The Israeli Communist Party 085664109X, 9780856641091

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DUNIA HABIB NAHAS •

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CROOM HELM LONDON PORTICO PUBLICATIONS

First published 1976 © 1976 by Portico Publications Croom Helm Ltd, 2-10 St John's Road, London SWll ISBN 0-85664-109-X

Printed in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, Guildford, Surrey.

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CONTENTS

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Introduction

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Chapter One Historical Backgr�und 1919-1948 Foundation Arabisation Relations with the Syrian and Lebanese Communist Parties The 1936 Arab revolt The Second World War Chapter Two The Israeli Communist Party (Maki) Before the Split 1948-1965 Composition and organisation Composition by land of origin Composition by age Institutions Maki and the Israeli Arabs Maki and the 1949 Knesset elections Maki and the 1951 Knesset elections Maki and the 1955 Knesset elections Maki and the 1959 Knesset elections Maki and the 1961 Knesset elections Maki and the Al-Ard ·group Maki and other Israeli parties •

Chapter Three The Split August 1965 The causes of the split Recognition of the State of Israel and the question of a peaceful settlement Arab nationalism and Zionism The Soviet Union The split occurs Meeting of the Mikunis-Sneh group Meeting of the Vilner-To�bi group

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51 55 56 57 59 61 65 69

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Consequences of the split The 1965 Knesset elections The Soviet Union and the two Communist factions Attitudes of Rakah and Maki to the June, 1967 War The 1969 and 1973 Knesset elections

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Conclusion

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. Appendix Extracts from 'Opinion Aleph' and 'Opinion Beth'' Opinion Aleph Opinion Beth Bibliography Primary Sources Documents Interviews Secondary Sources Journals, Periodicals and Pa,nphlets

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Notes

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Index

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LIST OF TABLES 1

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Maki membership according to land of origin, 1961 Proportion of Arabs in the Israeli population, 1957-1966 Maki strength in the Knesset, 1949-1961 The Arab vote in the 1949 Knesset elections The Arab vote in the 1951 Knesset elections The Arab vote in the 1955 Knesset elections The Arab vote in the 1959 Knesset elections Communist votes by ethnic comn1unity,' 1959 Communist votes in purely Arab localities, 1959 The Arab vote in the 1961 Knesset elections Communist votes by ethnic community, 1961 Comm�nist votes in purely Arab localities, 1961 Delegates to the Fifteenth Communist Party Congress by area Communist results in the 1961 and 1965 Knesset elections Jewish and Arab Communist votes in the 1961 and 1965 Knesset elections The 1969 and 1973 municipal election results The 1969 and 1973 results of elections to the Knesset and Knesset members

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48 70 76

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INTRODUCTION

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No full study of the Communist Party of Israel has ever been published. In these pages an attempt will be made to analyse the history, policy structure and composition of the Party. The study is in three parts. Chapter One presents the historical background covering the formation and development of the Party up to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Chronological order is followed through three principle sections: the foundation of the Party in 1919; the Arabisation of Party cadres in 1929; and the repercussions of the Second World War. Chapter Two deals with the period 1948 to 1965: the composition and organisation of the Party and its relationship with the Arabs in Israel and with Mapam and the Israeli Socialist Organisation. Data relating to Party contacts with the Arabs in Israel are based on Arab electoral results and on dealings between the Israeli Communist Party and the national Al-Ard group. Chapter Three is concerned with the split of the Party into the predominantly Jewish Maki and the Arab-dominated Rakah. The causes of the split are discussed in detail with regard to Zionism and Arab nationalism, the question of recognition of Israel by the Arab states, the sources of tension in the Middle East, the various attempts at a peaceful settlement and the attitude of the two factions towards the Soviet Union. Data on the Rakah in this chapter are based for the most part on primary sources. The consequences of the split in the Party occupy the concluding part of Chapter Three, which exa1nines the 1965 Knesset elections, the exclusive Soviet recognition of Rakah, the position of both factions on the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and the 1969 and 1973 Knesset elections. From this analysis a central thesis emerges: the inevitability of division in a party, composed of two national groups almost •

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equal in size, and by no means ardent believers in inter­ nationalism, which failed to overcome their nationalist convictions in the face of the Arab-Israeli conflict . ...

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CHAPTER ONE

Historical Background 1919-1948 FOUNDATION

Like most Israeli political parties, the Cormnunist Party of Israel was founded before the state itself. Established in 19191 by Jewish militants from East Europe, its ·creation came at a time when the number of Jews who had settled in Palestine was still a relatively insignificant 56,000. 2 An important characteristic of Communism in Palestine was that its rise was closely linked with the development of the . Jewish labour movement in Eastern Europe early in the twentieth century, and a brief exa1nination of that movement is thus essential to the better understanding of the subject. The Jewish labour movement originated in Vilna, Lithuania, in the 1880s, its adherents being drawn from the working class, mainly those engaged in handicrafts. Late in the nineties various Jewish Socialist societies sprang from the movement to take an active part in all the currently anti-Czarist parties. Jewish participation in the Russian revolutionary movement was massive, to the extent that the proportion of Jews a1nong the revolutionaries was consistently greater than that prevailing ·in the population at large. a Most prominent among the various new Jewish political organisations was the 'Bund', which held its first (and secret) convention in Vienna during September 1897, one month after the first Zionist Congress.4 In an address, Arkady Kremer (1865-1935) defined the programme of the Bund as follows: A general union of all Jewish socialist groups will have as . its goal not only the struggle for general Russian political demands; it will also have the special task of defending the 11 •

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specific interest of the Jewish workers, carry on the struggle for their civic rights and, above all, combat the discriminatory anti-Jewish laws. That is because the Jewish workers suffer not only as workers but also as Jews, and we dare not and cannot remain indifferent at such a time. 5 This nationalistic trend, which developed fully during the Russian revolution of 1905, provoked a hostile reaction from the Russian Socialists, with Lenin insisting that the proletariat be organised on a territorial basis - that is, the working classes of a single region or country should, irrespective of their nationality, be grouped together. Opposition to the Bund took its main arg-Qment from the lack of a Jewish territorial concentration, and as a result the Bund began to put emphasis on the cultural foundations of Jewish nationalism. In October 1905, when the Russian revolutionary movement was reaching its peak, the Bund adopted a program111e which urged full civil and political emancipation for the Russian Jews and additionally called for 'national-cultural autonomy', defined as follows: . . . to withdraw from the authority of the State and its local and territorial self-governing organs all functions associated with cultural affairs (education and the like) and to entrust them to the nation itself operating through separate institutions, central and local, elected by all members through a universal, equal, direct and secret vote. 6

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Nationalist thinking thus gradually permeated the doctrine of Socialism, which had always opposed it, while on the other hand an attempt was made to inject the Socialist element into Zionism. These tendencies revealed themselves most fully in the Poale Zion which, from 1901, organised separate Socialist-Zionist groups and maintained that the only means of solving the Jewish question lay in the territorial principle of Zionism. Ber Borochov, Poale Zion's ideologist, contested the

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ideas of both the Bund and Lenin at the same time; and it was he who formulated the principle of the 'inverted pyra,nid': •

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Every nation consists of a pyramid of social layers: a broad basis of peasants, a layer of prol�tarians, then a layer of transport and services civil servants; on top of this, the self-employed artisans, doctors, lawyers, intellec­ tuals, scientists. In the Jewish case, this pyra1nid was deformed; many lawyers, doctors, intellectuals, and other middle-class occupations, with few, if any, peasants, and little proletarians. Therefore he (Borochov) claimed that the social structure of the Jewish people must first be rectified before it could undergo a transformation to socialism. This meant that the Jews must first establish a national state and therein become peasants and proletarians and only after accomplishing this step could they proceed to the step of revolution. 7 The Zionist left was thus preaching emigration, and, after a period of training and indoctrination, its recruits were sent to Palestine, mostly to agricultural settlements. In 1919 the right-wing Zionist workers' parties in Palestine were grouped together under the Socialist Zionist Union of the Workers of the Land of Israel, 'Ahdut Ha'avoda'. Most of the members of Poale Zion joined the Union, while those who opposed it split from the majority and established the Socialist Workers' Party, 'Mifleguet Poalim Sozialistim' (MPS).8 -" ,... � - Between October 17 and 19, 1919, a general congress of the Poale Zion was co11vened in Palestine - an event which in fact became the first regional congress of the MPS and is now taken as the First Congress of the Cominunist Party of Palestine.9 The situation in which the congress found themselves was expressed .by the opening speaker: We open the congress in an atmosphere of tension. The leaders who have preceded us and who left the party with the great majority of its members are absent. Only a small minority is left. But this minority is faithful to our I

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principles and aspirations. I O Speaking of those who had opposed the majority decision to join the Ahdut Ha'avoda, he asserted that, in common with other Socialist workers, they had joined the Poale Zion with some reluctance, finding it insufficiently socialist or democratic. Since the very beginning they understood that they had to organise themselves and unite to lay down the basis for a radical Socialist party in the country. That is how groups of Socialist workers united. The committee of these groups met at the beginning of this year (March, 1919) and decided to rebuild the party. It is for this purpose that this meeting was called. 11 The speaker at the congress described the Poale Zion split as similar to those which occurred within all Socialist parties: between left and right, between the reformists· who wished to reform capitalism and the Socialists who aimed to change the regime through revolutionary means. He saw the test of a Socialist party was in its attitude· to the First World War and the Russian Revolution, violently_ attacking those who detracted from the latter and who desired, in the name of democracy, the downfall of Bolshevik rule. It was at this congress that the principles of the MPS were outlined: Our party openly declares that proletarian Zionism links the realisation of the Zionist ideal to the success of the Socialist revolution, because this success constitutes the unique guarantee of all ideals, progressive and Zionist. Our party is sure that Zionism will be realised in the form of Socialism or not at all. Hence our party will fight all other forms of Zionism - bourgeois Zionism as well as com­ promise proletarian Zionism. 12 •

