The red flag over Palestine
https://mondediplo.com/2023/12/05communist-palestine

In the early 20th century, the Palestine Communist Party regarded the creation 
of a Jewish state as an imperialist plan to continue to divide and rule. The 
second world war would put their resolve to the test.

Communism in Palestine began in 1919 when some Jewish immigrants left the 
Zionist movement to set up the Jewish Socialist Workers Party. In 1922 the 
party adopted the Yiddish name Palestinishe Komunistishe Partei (Palestine 
Communist Party, PCP). The PCP was a member of the Third International 
(Comintern) headed by the Soviet Communist Party.

Throughout its existence, the party rejected Zionism, which it regarded as an 
illegitimate colonialist movement. The communists did not believe that Jews 
from all over the world constituted a separate nation, nor that they had a 
historical claim over Palestine after 2,000 years. They rejected the 1917 
Balfour Declaration, calling it an act of pure imperialism, and demanded the 
expulsion of the British from Palestine and the creation of an Arab-majority 
democratic state, in which Jews, including those who had arrived after 1918, 
would be citizens with equal rights.

Throughout the British mandate (1922-48) the PCP’s stance caused its members to 
be politically isolated and hated by the wider Jewish population. It also 
struggled to win Arab support. However, the Arab revolt in the 1930s helped 
augment its ranks and brought a modest increase in influence among urban 
workers. All through this period, the party consistently called for solidarity 
between the local population and the immigrant Jewish community in the name of 
‘proletarian internationalism’.

The party’s isolation from the Jewish community significantly diminished after 
the USSR entered the war in 1941, and its revised position on Jewish settlement 
also considerably broadened its appeal. This shift began at the end of the 
second world war, as knowledge of the Nazis’ campaign of extermination spread. 
The continued existence of camps in Germany for survivors and refugees whom no 
Western state was willing to accept created an intolerable situation and led 
the PCP to change its stance.
Communists divide  

did not pay for more
Barry


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group.
View/Reply Online (#29273): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29273
Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/104750588/21656
-=-=-
POSTING RULES & NOTES
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
#4 Do not exceed five posts a day.
-=-=-
Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io
Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy 
[arch...@mail-archive.com]
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


Reply via email to