mind the slaughter, mass killings, and forced displacement that befell my people as they were expelled from their homeland, Palestine.”

Nasser was a poet with a delicate sensibility, an outstanding journalist, and a fighter for the cause of his nation, whose bond to his people and his country was genuine. He expressed this at an early age in the following lines of poetry:

            The tragedy of this people, my own

            Its wounds - wounds of grieving mothers - my own

            I am but a stream flowing from its blood

            Just as it is one of my cries

            Two destinies that embraced on the path of hope

            Never shall they part, ever

PLO deputy chief Salah Khalaf (known better by his nom de guerre Abu Iyad) branded Nasser as “the conscience of the Palestinian revolution” because of his high integrity. In his eulogy titled “Kamal Nasser... And the Revolution Carries On,” published in the journal Shuʾun Filastiniyya in May 1973, Khalaf wrote: “It is difficult to eulogize our martyr with words, for he himself had said, ‘Words have become hollow of meaning.’ It is difficult to eulogize him with burning tears still fresh because the ducts in our eyes have dried up ever since we picked up a gun… The Palestinian and Arab revolution has indeed lost a courageous man, for true courage means to remain committed to the path of the revolution both in times of adversity and ease. That was how Kamal Nasser was. The revolution has lost an intellectual, a man whose words were courageous, calm, rational, and revolutionary all at once. The true value of words is shown when they can be all of the above during a critical stage like the one that the [Palestinian] revolution is passing through. Indeed, they murdered you, and then crucified you, as if to warn all religions that this is the fate of thought and of one’s convictions. But little did they realize that your precious blood has turned Muslims into Christians and turned Christians into Muslims. People prayed for your soul in the mosque and prayed for your two comrades, Abu Youssef [al-Najjar] and Kamal Adwan, in church.”

Syrian novelist Ghada al-Samman addressed Nasser with the following words: “Whenever I write to you, I am struck by a feeling that I will not receive a response, for you, O wandering knight, are lost in this wide world, and it is possible that my letter to you will arrive in Amman after you have already departed it and become the ruler of Syria, or been killed in Birzeit.”

After his assassination, a committee was formed to preserve his legacy, which subsequently published his complete prose and poetry works. To honor Kamal Nasser and his service to the Palestinian national cause through literature and political struggle, Birzeit University named its largest auditorium after him.

Published Works

"جراح تغني" (شعر). بيروت: دار الطليعة، 1960.

[Singing Wounds.]

عباس، إحسان (إعداد). "كمال ناصر - الآثار الشعرية". بيروت: المؤسسة العربية للدراسات والنشر، 1974 (436 صفحة). يحوي الكتاب 5 مجموعات شعرية: بواكير، خيمة في وجه الأعاصير، أنشودة الحقد، جراح تغني، أغنية النهاية.

[Ihsan Abbas, ed. Kamāl Nasser: The Complete Poems.

The volume contains five collections of poetry: Early Works; A Tent in the Face of the Hurricanes; Hymn of Spite; Singing Wounds; Song of the Denouement.]

علوش، ناجي (إعداد وتقديم). "كمال ناصر - الآثار النثرية" بيروت: المؤسسة العربية للدراسات والنشر، 1974 (280 صفحة). يحوي قسمين: ما كتبه كمال ناصر في افتتاحيات "فلسطين الثورة"؛ ومذكراته بعنوان أسير فلسطيني في السجن الكبير.

[Alloush, Naji, ed. Kamāl Nasser: The Complete Prose Works.

The book is divided into two parts: the editorials Nasser wrote for Filastin al-Thawra and his memoirs titled A Palestinian Captive in the Greater Prison.]

"مذكرات لاجئ سياسي". "شؤون فلسطينية"، العدد 44 (نيسان/ أبريل 1975).

[“Memoirs of a Political Refugee.”]

"الصح والخطأ" (مسرحية). بيروت: مؤسسة تخليد كمال ناصر، 1981.

[Right and Wrong, a play. https://archive.palestine-studies.org/ar/node/1102]

"مجموعة كمال ناصر". بيروت: أرشيف مؤسسة الدراسات الفلسطينية:

[Kamāl Nasser: Collected Papers.

https://archive.palestine-studies.org/ar/content/أوراق-كمال-ناصر]

Sources

استيتيه، شهناز مصطفى. "كمال ناصر - حياته وشعره". بيروت: دار الفرابي، 2003.

جامعة بير زيت. " الشاعر الشهيد كمال ناصر.. ضمير الثورة الفلسطينية"، 30 آذار/مارس 2021

https://www.birzeit.edu/ar/news/Kamal-Nasser

سليمان، سهيل. "كمال ناصر الشاعر، والأديب والسياسي". بيروت: دار الأصالة، 1986.

الطويل، محمد رضا. "الفكرة القومية في شعر كمال ناصر". تونس: الإتحاد العام للكتاب والصحفيين الفلسطينيين، 1977.

عميرة، عائد. " كمال ناصر: رسائل عن مأساة الفلسطينيين وجراح التهجير". "ن بوست"، 1 نيسان/أبريل 2024.

https://www.noonpost.com/204692

"كمال ناصر...شيء عن تجربته السياسية والأدبية والشهادة"، "تدوين"، 10 نيسان/أبريل 2023.

https://tadween.alhadath.ps/article/165703/كمال-ناصر--شيء-عن-تجربته-السياسية-والأدبية-والشهادة

المدهون، راسم. "ذكرى كمال ناصر.. بين الحلم والواقع عاش اقعياً". "ضفة ثالثة"، 11 نيسان/أبريل 2022.

https://diffah.alaraby.co.uk/diffah/revisions/2022/4/11/ذكرى-كمال-ناصر-بين-الحلم-والواقع-عاش-واقعيا

المفلح، عبد الله. "من هو كمال ناصر؟"، "مدونات جامعة بيرزيت"، 4 كانون الثاني/ يناير 2017.

 https://www.birzeit.edu/ar/blogs/mn-hw-kml-nsr

"الموسوعة الفلسطينية، القسم العام". المجلد الثالث. دمشق: هيئة الموسوعة الفلسطينية، 1984.