At its inception, the MPS included only Jewish militants; these

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had lived in Eastern Europe and suffered from the rising tide of anti-semitism so that Zionism for them promised, abo·ve all, an end to the 'Jewish distress'. In addition, their deep-rooted Marxist ideology led to the conviction that they had come to Palestine on a revolutionary mission. Although opposed to the Ahdut Ha'avoda, they nonetheless believed it possible to combine Zionism and Socialism; it was not, after all, the Zionist idea which had caused the split from the Poale Zion. MPS members who ardently supported what its leaders called 'proletarian Zionism', which they saw as feasible only within the framework of the Socialist revolution, drea111ed of the day when 'the mighty Red Army would cross the Caucasus and the Taurus and bring them a ·Soviet Palestine'. 1 3 Admiration for, and fidelity to, the Soviet Union was to be shown by the MPS without interruption until, and even after, the creation of the State of Israel. Opposition and criticism appeared from time to time - ·on each occasion giving birth to splinter-groups within the Party - but the E�ecutive unconditionally followed the Soviet line. This faithfulness was explained in an article in Barius (Progress), a Yiddish publication, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Party . 1 4 Reviewing ten years of Bolshevik development in Palestine, the article pointed out that no clear-cut ideology had then existed; the 'proletarian Zionism' advocated by MPS members was a concept with only vague connotations. The Communists had not yet for1nulated the principle that was later to be upheld so strongly: that the proletariat in Palestine consisted of Arabs and that as long as the Party failed to reach them it could never fulfil its Marxist aims. The decisions of the First MPS Congress themselves reflected this lack· of a policy line, being restricted to expressions of opposition to the Histadrut, the Poale Zion and the Second International. Only one briefly-worded decision concerning cooperation with the workers of the country - was later to become one of the lasting mottoes of the Communist Party of Palestine.15 Further developments in MPS· relations with the Poale Zion took place in August, 1920 when Yaakov Meirson left for

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Vienna to attend the Fifth International Congress of the Poale Zion, taking with hiin the decisions of the first MPS conference. He planned to change Poale Zion policy through the leftist-communist groups which had grown up in its ranks outside Palestine. In his address to the congress, Meirson denied that Zionism alone offered a solution to the Jews and warned of the consequences of settlement at the expense of the Arab peasant: '. . . because of our non-cooperation with the Arab toiling masses, the feeling of hatred will intensify and our links with the foreign imperialist rule become stronger.' He called for a Jewish-Arab workers' federation and for struggle against colonialism and British rule.16 The Vienna address led to sharp Zionist reaction and a public retraction on the part of the MPS. The Party was still entirely Jewish at that time and did not wish to break its ties with the Zionist left, within which it hoped to recruit more members. I 7 The Party continued to share with the Zionist movement a number of basic tenets, such as the necessity for the creation of a Jewish proletariat in Palestine (thus re-echoing Ber Borochov's 'inv.erted pyramid' principle) and its corollary, immigration. This was made clear in the resolutions of the Second MPS Congress held in Haifa at about the same time (October 2-4), 1920) and attended by twenty-two delegates, eighteen with the power of decision and representing 300 S I only. organised members, and four with consultative powers In December 1920 the Histadrut was founded, and immediately before its first congress, the MPS added the word 'Hebrew' to its name. This re-christening was both in answer to a demand put forward by a leftist group which had united with the MPS, and the result of a general feeling in the Party that it should not become isolated from the Jewish community as a whole. At the First Congress of the Histadrut, at which the MPS gained seven out of eighty-seven seats 19 - a performance it was · never again to equal - MPS delegates reiterated their party's dissociation from Meirson's Vienna address and announced his expulsion from the Party. But despite their 16

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denial that they opposed Zionism, the MPS delegates were refused affiliation with the Histadrut, a heavy blow._2 0 The Party's activities were to come to an end less than one year later, after the May Day riots of 1921. On that occasion, a demonstration in Jaffa organised by the General Trade Union clashed with some fifty-five Co1111nunists who were staging a separate, unlicensed march. The British police expelled the MPS and pushed them to the lsla1nic-Jewish quarter of Al-Manshiyah, where British provocateurs informed the Arab population that the Zionists wanted to expel them from their own land. Later in the day, Arab and Jewish groups fought, leaving nearly one hundred dead and many more wounded.2 1 The MPS was held responsible for the May Day bloodshed and most of its leaders were arrested and deported to the Soviet Union. 2 2 Together with other police measures taken by the British Administration in Palestine, the deportations hit severely the already weakened MPS. According to Sir Herbert Samuel, British High Commissioner in Palestine, membership dropped from three hundred in 1921 to a mere eighty in 1924. 2 3 In addition, several Party branches were disbanded and the Communists were forced to go underground for twenty years.2 4 The political events of 1921 and later naturally had a profound effect on the ranks of a party which had lacked a clear-cut ideology for the first two years of its life. As a result, at this stage, the MPS witnessed internecine strife and dispute which continued through the Third and Fourth Congresses held respectively in January and September 1922. Discussions revolved about two funda1nental issues: whether to collaborate with the 'proletarian Zionists'; and whether to join the Communist International. At the Fourth Congress a split developed and a resolutely anti-Zionist minority (150 out of a total 450) broke away to set · up a rival Communist party, the K.P.P. of Berger Barzilai. A ten-month period of dissension separated the Fourth and Fifth Congresses, during which the majority joined the Histadrut (in November 1922) and established the Workers' Bloc. 2 5 However, the split was resolved at the Fifth Party Congress in

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July, 1923; possibly under pressure from the Soviet Union, the majority, the P.K�P. led by Wolf Averbalk, accepted most of the principles advocated by the minority, while the latter abandoned the 'liquidatocy' tendencies which called on class-conscious Jews to leave the country because their presence, even as oppositionists, strengthened Zionist 'objectivity'. The decisions of the Fifth Congress gave evidence of a new policy line w_hich rejected proletarian Zionism and broke all previous links with the leftist groups of the Poale Zion. The Palestine Com1nunists now. looked to the Arab National Movement as one of the basic elements in resistance to British · imperialism and believed that it was the �ain task of the Party to do everything to support it. They denbunced Zionism as a manifestation of Jewish bourgeois aspirations and an agent of the imperialist occupier. 2 6 With the re11nification of party ranks into the Palestinian Communist Party and its now open dissociation from Zionism, the Party entered a new phase. In February 1924 it was officially recognised as a member-of the Comintern. 2 7 But the bridges with the Jewish cainp had been burned; the anti-Zionism of.the Party, as well as a certain following among unemployed sephardim, stirred uneasiness within the Histadrut which, on April 28, 1924, expelled the Workers' Bloc. The decision, it stressed, was not a political one but due to the Bloc's subversive activities: demonstrations against the Histadrut, assaults on local workers' councils and attacks in the Palestinian and European Communist press against Jewish workers' organisations. 28 Another factor which contributed to the isolation of the MPS from the Jewish · community was the Afula incident of November 1924. At that time part of the Valley of Jezreel had been purchased by the Jewish N�tional Fund and colonisation had begun in this area. Bedouin and fellaheen resistance to the settlers led to clashes and police intervention, with the subsequent bloodshed attributed to the Communist Party because of its call on Arabs to fight the Jews on the eve of their · settlement. The Communists had accused the settlers of 18 •

'colonising the country on the ruins of the fellaheen villages' and argued that the Arabs were the rightful owners of the land and the Jews nothing but 'imperial invaders;.to resist them was 'part of the general anti-imperialist struggle in the colonies.'2 9 The Afula case was only the first of its kind which were to recur during the late twenties and all through the thirties, embittering the Jewish cormnunity and thwarting the Party's arnbition to recruit more Jews into its ranks. On the other hand, the Palestine Comrnunist Party was able to benefit from the economic crash and widespread unemployment that followed the artificial boom of the fourth i111migration wave. 3 0 Immigration dropped and in 1927 emigrant Jews outnumbered their incoming fellows. As the only active anti-Zionism group in the country, the Corr11nunist Party exploited the disappoint­ ment of many Jewish settlers after the crisis of 1926 and took the 'illusory character' of the Zionist Movement as the central th.eme of their propaganda. But, based as it was on negative criticism, this campaign made little headway. Meanwhile the Arab presence in Communist circles remained virtually non-existent and, in spite of Moscow's repeated demands for Arabisation, continued thus up to the late 1920s. The Co1nmunists had, it is true, called on Party members to support the Arab National Movement of Musa Qasim and Haj Amin Al Husaini in elections, but had met with no Arab response. In fact, differences over the extent of support to be given to the Movement caused a split in June 1928, on the eve of the Seventh Arab Conference in Jerusalem. A minority group the 'Jewish Workers' Council' - had addressed an open letter to the conference declaring that 'the homeland of a Jew is . wherever he happens to be born, while Palestine belongs to the Arabs . . . . It is our sacred duty to fight side by side with the Arabs and arouse the people of the world against the Zionist danger.'3 1

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ARABISATION

August 1929 and its aftermath marked the beginning of Arabisation in the Palestine Communist Party; at the sar,1e 19

