Nationalism beyond Zionism: Lessons from Jewish Communists in Palestine (original) (raw)
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ABSTRACT The history of Communism in Palestine/Israel can be seen as an attempt to effect an Arab-Jewish anti-imperialist struggle. This article – which is informed by the literature about settler colonialism and Palestinian nationalism – portrays the way in which local Communists viewed nationalism, Zionism and imperialism. It argues that Palestinian and Jewish Communists did not fully comprehend Zionist settler colonialism and Palestinian nationalism
Jewish-Arab Fraternity: Language, Symbol and Ritual in the Israeli Communist Party, 1948–1965
The History of Communism in Palestine/Israel since its foundation in 1919 to the present day is hotly debated among Zionist, Palestinian, and cultural historians. The main issue in contention between the historians of the PKP (Palestine Communist Party) and MKI (Israeli Communist Party) was the relationship between Palestinians and Jews within the Party; this article wishes to add a new point of view to this debate. It argues that an examination of the language, symbolism, and rituals that the Jewish Communists developed to describe their Palestinian comrades and Palestinians at large resulted in the creation of an affirmative and positive view of them, but that at the same time, the Jewish Communists did not fully appreciate the power of Palestinian nationalism. This myopic understanding of Palestinian national feelings was one of the reasons underlying the 1965 split of the MKI and Banki (Young Israeli Communist League).
Nations and Nationalism Vol. 25 (4), pp. 1412-1431, 2019
This paper focuses on the National Liberation League (NLL), a Pal-estinian Arab communist movement which operated in Palestine between the years 1943-1948. The paper examines its short-lived history in light of the relevant three contexts in which it operated: the local Palestinian national context; the regional context of communist activity in the Middle East and the external-internationalist context of the Soviet Union. The paper further discusses the activities of the NLL during the period of the 1948 War in Palestine, as well as in the first period of military rule, imposed on the Palestinian citizens of Israel. An analysis of the NLL during the late Mandatory period and the early years of the State of Israel allows a close examination of the ways by which concepts of identity, nationalism, class and ethnic-ity were conceptualised, debated and contested during times of a national conflict and anti-imperial struggle and brings to the fore tensions between ideology and practice, nationalism and internationalism. The NLL offers an important opportunity to look into the complex matrix of communist movements that combine anti-imperial struggles with struggles for national liberation in the context of a national conflict and to examine their dilemmas and what may seem as internal contradictions.
Communism versus Zionism: The Comintern, Yishuvism, and the Palestine Communist Party
Journal of Palestine Studies, 2007
This article discusses how the official communist position on the Zionist project in Palestine went from hostile condemnation in the early 1920s to wary support after World War II. In so doing, it focuses on the ideological struggle between the traditional party line and “Yishuvism,” a theory that sought to reconcile Zionist and communist ideas, as it played out in the two bodies most closely involved in shaping Comintern policy on Palestine (the Palestine Communist Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain). In following the tortured justifications for evolving positions, the author identifies the key actors shaping the debate and turning points impacting it, especially the 1936–39 Arab Revolt, Britain's 1939 White Paper, and the wartime fight against fascism. The author contends that an important reason for the USSR's post-war about-face on Palestine was the success of the Yishuvist ideological campaign. Published as "Communism versus Zionism: The Comintern, Yishuvism, and the Palestine Communist Party", Johan Franzén, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Winter 2007) (pp. 6-24). © 2007 by the Regents of the University of California. Copying and permissions notice: Authorization to copy this content beyond fair use (as specified in Sections 107 and 108 of the U. S. Copyright Law) for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by the Regents of the Univ. of California for libraries and other users, provided that they are registered with and pay the specified fee via Rightslink® on JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/r/ucal) or directly with the Copyright Clearance Center, http://www.copyright.com.
Jewish Radicalisms, 2019
From the early 1920s Communists resisted the presence of the British Empire, the United States, and the Zionist colonial practices in Palestine/Israel. Jewish and Palestinian radicals attempted to navigate the stormy waters of the escalating national conflict and offer a vision of a socially equal and politically sovereign society in Palestine/Israel.¹ The purpose of this chapter is to present the ideological concepts that underlay the visions of Jewish and Palestinian Communists. The cornerstone of this text is an argument that on the face of it sounds paradoxical.It is maintained here that Jewish and Palestinian Communists, using the Marxist-Leninist conceptualizations – interlaced with local Marxist influences – in regard to nationalism and imperialism, actually created local national identities. It will also be contended here that as radical as the negation of Zionism by Jewish Communists was, they – to an extent – failed to grasp the settler-colonial logic of Zionism, in contrast to the more nuanced understanding of the colonial practice and essence of Zionism exhibited by Palestinian Communists.
Journal of Israeli History, 2015
This article explores the mythological, ritualistic, and symbolic aspects of the ways in which the festivals of Hanukkah and Passover were celebrated by the Jewish Communists in Mandate Palestine and the State of Israel. It illustrates how elements of Zionist-socialist culture were adopted by Jewish Communists and integrated in their cultural activities. In a gradual process starting in the1920s and culminating in the mid-1960s, the Jewish Communists created a combination of Marxist ideology and Zionist-socialist cultural practices. However, when a group of young Sabra activists reinforced the Zionist-socialist elements, the balance was undermined, contributing to the rift within Israeli communism.
The Arabs in Israel—Hybrid Identity of a Stateless National Collectivity
Mediterranean Studies, 2021
The debate concerning the identity of Arabs in Israel involves a dimension that has not yet been studied—the hybrid identity of a stateless minority. The definition of Israel as a Jewish state, the fact that Arabs in Israel do not take part in the country’s Independence Day, and the emergence of a national movement among Arabs in Israel demanding cultural but not territorial autonomy are major factors that foreground this status of Arabs in Israel. The current study focuses on the influence of activist Arab groups—political, literary, and journalistic—within the Israeli Communist Party. The party operated as a group of “populist intellectuals” immediately following its consent to the Palestine Partition Plan. The goal of the Communist Party was to engineer the identity of the Palestinian collectivity in Israel as a hybrid identity adapted to the political and territorial circumstances in the aftermath of the War of 1948.
Review of Jacob Hen-Tov's "Communism and Zionism in Palestine During the British Mandate."
Journal of Palestine Studies, 2014
View related articles View Crossmark data underground resistance. Today, maintains Ilan Pappé, the ideological battle against Zionism takes place "mostly outside the entrenched state, although quite a few fugitives from it are important partners in this enterprise" (p. 311). Tom Segev, who saw the turn as early as 2001, had a more optimistic conclusion then: post-Zionism is "out at present," he wrote in his Elvis in Jerusalem: Post-Zionism and the Americanization of Israel (2002 in English translation). "But the deeper developments that indicated a post-Zionist future were evidence of something Israelis had begun to recognize: There is life after Zionism" (p. 161 Segev). The future will tell whether neo-Zionism's triumph was also but a moment.