On Zionist Literature is a polemic work of literary criticism in the best sense. it is short, sharp and focused on the political requirements of the moment in which it was published, namely, to the end of an anti-imperialist struggle for the liberation of Palestine. In this way Kanafani sets out to challenge the racism and anti-Arab tropes of Zionist literature, particularly in the West.

Kanafani begins in (early) early modernity, with Hebrew literature, Maimonides and the Psalms, though the bulk of the study concentrates on thirty or forty novels published from the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, from Benjamin Disraeli to Arthur Koestler. Kanafani’s central argument is that these authors repudiated an internationalist or positive vision of Judaism, preferring to lay the foundation for a supremacist and chauvinistic ideology whose moment came in securing a garrison state shaped to the ends of Western imperialism in the years after the second world war. In a manner that corresponds very closely with the stated aim of its publishing house, Liberated Texts, Kanafani also condemns the Western literary critical establishment in elevating works which play a propagandistic role, awarding prizes and places in the canon to self-evidently inferior or didactic works, solely because they can be relied upon to follow a particular political line and denigrate the social customs, political demands and or humanity of the Arab peoples.

The only critique I have of this work is that I wish it were longer, what material is directed towards the early history of Judaic cultural production is fascinating and I would have loved to read more on an argument which is only touched upon here, namely that that particular literary tropes regarding Jewishness pass in and out of fashion according to trends in modern state formation. Critical apparatus, contextual materials, references and footnotes are comprehensive.