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time these events demonstrated the impact of Stalinist ideas on Party thinking, described in the recent past as being 'pacifist'. 3 2 Anti-Jewish riots broke out in the middle of August, leaving 130 Jews killed and 300 wounded. Only a week earlier the Party had been preaching peace against alleged British provocations to ' fratricide' ; soon after the riots it was forced by Stalinist pressure to adopt an opposite line. Accordingly, the Party described the events as an anti-i1nperialist revolt sabotaged by the agents of i1nperialism; in doing so it provoked another split, with a rightist 1ninority refusing to deny that a true massacre had occurred, disputing the official Comintem version,33 and denying the existence of an Arab revolutionary movement. At the December 1929 plenun1 of the Party, a decision was taken to oust those who refused to adopt the Arab line. Most of . the Jewish rank and file resigned and new statutes were drawn up stipulating that the majority of the Central Com1nittee was 4 3 Arab. o be t As a consequence, then, of the 1929 riots and the reaction of the Executive Com1nittee of the Co1n1nunist International, the Palestine Communist Party fully endorsed Arabisation, and throughout the 1930s the centre of gravity of the Party shifted from Jew to Arab. In order to boost the number of Arab cadres, which was small, more than thirty Arabs were sent to the Soviet Union between 1929 and 1 935 to follow extended training courses. It was symptomatic that in 1931 the Yiddish Party monthly Forward (Ila al-Aman) continued to appear. Regularly yielding to Comintern pressures, the Party gave unconditional support to the Arab Nationalist Movement, the Istiqlal Party, until 1935 and ignored the conservative character of this party's leadership. But in spite of this, between 1931 and 1934 the Communist Party was unable to register any spectacular success among the Arabs; Communist ideology was not attractive to the urban Arab and the fellaheen preference was for the Istiqlal. Furthermore the Party could not rely on Jewish support. The December 1930 elections for the 'Assefat Hanivharim' prototype of the Israeli parliament - showed that the 20

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Communists had lost fifty per cent of their adherents as compared with 1925.3 5 This close collaboration between the Communists and the Istiqlal Party was further demonstrated by the uprising of 1935.3 6 Its iminediate cause was a protest strike against Jewish immigration staged by the Arab Higher Committee. Although the Palestine Communist Party took no prominent part in the subsequent unrest, it gave support through its publications. The 1933 uprising was presented as a 'natural and desperate reaction of the exploited masses against their Zionist oppressors who wished to drive them from their land. '87 Relations with the Syrian and Lebanese Communist Parties The 1930s marked a Palestinian Communist rapprochement not only with the Arabs of Palestine but with the Comrr1unist parties of the neighbouring countries. The Syrian-Lebanese Co1nrnunists established friendly relations with their Palestinian colleagues during the thirties, exchanged delegations with them and even invited them to participate in 8 3 policy. planning The relationship between the Syrian-Lebanese Communists and their predominantly Jewish Palestinian colleagues must be understood in the light of the Arab concept of Co1111nunism which recognised only classes, independent of the nation to which they belonged. The Jews, therefore, whether inside or outside Palestine, were not yet seen as a group trying to establish a national hpme in Arab Palestine, but rather as a group divided into proletariat and bourgeoisie, no different from any other people in the world. Logically, the Arab working class of Palestine should join forces with the Jewish proletariat in the common struggle against the exploiters, Jewish and Arab alike. Equally, Zionism was opposed because of its racist character. 3 9 The 1936 Arab revolt The pro-Arab leaning of the Palestine Communist Party was evident throughout the thirties in Palestine, particularly during the 1936-39 Arab revolt against Jewish immigration and the

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British Mandate. As early as November 1936 the Co1n1nunists had called upon the Jewish masses to support the Arab revolutionary movement and had denounced the •Zionist fascists and chauvinists for waging a war on the Arab people 4 fellaheen.' 0 N111nbering about 1,000 members at killing and . that time,4 1 the Party transferred two Com1nunist liaison officers to Haj Amin Al Husaini as political advisers: Fuad Nassar and Nimr 'Uda. 4 2 Support for the Arab nationalist leadership reached its peak on September 8, 1937 when the Party subscribed to the Arab representatives' proposals to the Pan-Arab Conference held in Bludan, Syria, for a solution to the Palestine question. These affirmed that Palestine was Arab and should remain so, and rejected the Peel Co1n1nission report, and especially its proposal for partition. The representatives saw the withdrawal of the Balfour Declaration, the abolition of the Mandate and the creation of an Iraqi-style state as all necessary for a settlement in Palestine. 4 3 This unconditional Co1n1nunist backing of the Arab leadership led to an almost complete disintegration of Party ranks. By midsummer 1937, some of the Arab Comn1unists had been killed or wounded in the fighting, while others like Nassar and 'Uda had been arrested. As far as the Jewish members were concerned, they were totally isolated from the Arabs in general as well as in the Party work. Communication was difficult and complicated. The Jerusalem branch, with Hanoch Beyoya at its head, established itself in 1938 as an autonomous 'Jewish Section' of the PCP and clai1ned to represent the Party. Those members that did not quit the Party altogether went to Spain to support the anti-Fascist struggle. 4 4 The end of the revolt did not affect the Party as far as its support for the Arabs was concerned4 5 and when the White Paper limiting Jewish immigration was published in May 1939, shortly after peace had been restored, it met a favourable reception by the Party Executive: 'The Party· viewed it as an achievement of the Arab liberation and as a first step towards full liberation of the country'. 4 6 For the first time in their history the Palestinian Communists were in some agreement .

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with the mandatory governinent policy, a situation largely due to the rise of the fascist threat to the Soviet Union. •

THE SECOND WORLD WAR

The Palestine Communist Party adhered faithfully to the Kremlin line on the Second World War, which they vigorously denounced as 'imperialist'. In a leaflet issued in October 1939 the Party Executive went as far as to declare that 'the Hitler against who� Chamberlain is now fighting is no longer the sarne Hitler who intended to fight the Soviet Union. He has ceased to be Chainberlain's and Daladier's gendarn1e and must do what Moscow tells him. '4 7 Along equally Stalinist lines, the Party expressed support for the Rashid Ali revolt in Iraq. But the German attack on the Soviet Union prompted the Party to switch policies once more. Through its Hebrew organ in December 1942, it assured the British powers that they had an impressive array of friends in the Middle East. 4 8 Earlier, in June 1 94 1 , both Arab and Jewish Communists had come out with new-found support for the ' war against fascism' and were consequently, late in the year, to emerge with the approval of the British authorities. Accordingly, in Autumn 1942, a Communist group in Haifa was allowed to found the Federation of Arab Trade Unions and Labour Societies. P aid-up membership of this body reportedly reached 1,600 by the end of the year and government estimates indicated that it spoke for almost as many again. 4 9 It is worth noting that the formation of Arab labour societies in Palestine had perhaps also been prompted by the conscious emancipation and growth of the Arab working class. The Palestine Arab Workers' Society (the right wing of the Arab Labour Movement), had been founded in Haifa in 1925 and later spread its activity to J affa and Jerusalem. The organisation's leadership remained conservative, however, and the total number of syndicated Arabs amounted to hardly more than 5,000 in 1936.5 0 During the Second World War the Arab Labour Movement expanded, largely as a consequence of Colonial Office policy of 23

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enlarging the war industry to meet the emergency needs of the armed forces. An estimated 85,000 to 100,000 Arabs were employed in manual work at the end of 1942, of which less than 37,000 were pem1anent urban dwellers. This glut of workers, together with a rising cost of living and increased Arab contact with organised Jewish labour, hastened the organisation of Arab workers. At about the sa1ne time and ·as a result of the Russian involvement in the War, the Palestine government showed more tolerance for the Communists and for the first time in their history accorded them a semi-legal status. Communist groups began to appear in some of the larger towns, a1nong which were the Arab Anti-Fascist League, in Jerusalem, and the Rays of Hope Society in Haifa. 5 1 ·Together with this expansion of the Arab labour movement, concerted activity by the Arab world and its deepening interest in the Palestine question prompted the Arab Communists in Palestine to achieve rapprochement with the Arab labour organisations in the1country. Partly in reaction to this move, the Jewish Communists moved closer to the Zionist camp; in doing so they were encouraged both by Zionist operations on an international level and by the Biltmore Program. The resultant polarisation of Party ranks led to a new split in the Party after the dissolution of the Comintern in May 1943. Most of the Arab Communists left the ranks and before the end of the year the Rays of Hope Society had reorganised itself as a political party called the League of National Liberation in Palestine. 5 2 As such, it was the first Arab Communist group in Palestine to be granted full recognition by the government; having absorbed all the Arab Cormnunist splinter-groups, the League beca1ne 'the political ann of the Federation of Trade Unions and Labour Societies at Haifa. '5 3 In May 1944 the Federation was given permission to publish its own weekly, Al-Ittihad, which also served as the organ of the League of National Liberation. Centring its propaganda on fostering friendly relations with the Soviet Union, the League established affiliates at Jaffa, Jerusalem and Nazareth and formed cells within local branches of the right-wing Palestine •

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Arab Workers' Society. Yet it failed to gain the recognition of the Arab national movement as a whole, in spite of opposing Zionist inunigration and the sale of land to Jews. The Jewish Communists who had retained the naine of the Palestine Conununist Party and had a strictly Jewish membership, meanwhile subscribed unanimously to a policy of union with the Zionists and obtained admission to the Histadrut. On August 1, 1944, they had even taken part in the Yishuv elections under the naine of the Popular Democratic List, taking 3,948 votes and winning three assembly seats,5 4 thereby marking an end to the Jewish Communists' isolation within the Jewish community of Palestine.5 6 Thus, on the occasion of the Allied victory, Jewish Communists, though not the official PCP, marched under the Zionist flag and the slogans ' Extension of Colonisation', 'Freedom of I1n1nigration' and 'Development of the Jewish National Home.'66 Such closeness to the Jewish camp was further demonstrated in a manifesto, published in May 1945, in which the Jewish Communist fraction affirmed its struggle for the abrogation of the White Paper and for the free development of the Jewish National Home. 67 Thus the end of the Second World War saw the split of the Palestinian Cormnunists into two national factions, a pattern that was to recur after the establishment of the State of Israel. In fact, the Jewish Party had advocated binationalism for several years after the War, but was forced to accept the partition of Palestine by the pressures of Soviet policy.5 8 The Arab Communists differed by rejecting the partition plan and the concepts of a binational or a Jewish state and by calling for the withdrawal of British troops, for independence and for the establishement of a unified, indivisible, democratic government. 6 9 The divergent positions of the Jewish and Arab Communists were reunited under strong pressure from the Soviet Union at the creation of the Israeli State, and the two factions merged on October 22, 1948, in Haifa to form the Conununist Party of Israel (Maki). Justifying the Communist Party's attitude to the creation of •

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the Israeli State, the secretary general of the Rakah section, established after the 1965 split in Cominunist ranks, has said:

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The Corriinunist Party in fact favoured the establishment of two states - Arab and Jewish. However, only one of them - Israel - was created . . . We voted for Israel 60 rn. thinking that the other state would also be bo •

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CHAPTER TWO

The Israeli Communist Party Maki Before the Split COMPOSITION AND ORGANISATION

The first chapter of this study showed that, at its inception in 1919, the Palestine Communist Party had been exclusively composed of Jewish members. By contrast, th� early years of the State of Israel saw the development of an Arab-Jewish party in which Arabs formed a by no means_ negligible minority. It is difficult to assess the exact size of the Israeli Co1nmunist Party; Middle East Communist parties in ge_neral furnished no membership figures at that time. And while an indirect assessment of party strength could be made from the results of parlia1nentary or municipal elections in countries other than Israel, the size of the Communist Party in Israel and the number of Communist votes exhibited a wide disparity. An illustration of this phenomenon can be found in the Annual Supplement of the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia for 1962 which fixed Maki membership in 1961 at 3,000, whereas 42 ,111 votes were cast for the Co1nmunist Party list. In their study of the elections to the Fifth Knesset, Czudnowski and Landau 1 point out that the discrepancy between members and votes was partly due to the fact that Maki could be considered as a skeleton party in both the Jewish and Arab communities - a situation due to the Party's own estimate of itself as standing, like any other Communist party, at the head of a class, with its ranks open to anyone. Between the central nucleus of the Party and its broader base, therefore, a group grew up whose support was liinited to financial contribution and votes. The member / voter disparity was explicable at least in part by the existence of these 'candidate

27

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members'. Votes could exceed the strength of the Party for another reason: while the Palestine question remained unsolved and in the absence of an Arab nationalist party list, most Arab citizens of Israel cast their ballot in favour of the Com1nunist list. This tendency beca1ne more marked at the time when President Nasser of Egypt engaged in rapprochement with the· Soviet Bloc in 1955. Despite the difficulties of esti1nation, however, figures for the approximate size of the Party have been advanced. Co1nmunist 2 1951 put the current publications in membership at 8,000. In 1965 Maki was reported to nuinber 4,000 to 5,000 members and at least 2,700 Jews and 1 ,300 Arabs.a The Party announced its 1961 composition as 74.3 per cent Jewish and 25.7 per cent Arab, 4 at a time when Arabs made up 11 per cent of the total Israeli population, and the proportion has since swung even further in the same direction. On the eve of the 1965 split, at least half of the Israeli Com1nunist Party's membership was Arab. The social composition of the Party is as difficult to denote in figures as its strength, but by 1956 several features had become clear: firstly, support for the Com1nunists was greater among Arabs than Jews ; and secondly, the Party recruited more members a1nong new i1n1nigrants than from those born in Palestine or who had settled there before the Second World War. A third notable fact was that few members were drawn from the proletariat, the lower middle class forming the · prevailing element of the Party.5 As far as the make-up of the Party is concerned, data published in ha- Ve' ida ha-arba ' 'esre ( p . 1 6 ) 6 indicate that 83.8 per cent of the total 1961 membership had joined Party ranks after 1948 and that more than one quarter had done so later than January 1957. Since the 16.2 per cent who had taken up membership before the establishment of the Israeli State were for the most part Jews, it follows that at least 58. 1 per cent of the Party was composed of Jews who had i1n1nigrated after the 7 the state. Consequently, the proportion of recent foundation of immigrants among Maki's Jewish members was much higher 28

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than that prevailing in the population at large - 45.6 per cent. 8 Czudnowski and Landau9 point out that the relative frequency of new i1nmigrants in Co1n1nunist ranks is confirmed in publications such as ha- Ve' ida ha-arba' 'esre which lists Maki strength in various districts. These reveal that the most tangible increase in Party membership over 1960-1961 took place in the Negev, an area whose indigenous population was made up of Bedouin Arabs, arnong whom the Communist vote was extremely low, and Jewish kibbutz workers obviously imbued with Zionist ideology. Clearly the Communist gains owed little to either of these groups; rather, their source could be found among the new Jewish immigrants who had settled in the development towns of the Negev. A report filed in 1961 by the secretary of the Ashqelon-Negev branch of the Party stated O l members the are new all irr1111igrants.' 'almost that The lower middle-class composition of Maki is also borne out by statistics. At the 1955 Histadrut elections the Party received a lower proportion of votes than in Parlia1nentary voting, and in such key unions as the metal workers and builders, the percentage of Communist votes was lower than five. 1 1 COMPOSITION BY LAND OF ORIGIN

The 1961 Maki census gave the following breakdown of the Party's composition according to its members' land of origin:

TABLE 1 Maki Membership According to Land of Origin, 1961

Origin

Europe Asia

Africa America Israel (Palestine)

Percentage

54.6 11.4 3.1 1.1 29.8

Source: Czudnowski and Landau, op. cit., p.19.

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Various conclusions are to be drawn from this census. Firstly if, as indicated earlier, 25.7 per cent of all Maki members were Arabs born in Palestine, it follows that only 4. 1 ( 29.8 less 25.7) per cent of the Party's Jewish strength was composed of native-born Israelis. Secondly, an overall 55.7 ( 54.6 plus 1.1) per cent of members were of European or American origin, that is natives of developed countries, compared with 14.5 per cent of African or Asian birth.. A comparison of these features of Maki membership can be made with the composition of the Jewish population of the State of Israel in December 1960 and that of Jewish immigration from 1948 to the sa111e date, revealing a noticeable disproportion between the members having African or Asian origins ( 14.5 per cent) and the fraction of such immigrants in the Jewish population as a whole which, at 27.82 per cent, was alinost twice as large. The discrepancy · is highlighted by the fact that with at least 78.2 per cent of the Party's Jewish membership being new iminigrants, 52.34 per cent of Jewish arrivals between 1948 and 1960 had come from. Asia and Africa. On the other hand, Jewish Communists of European and American origin, forming 55. 7 per cent of the total Party membership, · far exceeded this group's representation in the country at large ( 35.1 per cent on December 31, 1960) and in 1948-1960 iminigration to Israel (45 per cent). •

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COMPOSITION BY AGE

New recruits to Maki under the age of twenty-six accounted for 9.2 per cent of the membership in 1961. According to ha- Ve' ida ha arba' 'esre ( p. 1 17) this age-group furnished only 4. 6 per cent of the strength in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, the largest Jewish urban centre in the country, as compared with 21 per cent in the major Arab stronghold of Nazareth. Hence, Arab Party members were on average younger than their Jewish comrades, a phenomenon that may have owed in part to the breakdown in traditional fainily structures in the face of the new style of life encountered by the Israeli Arabs, and in part to Cominunism appealing less to the older, uneducated Arab generation. 30

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Equally, the Party may have spent little effort to recruit from such quarters, and, in the absence of their own leaders or spokesmen, young Arabs turned to Com1nunism, with its centre in Nazareth, even before the creation of the Israeli 2 1 State. By contrast, the young Jewish generation was able to adapt itself to the Israeli way of life with ease, more easily in fact than their parents. Many were educated in the Hebraic schools of Israel and s·erved in the Israeli ar1ned forces, and were consequently less attracted by Maki anti-Zionism and the Communist overture to the Arab section of the population. Jewish adults a1nong the new i1nmigrants, however,. presented a different picture, for the difficulties they met in employment and adjustment made them more receptive to Party propaganda than either the veterans on the one hand or the young immigrants on the other. 1 3

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INSTITUTIONS

The principle institutions of the Israeli Communist Party were similar to those of any other Communist party in the world: a Central Committee of approxi1nately twenty members, a . Political Bureau of some seven members and a Secretariat. In 1957 the Central Committee consisted of fourteen Jews and six Arabs; in 1 961, fourteen Jews and five Arabs. The Political Bureau in both years comprised five Jews and two Arabs. 1 4 The Jewish preponderance is notable and, with the post of Secretary General held consistently by the Jewish member Schmuel Mikunis until the 1965 split, a similar Jewish-Arab proportion was maintained in all the leading institutions of the Party. A number of subcommittees for trade unions, youth, women and the like played an important role in Maki's affairs and the Party also had . open control of such Communist front organisations as the Democratic Women's Organisation, the Association for the Promotion of Trade ( with the USSR) and the Committee for the Defence of Children. Other groups maintained by the Party included non-Communist elements •

31

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and acted as bona fide concerns; these included the League for the Defence of Arab Minority, as well as several ad hoe committees such as that for the Return of the Histadrut to the World Federation of Trade Unions, the Conrmittee for the Defence of the Interests of the Shoemakers and the Democratic Teachers' Organisation ( the latter aimed at winning Arab teachers to the Party cause). •

MAKI AND THE ISRAELI ARABS

On the eve of the creation of the State of Israel the population of Palestine stood at 614,239 Jews and 1,3 19,434 Arabs 1 5 and by mid-May, 1948 these figures had reached respectively 650,000 and 1,415,000 - a total of 2,065,000. 1 6 But when the fighting had ended in the Autumn of that year, only some 156,000 Arabs remained in the new state, the rest having fled to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. But despite this drainatic fall in n111nbers, the Arab community in Israel saw a resurgence in the early fifties as a result both of a high birth-rate and lower mortality as well as the return of about 40,000 Arabs to the country. The Arab population has grown steadily since then and, with the decline in Jewish im1nigration before the 1967 War, has also recorded a proportional rise.

TABLE 2

Proportion of Arabs in the Israeli population, 1957 - 1966

Percentage Year 10.8 1957 10.9 1958 11.0 1959 11.1 1960 11.3 1961 11.3 1962 11.3 1963 1 1 .4 1964 11.3 1965 12.0 1966 Source : Jacob M. Landau, The Arabs in Israel, 1969, p.5 . 32

The Arabs in Israel live in almost complete isolation, concentrated in 104 purely Arab towns and villages and in seven mixed towns where, in fact, the majority has become Jewish: Acre, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Lydda, Ramleh and Jerusalem. The Galilee region, including Nazareth and Shafa'Amr, contains 60 per cent of Israel's Arabs while the 'Triangle' 1 7 - a strip near the central point of the Jordanian border - houses just over 20 per cent. Seven per cent live in Haifa and the sa1ne number east of Beersheba in the Negev. As the only legal party in Israel to have a significant Arab minority, Maki has always leaned heavily on the · Arab population for support; its success in doing so owes both to the history of the Party before the establishment of the State and to the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict. In the early years of the British Administration in Palestine the Communist Party began to call for the rights of the Arab masses, a position enhanced by its own growing realisation of the importance of the Arab proletariat, especially in the absence of a comparable Jewish class. * The call of the Executive Committee of the Communist International on Party cadres to undertake 'Arabisation' at the end of the twenties coupled with the Arab revolts of 1 929 and 1936-39, which witnessed Communist collaboration with the Arab nationalists against the British, gave the Party an even larger audience a1nong the Palestinian Arabs. On the establishment of the Israeli State on Palestinian land, the frustrated hopes of the Arabs clung to any movement opposed to the new state, not excluding the Communists. Identification with the latter, however, was not wholehearted, in view both of the ideological rift between the Palestinian Arabs and the Party, and the Soviet recognition of Israel, although President Nasser's rapprochement with the Russians naturally helped to bridge these gaps. Developments on the Middle East political scene had an important bearing on Arab support for Maki ; and central * In fact, a Jewish proletariat did exist but it was imbued with Zionist ideology, which made it lose its significance in ter1ns of Communist internationalist thinking.

33

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ainong these was undoubtedly the Sinai ca1npaign of October 1956 and the Kafr Qassi1n ma_ssacre. 1 8 Maki's stand against the Suez War contributed to its popularity with the Arabs in Israel, and a forn1er member of the Israeli Co1n1nunist Party, now a leader of the International Socialist Organisation ( ISO) described the Party's line on the war as ' correct.' It was the only Israeli party, he said, to come out clearly against the war. 1 9 Official Israeli policy at that ti1ne was to be s111nmed up in 1965 by Meir Vilner as 'with the i1nperialist powers against the Arab peoples. '20 Maki policy during the Suez War found clear expression in an editorial published by Al-Jadid late in 1956. 2 1 The war was condemned as a tripartite ( British, French and Israeli) aggression against Egypt; and Israel was charged with taking long-planned step to help France further its colonial ai1ns in Algeria, and the West to consolidate its grip on North Africa as a whole. During the war, Maki was obliged to juggle two objectives: expression of both ideological and practical allegiance to the Soviet Union; and the development of its pro-Arab character. Arab nationalist sentiments were aroused by the Egyptian victory on the Canal, to be followed within two years by the union of Syria and Egypt as the United Arab Republic. Maki's alinost complete identification with the ascendent nationalists carried it to the peak of its popularity. Communist propaganda in Israel had revolved about issues favourable to the Arabs. Any sign of official discrimination against Arabs was immediately denounced in Communist publications, and especially in the Arab newspaper Al-Ittihad and periodical Al-Jadid. Special attention was given to Arab villagers employed in towns and confronted with the constructionist policy followed by the Histadrut and the 1nilitary administration, as well as to intellectuals and teachers. 22 Communist involvement in student affairs is typified by an item carried in Al-Jadid under the title of 'Al-Jadid's Cultural Stniggle', 2 3 in which it was cJai1ned that the Israeli authorities were waging war on Arab culture by refusing Arab students the

l

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· right to university degrees. Only 1 per cent of Arab applicants were admitted to universities in 1955, and the Co1n1nunist article charged the govern1nent with purposely failing the Arabs in the entrance exa1ninations, the aim of which was to perpetuate ignorance a1nong the Arab masses and thereby ensure their ready submission. The Arab response to the extensive Co1nmunist backing seems to have been more or less limited to support in the Israeli parlia1nentary elections, through which the Party managed . to obtain a relatively large Arab vote despite the fact that the Israeli Arabs were more often nationalist than Communist. As a basis for further exa1nination, Table Three shows Maki's overall Knesset standing in its first five sessions. Maki and the 1£!49 Knesset elections 24 Elections to the First Knesset were held on January 25, 1949. There were 505,567 eligible votes registered, of which about 33,000 were Arab. The Coinmunists polled 15, 148 and took four 2 5 parliainent the 120 they also received 22.2 per cent seats; of of the Arab vote - as compared to an overall 3.5 per cent share of the national voting - holding second place in popularity with the Arabs. Mapai gained the absolute majority, taking, ·with its two allied Arab lists (the Workers' Bloc and the Democratic List of Nazareth), 63.1 per cent of the votes. Its victory was to a large extent due to the obedience of traditional Arab leaders whom the party had successfully approached. Maki owed its relatively good standing to several factors. The Arab-Israeli War had just ended and the morale of the Arabs in Israel was low ; they had witnessed the defeat of the Arab armies, the Israeli triumph, the ensuing wave of Jewish immigration and, above all, the imposition of the military administration in the major Arab-inhabited areas. Jewish parties were, as a result, regarded with widespread Arab suspicion. Yet the Arab leadership was in disarray and had no previous experience of parliamentary elections; its demands ranged no further than for economic improvement and unrestricted travel throughout the State.

35

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TABLE 3 Maki Strength in the Knesset, 1949 - 1961

1st Knesset Jun. 1 949

2nd Knesset July, 1951

3rd Knesset July, 1 955

4th Knesset Nov. 1 959

5th Knesset Aug. 1 961

Percentage of valid votes

3 .5

4.0

4 .5

2.8

4.2

Number of valid votes

1 5,148

27,334

38,492

27,374

42,111

4

5

6

3

Knesset seats

5

•

Source: Czudnowski and Landau, op. cit., p.12. -

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-

::..._

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TABLE 4 The Arab Vote in the 1949 Knesset Elections

•

•

�

CQ

0

�

�

C+-..,

0 � 0 ..... � t:S

� . 0 ::) ..C �

CJ ..0 .... ..... .�

�

� s

�

�

Percentage •

(I,)

.....

... �

79.3

�

►..

.....

CQ

-S t! . ....

�

� �

�

..... c:s � �

9.6

CQ

::s

.c ....

-� ►..

�

�

..::s�

0.6

E C,

�

� �

0

� �

0.4

�

0.2

C+-..,

C

.�t!

�

C ..... �

►..

E

*

.....

� �

.....

.a &:!

C!,

�

�

11.4

3.6

51. 7

22.2

�

�

t!

�

�

..0

E

Source: Landau, op. cit., p.110. *It is assumed here that all votes for the various Arab lists were cast by Arabs.

�

� �

'=S

0

0.3

00

0

r:, •(1)•

�

t-4

§

t"d r:,

�

m

•

::s c=+

�

m

(JQ

�

•

�

.... . ".. �

..

•

• t-' t-' 01 •

CX) •01 01

Participation of those eligible to vote

�

�

t-' •t-' -.J

Mapai

•0 -3

Religious parties

•0 �

01 • (j") •0 �

•c.o CX) •0 �

Herut

s·

•

�

-

&

(I)

t-4

CD 01

•

'

�

='

t-

Party of Oriental Jews

•

•

�

t-

Mapam

01

•

I

�

�

General Zionists Progressive Party

I-' (j") •

Maki

CA)

0

(I)

Arab Lists

CX)

(I)

t:r

01 •

�

•

�

I I

(I)

•

=

0

•

I

•0 �

Others

'

I

'/ I I I

I I,

I

To this situation, Maki could bring its pre-1948 experience. Furthermore, the Arab Nationalist colouring of the League of National Liberation had rendered its leaders well-known among the Arabs, while the representatives of most other parties were only to become prominent after the elections. In addition, Maki's electoral platform supported all the Arab demands, calling for the foundation of a separate Arab state in Palestine, equal rights for the Israeli Arabs, the return of the refugees, the abolition of the military administration and an end to travel 2 6 What is more, Maki's Arab-Jewish character ns. restrictio was emphasised by the fact that Arab Com1nunists held an important place in the electoral list; one of them, Tewfik Toubi, Knesset . beca1ne a member of the First . Maki and the 1951 Knesset elections Voting took place in July. Eligible votes numbered 924,885, of which the Communists secured 27,334 and won five out of 120 seats in Parliament. 2 7 Once again Maki took second place in the Arab voting behind the Mapai-Arab Lists alliance, despite its lower share of the vote (16.3 per cent). The proportional decrease in Arab votes for Maki was not due to a decline in Arab support for the Cormnunist List, but rather to the territorial changes brought about by the June, 1949 armistice agreement of Rhodes which added to the Arab population of Israel. The Party retained more or less unchanged its electoral support of 1949, but the inhabitants of villages or Bedouin camps voting for the first time were not added to its following. Nevertheless Maki made some impressive local gains; in Tayyba, for example, they changed their 1949 result of · nil to 752 Arab votes. As in 1949, Maki support among the Arabs was obtained by emphasis on the Arab-Jewish character of the Party, its claim to represent Arab interests, its continued opposition of the Israeli government's Arab policy, participation in strikes and a dynamic presence in Arab intellectual circles. Most important, Maki was the only party in the country to have a n111nber of Arab candidates in safe positions on the electoral list: Tewfik Toubi was second candidate and Emile Habibi fourth. At a

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speech in Nazareth opening the Party's electoral campaign, Secretary General Mikunis defined the Maki platform: 'The defence of the Arab minority by the Communists is the defence of democracy. ' 28 Other points subsequently added to the Party's election demands were the abolishment of the military ad1ninistration, state credits for agriculture and complete equality of rights and obligations ( including compulsory military service) between Jews and Arabs. 2 9 Maki and the 1955 Knesset electrons Maki support dropped - insignificantly - among the Israeli Arabs, but a more effective propaganda campaign directed at the Jews gained the Party six seats in the Third Knesset in 1955, a record not since equalled. Although it may have been certain extreme Communist attitudes which forfeited some floating Arab votes, the Party platform kept to the sa1ne lines as in previous elections; that is, it stood up for the demands of the dissatisfied Arab population of Israel. More than once the Communists promised to act as the Arabs' spokesmen by sending memoranda to the United Nations on their behalf. 3 O Maki and the 1959 Knesset electrons With the exception of the 1965 ballot - held after the Maki/ Rakah split - the results of the elections to the Fourth Knesset of 1959 constitute the most significant event in the history of the Party's relations with the Arabs of Israel. For the first time in an Israeli parlia1nent, the Communists dropped from second place to third in Arab popularity, bowing to both the Mapai-Arab Lists alliance and Mapa111. Maki' s support among the Israeli Arabs was dealt a heavy blow by the conflict which blew up in 1959 between Nasser an� Iraqi President Abdel Karim Qassim. The Arabs in Israel had pinned their hopes and admiration to the Egyptian leader so that, despite their approval of the Communists' opposition to Zionism, they were inevitably alienated when the Soviet Union and M aki together sided with Qassim.

40

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Aware of the decline in Arab support and its cause Communist leaders dropped the Qassim-Nasser issue during the electoral cainpaign and concentrated instead on such routine policy as opposition to the Israeli government's treatment of the Arabs. As before 1948, anti-Zionism was emphasised to the extent that, according to contemporary observers, the Party gained 'a monopoly over opposition votes a1nong the Arabs.' 3 1 The Maki platform demanded the immediate and total abolition of the military administration and permission for all Arab refugees to return to their homes. The Kafr Qassim massacre becaine a focal point for Communist propaganda, which widely denounced the Israeli offensive in Sinai and extolled Egypt in an attempt to gloss over its stand for Qassim. The Israeli authorities were also accused of economic discrimination against the Arab .population. But Maki's efforts to redress its image ainong the Arabs in Israel failed to compensate for its unpopular stand on the Nasser-Qassim dispute and the number of Party members elected to the Fourth Knesset dropped from six to three. Maki took only 11 per cent of the votes in the purely Arab localities, although it was still in these areas that the Party found its largest support. ( See Tables Eight and Nine.)

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Maki and the 1961 Knesset elections Voting took place on August 15, 1961 and out of a total of 1,037,030 eligible votes, 81.5 per cent, or 1,006,964, cast valid ballots. Maki obtained 42,111 of these (4.18 per cent), 14,737 more votes than in 1959, but proportionally less than the 4.51 per cent share of valid votes in 1955. In purely Arab regions Maki received 17,000 of 76,918 valid votes, or just over 22 per cent and five times greater than the national average. The difference was even more marked when compared with exclusively Jewish sections of the country. Further1nore, 40 per cent of all Communist votes came from all-Arab areas, which now constituted only 7.9 per cent of the country-wide vote. ( See Tables Eleven and Twelve.) Maki's improved standing among the Israeli Arabs may be attributed to the cultivation of an Arab nationalist image, with •

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TABLE 6 The Arab Vote in the 1955 Knesset Elections Percentage

.... (I.)

�

0

�

s...

�

��

0 ..0

:c . .... '=' ..,.Si>

Type of settlement

•

•

�

�

....� (I.)

-� ci) � .... � 0 � (I.) :) s... 0 �

�

� '5 .a

•

.....

::s

.o

�

c

�

�

�

'='

�

.....

-� ....tsl0 .... -� .... 2 �a 2 �

�

�

E'='

§t

�

'='

"tj � 0

::s � "tj ..'='

�

�

(I.) (I.) �

�

�

�

�

�

c.!,

£�

�

�

..0

�

....

�

f

�

�

�

0

Arab towns

89.9

20.3

0.9

0

3.6

1.1

0.5

0.6

37 .2

34.9

0.9

Arab villages and Bedouin tribes

92.1

11.7

2.3

0.5

7.3

1.7

0.8

0.8

57.9

15.6

1.4

Source: Landau, op. cit., p .121 .

--

,.,..,

---

•

--

TABLE 7

The Arab Vote in the 1959 Knesset Elections

Percentage 0

s:: -�

·- ·-

0 ,.0

.s -� � "c; -�

·..� s.... � 0:;

(.)

� 0 (I,) ::) 0 � 0 ...� ...�

(I,)

..... c::,

�

� �

;:s

-·-� ·-ws.... 0

(I,) �

►-a

� CS � Q,.

w ;:s s....

�

Ec:s � �

c:s

"ts

� 0 ::)

"ts ..c:s �

�

�

88.9

4.3

2.0

1.0

11.3

0.7

Large Arab villages

88.9

1.5

4.8

2.3

10. 7

Small Arab villages

91.9

7 .4

4.2

2.8

16.3

80.6 10.0

Source: Landau, op. cit., p.1 27.

1.5

1.5

30.5

'"'..

2�

�

� s:: s:: 0

·C!, � �

Arab towns

Bedouin tribes

�

('-> ('->

Go0 .as.... �

�

-�

�

�

1.0

�

..0

E

�

·-

�

�

f

� �

-+-a

0

51.6

26.5

1.4

1.1

62.4

12.5

1.1

0. 5

60.7

5.1

0.9

1.2

0.3

•-..

46.0

0.9

5.1

•

-

TABLE 8 Communist Votes by Ethnic Community, 1959 Percentage of country-wide valid votes in community

Community •

Purely Arab localities

7.40

Percentage of community vote obtained by Maki

Percentages of total Maki vote obtained in community

11.00

29.58 •

Purely Jewish and mixed localities

2.15

92.60

70.42

Source: Czudnowski and Landau, op. cit., p.44.

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��-'t�-

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TABLE 9

,

C om1nunist Votes in Purely Arab Localities, 1959

•

Total valid votes in localigy

Number of localities

Over 2,600

1 (Nazareth)

Votes cast for Maki Total

Percentage

8,495

2,397

28.2

1,600 - 2,600

7

14,285

2,285

16.0

800 - 1,600

12

12,407

1,956

150 - 800

15

8,317

755

35

43,504

7,393

15.8 9.1 16.9

105

28,216

703

1.6

TOTAL •

Total valid votes cast

•

Other Arab localities

Source: Czudnowski and Landau, op. cit., p.48.

TABLE 10 The Arab Vote in the 1961 Knesset Elections Percentage �

"+-...

0

s:! ... �

. � .S) .� ..0 0 .... ..... ..,-a �

�

�

.....ts

Cl.) �

Cl.) .0 .... • ..,. t\i) ..... '"'.a s....

Ets

ts "tj

..� 0

-� �

e� a

...a

�

f

.....

Type of settlement

..... 0 Cl.) ;:) � s.... 0

Arab towns

85.8

4.6

1.6

0.5

8.5

2.3

0.5

36.9

45.0

0.1

Large Arab villages

88.9

7 .3

4.5

1. 7

7 .9

5.6

. 1.0

46.4

25.5

0.1

Small Arab villages

91 .9

7.5

6.1

2.0 19.2

4.8

1.5

45.7

13.0

0.1

Bedouin tribes

80.6 18.4

1.9

0.9 14.4

5.1

1.8

54.2

2.7

0.7

�

�

o � � "M �

� �

�

�

� ts � Q.

� �

s....

�

"tj ..ts �

;::)

� �

�

�

..0 . .... s.... ts

� c:.

e

..0 �

�

'5

�

C

�

Source: Landau, op. cit., p.1 35. ·-

I(

I

..-=-,.,.._

TABLE 11 •

Communist Votes by Ethnic Con1munity , 1961

•

Community

Purely Arab localities

Percentage of country-wide valid vote in community 7 .7 0

Percentage of community vote obtained by Maki

Percentage of total Maki vote obtained in community

22.00

4 0.39 •

Purely Jewish and mixed localities

92.30

Source: Czudnowski and Landau, op. cit., p.44.

2.67

59.61

. . - ----- - ----·-

--

,,

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TABLE 12 Communist Votes in Purely Arab Localities, 1961

Total valid votes in localigy Over 2,600

Number of localities

Total valid votes cast

Votes cast for Maki Total

Percentage

1 (Nazareth )

9,239

4,278

46.3

1,600 - 2,600

7

1 5,603

5 , 008

32.1

800 - 1 ,600

12

13,166

4,028

30.6

1 50 - 800

15

8,381

2,1 57

25.7

35

46,389

15,471

33.3

105

ea. 30,000

ea. . 1,500

TOTAL Other Arab localities

Source: Czudnowski and Landau, op. cit., p.46.

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special emphasis on Communist support for Nasser. The Party had taken advantage of Moscow's close ties with the Egyptian president at the time to present itself as another of Nasser's allies. Otherwise, the Party platform demanded Arab equality, an end to the military administration and discrimination in employment, agricultural and industrial development and the encouragement of (implicitly Arab) cultural activity. Such demands dated from the establishment of the Israeli State and had featured in the much less successful 1959 ca111paign; clearly the most important factor in Maki's resurgence a111ong the Arabs was the reconciliation between the Soviets and Nasser. Just before the elections, the Party had held its Fourteenth National Congress at which- a number of front organisations were set up. These included the Movement of Intellectuals for the Defence of Democracy, the Movement of Workers and Farmers against Rising Prices and for a Rise in Salaries and the Movement of Arab Farmers against the Robbery of the Lands. 2 3 u ro g rd p Mak i and the A l-A The history of the Al-Ard group can be traced back to the early years of the State of Israel when a small, exclusively Arab body attempted to form a non-Communist organisation aimed at defending Arab interests in Israel. All such efforts proved abortive until the early fifties, when cooperation between Maki and the Nationalists began. Protest meetings were held against the Israeli Law of Citizenship, 3 3 the military administration and the appropriation of Arab land. During the course of these meetings, nationalists and Arab notables collaborated with the Communist Party, including the prominent Arabs Khaled Awn Allah and Taher Al Fahoum in Nazareth, Shukri el Khazen in Haifa and Boulos Boulos and Yanni Yanni in Acre. Elias Koussa and Rafik Farah attended meetings from time to time. As a result, a group of nationalists tried once again to establish an independent Arab organisation in which various shades of opinion among the Israeli Arabs could co-exist, but this time with Communist help . Discussions towards this end began in early 1955 and continued sporadically until July, 1957. The obstacles were •

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nuinerous - ainong them Maki's rejection of the nationalists' approach. Like any other Coirimunist party, Maki regarded itself as the only possible leader of the masses and, as such, to be collaborated with, not vice versa. This i1npasse was continued until the first opportunity of setting up the proposed non-Communist organisation arose in 1958, when an Arab May Day demonstration clashed with police forces in Nazareth and a number of Arab marchers were jailed. In the wake of these arrests, a cominittee - the Arab Public Committee for Protection of the Imprisoned and Exiled - was formed. The participants included the nationalists Koussa, Yanni and Jabbour, as well as Emile Habibi, Hanna Nakkara and Fuad Khoury, all Communists. On July 6 a general meeting of the committee was convened at the Maki clubhouse in Nazareth to elect a central committee and secretariat for a new organisation; this was the Arab Front, later called the Popular Front. At the inaugural meeting, the ai1ns of the Front were defined. They included all the nationalist theses of Maki, omiting the Communists' social and economic demands, but the well-experienced cadres of the Communist Party nevertheless soon became the guiding lights of the Front. Similarities between the two bodies were evident in both their meetings and propaganda methods. Between its foundation and February 1959, branches of the Arab Front were set up and, for a time, the Com1nunists benefited through participation in a closer identification with the Arabs in Israel. An editorial in Al-lttihad (March 6, 1959 ) hailed the Popular Front (as it h�d then become) as 'the basis for uniting the ranks of the Arab people in Israel.' . But the Cominunist-nationalist honeymoon was short-lived. Nasser's charges, made in late 1958 and early 1959, that the Syrian Communists were endangering Arab unity, had severe repercussions on the coherence of the Front, only equalled by the ill-effects of the Nasser-Qassim dispute. The Arab nationalists, first and foremost proponents of the Egyptian president and never attracted to Conununism as such, refused to countenance Maki's stand with Qassim. The ideological rift

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between the two components of the Front, partly healed by the erstwhile collaboration of Nasser and the Soviet Union, now widened. Spurred in part by Israeli restrictions on the activity of the . Front, but mostly by their differences with the Communists, the nationalists set up an independent political group that was to form the nucleus of Al-Ard, and which, during the electoral campaign for the Fourth Knesset, worked to destroy Maki's own nationalist iinage. Emile Habibi referred to the new group in an editorial published by Al-Ittihad on July 10, 1959: 'A small number of friends who are co-operating with us in the Popular Front secretly attack us ; such a situation cannot continue'. Several days after this editorial was written, the split beca1ne final and the nationalists subrriitted an official request to the Israeli government to publish a journal of their own. Al-Ard had thus been born as an organisation completely separate from the Communists, even if they both COII\peted for the sa1ne section of the Israeli population, namely the Arabs. Accordingly, the new group sought to discredit Maki by emphasising that its membership was in majority Jewish. When, in the first issue of its weekly, Al-Ard called on Arabs to boycott the Knesset elections, it was undoubtedly urging them not to vote for Maki. Thus, the two groups moved into total opposition as the inevitable result of their ideological contradictions and the competition for leadership of the Arabs in Israel. Between 1962 and November 1964, Al-Ard intensified national activities to the point of being officially charged with establishing contacts with Arabs across the borders, and the group was, as a consequence, banned. In protesting the ban through its Arabic organs Al-lttihad and Al-Jadid - and it was the only Israeli party to do so - Maki was clearly playing for Arab sympathy. MAKI AND OTHER ISRAELI PARTIES

From its inception in 1919, the Communist Party found itself in confrontation with a rival force that was to determine the future of Palestine. Zionism, with its strongly nationalistic ideology 51

and Western support, also possessed its own brand of socialism, its own prophets and a sense of mission that· left small room for a competitor, let alone a movement that denied the Zionists their central assu1ned right and went as far as to make common cause with the Arab forces in Palestine. Mainly as a consequence of the Com1nunists' approach to the Arabs in Palestine and Israel, the Party and its individual members were -faced with complete isolation from the Jewish cominunity. Apart from its brief collaboration with Al-Ard, the Communist Party made two attempts at rapprochement with other Israeli groups, the first being with Mapa1n in the early fifties. Mapain, founded in 1946 as a Zionist party receiving aid from the Jewish Agency, exhibited, in word if not deed, international socialist tendencies; the slogan on the banner of its daily newspaper Al-Hamishmar read: ' To Zionism, Socialism and Friendship between Nations'. Forced to choose between internationalism and Zionism, however, it would opt for the latter, in justification of which Mapain leaders habitually invoked the ' uniqueness of the Jewish case'. 34 The rapprochement with Mapa1n occurred during the early years of the Israeli State when the Communists were themselves undergoing changes. With the Soviet recognition of Israel the Party had lost much of its 1nilitancy, if not its anti-Zionism, and socialist demands were no longer put forward in a revolutionary manner. Friendship leagues - with the Soviet Union, Rumania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria - were comrnon to Maki and Mapam until the early fifties. But following M apam criticism of Soviet policy, especially over its pro-Nasser·position in 1956, and the general crisis of confidence in the Communist ca1np at that ti1ne, both 5 3 own. parties established separate leagues of their For a time, however, Soviet support and the Party's softer line allowed the Communists to make inroads into Mapa1n, then much larger than the Cominunist Party. 3 6 By 1952 the Communists appeared to be on the verge of controlling M apain by taking over its majority. As it was, the Prague trials prevented such a move. 3 7 Mapa1n w.as then dominated by the Stalinist Moshe Sneh, a 52

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founding member, and the trial of November, 1952 hit the party's ranks hard; M. Oren, one of its leaders, was accused of being an Anglo-American spy and subsequently sentenced to a long ter111 of imprisonment. The crisis within Mapa111 was highlighted by the arrest of a group of Moscow physicians, mostly Jews, several weeks later. This was more than the party could bear; the non-Stalinist faction demanded thorough and open dissociation from Soviet 'anti-semitism' while Sneh countered with a call for complete identification with Prague and Moscow. . But anti-Stalinist feelings had been aroused and Sneh was expelled from Mapam in January, 1953. A small minority followed hi1n and later established the Left Socialist Party, identical with the Communist Party in everything but name. With the hope that this splinter-group would eventually cause the disintegration of Mapa1n, it was granted the status of a separate organisation by the Communist leadership, but nothing of the kind had occurred by November, 1954 and the dissident Sneh faction was united with Maki. Moshe Sneh was appointed chairrr1an of the Party, a post especially created for hi1n and which did not exist before. After this episode, Mapam never again played an independent role in I�raeli political life. Taking the lead from Mapai, its ministers remained in Ben Gurion's Suez Cabinet and justified the 1956 Israeli aggression against Egypt. In the last decade the gap between Mapam and Mapai narrowed to the extent that the whole political spectrum of the left shifted to the right, and ideological rivalries gave way to squabbles over economic benefits. The second approach made by Maki to other Israeli political groupings involved the Israeli Socialist Organisation ( IS0), 3 8 which was founded for the most part by members or sympathisers of the Communist Party of Israel who objected to the policy of peaceful coexistence practised by the Soviet Union. In their view, a revolutionary party could not function on the basis of preserving the status quo. Yet despite their real differences, the ISO and the · Communists were never in opposition and the breakaway group 53

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was to help the Rakah in its election ca,npaign, notably for the Municipalities. The aforementioned ISO leader explained the cooperation as follows:

■

I think if we were working in a normal country, our relations with the Com,nunist Party would have been different. We would find ourselves in completely different ca1nps. In Israel the situation is a bit different because of the main issues, th·at is the position on Zionism, both the Communist Party and us are basically on the position of opposing Zionism. However, this does not mean that the possibilities of cooperating with the Communist Party are unli1nited. . .

•

From this account it is clear that the Communists were able to collaborate with the ISO only within the specific context of Israel and their mutual opposition to the racialist tendencies and Zionist nationalism of the State. The two parties would otherwise not have been at all close together. I

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54

CHAPTER THREE

The Split - August 1965 The split in the Israeli Comrnunist Party which occurred in August 1965 had its origins in the early history of the Party and ca1ne as the end product of the contradiction which had haunted Maki from its inception, narnely 'the attempt to involve Jews and Arabs in one party against the back ground of two ethnic communities' as well as 'the incompatibility of Communism and the Zionism of the Jewish community within which the party also desired to win souls. ' 1 The divisions within the Cominunists' ranks have already been dealt with, but an extremely significant event in 1958 which may be seen as a precursor of the 1965 split - will bear further examination. At the time a move was reported for the establishment of a separate Arab Communist party in Israel with a prograrm11e calling for the 'right of national self-determination' for the Arab minority. The proposal, which had been put forward by Emile Habibi (who was then an Arab Communist member of the Knesset) and urged the separation of areas densely populated by Arabs from the main body of the State, provoked a vigorous reaction from almost the entire Israeli press. 2 Habibi's demands were not followed up and reflected the views of, at most, only a small group of Party members rather than of the Communist leadership as a whole. But their importance remained, as an indication of tendencies strongly rooted in the minds of very many Arab Communists but never openly expressed. On the surface, however, Conununist rhetoric continued to bolster the image of Maki as unique ainong Israeli parties in allowing both Arab and Jewish members. 55

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THE CAUSES OF THE SPLIT

While the issue of the two nationalities within the Party remained dormant for alinost twenty years after the establishment of the State of Israel, it was in fact being nourished by two environinental factors - the racist tendencies of the State on the one hand and the growth of Arab ·nationalism on the other. Zionism, the founding principle on which the Israeli State is based, has from the beginning disseminated nationalistic and racialist ideals through the State. The Law of Return passed by the First Knesset embodies these ideals in extending automatic citizenship and full civil rights to all Jews wishing to settle in Israel; other nationalities are obliged to seek special • -.. • n1ss1on. pe·nThe prevailing nationalist and racialist current necessarily impinged on the consciousness of every Israeli Jew, including the members of the Communist Party. Moshe Sneh, for exa111ple, was known for his 'sympathies for Zionism' ; before immigrating to Palestine in 1940, he had lived in Poland and been one of the leaders of the Zionist Movement there, as well as representing the General Zionists in the Jewish Agency and taking part in the organisation of the Haganah. 3 Similarly, the Arabs of the Communist Party, although not associated with the Arab Nationalist Movement, had known brief periods of cooperation with its leaders in pre-state days, especially during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. Such collaboration was encouraged by the Soviet Union's call for Arabisation of the Party's cadres and, later, by the almost continuous Soviet support for the rising Arab nationalist movement led by Nasser. To add to this, as the Arab co1nmunity found itself a minority in a state at war with neighbouring Arab countries, so the Israeli Arab Cormnunists 4 world. Arab the found themselves almost identifying with Under these circumstances it was a matter of small surprise that the Jews and Arabs of the Israeli Co1nmunist Party reached a point beyond which cooperation and agreement on policy matters was impossible. Purely revolutionary Marxist •

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thinking alone could have saved the day, but the Israeli Communists - Jews and Arabs alike - were aware only of their differences. The split had become inevitable. The internal crisis that ca1ne to a head in 1965 after prolonged fern1entation was, then, due mainly to the nationalist sentiments of both sides in the dispute. The divergence of opinion between the Arab and Jewish groups expressed itself in their attitudes toward three main topics: ( 1 ) Arab recognition of the State of Israel and the question of peaceful settlement, ( 2 ) Arab nationalism and Zionism, and ( 3 ) the Soviet Union. •

•

Recognition of the State of Israel and the question of a peaceful settlement

Both factions of the Communist Party acknowledged Israel's right to exist; the dispute was rather over the causes of tension between Israel and the Arab states. The pro-Arab Cormnunists ( known as the Vilner-Toubi group) saw the danger of war stemming from 'imperialist intrigues against the anti­ imperialist Arab states . . . with the assistance of the rulers of Israel . . . ' 6 To this, the Jewish Sneh-Mikunis group objected that an Arab-instigated war was a possibility, that not all the Arab states were anti-imperialist and that even those that were, considered Israel as an ' exception to which the principles of peaceful coexistence and peaceful settlement of disputes do not apply.' It pointed out that Syrian policy called for war against Israel in the name of the liberation of Palestine. 6 The Jewish faction denied the identifying of Israel with imperialist interests, pointing to the alignment of the Anglo-American oil companies with certain oil-rich Arab states. These companies, Mikunis has claimed, are the source of much pressure against Israel, which they regard as a nuisance standing in the way of normal relations with the Arabs and their oil. There was thus no truth in the contention that 'Israel

serves as a fortress in defence of the interests of the Anglo-American oil magnates' or 'that it was actually in their interests that Israel entered the Six-Day War. '7 On the other

hand, the power of the Jewish lobby in the U.S. could hardly be •

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denied ; so far, too, the Arab states had failed to use oil as a weapon in the Middle East conflict. Another point of friction between the two factions was whether or not the issue of the existence of the Israeli State should take precedence over all others. The Jewish group considered that Arab bellicosity was reason enough for grave fears for the future security of the country. As Moshe Sneh later wrote, ' . . . the main issue of fighting for the survival of the Jewish people must take precedence over everything else, because I fear that the Jewish people is in terrible danger once again. '8 The Arab group held different views, presented by Emile Habibi in a speech to the Fifteenth Congress of the Party. While recognising the right of the Israelis to defend their homeland, he insisted that the ' concrete problem' was not national security but the prevention of ' declining i1nperialism from using the rulers of Israel for its ai1ns of provoking conflict as it has done in the past. ' 9 As far as a solution to the Arab-Israeli problem was concerned, the Jewish faction maintained that recognition of Israel by the Arab states should precede recognition of the rights of the Palestine Arabs. By contrast, the Arab Communists argued that a just and peaceful settlement of the Palestine case would itself lead to Arab recognition of Israel. 1 0 Speaking on this subject, Rakah Secretary General Meir Vilner stated that the Party rejected the official Israeli demand subrriitted to the U.N. General Assembly, which envisaged direct negotiations between Israel and the Arabs without prior conditions, since ' it does not provide for the recognition in ,1 1 principle of the rights of the Arab people. This Arab attitude was confirmed a year later by Tewfik Toubi at a conference in Jerusalem when he declared that if the Communist Party could persuade the Israeli government to recognise the rights of the Palestinian Arabs and refugees and to disown i1nperialism, peace and the recognition of Israel by the Arab states would follow. 1 2 •

58

Arab nationalism and Zionism Of all the various slogans designed to express the attitude of Rakah to Arab nationalism, one perhaps comes closest to reality:

Not with imperialism against the Arab people, but with the Arab people against imperialism. 13 Although this slogan was announced in Moscow on an occasion when emphasis on the Party's allegiance to the Soviet Union was more than desirable, it nevertheless expressed the inseparability of two issues: support for the Arab people, and solidarity with the Russians, especially for their stand with the Arabs against Israel. This declaration by no means contradicted the strong ties between the Arabs of Rakah and the Palestinian people as a whole, expressed in an article written directly following the split in 1965:

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The Arabs in Israel regard themselves as an integral part of the Palestinian Arab people, which has national rights in Palestine, equal to the national rights of the Jewish people. 1 4 In view of the Arab-Israeli conflict, therefore, and the support of the Arab states for the Palestinian cause, Israeli Arabs including the Communists always showed great sympathy for the Arab nationalist movement in general and its leader, President Nasser, in particular. This common interest was bolstered by the divisions between Israeli Arab and Jew inherent in their everyday life. Not least of these was the school system which set apart the �ountry's children on the basis of their major languages - Hebrew and Arabic - thus dividing the inhabitants ' into two different nations and perpetuating this situation through a separatist, national-conscious education in different schools.'15 Clearly the Israeli Arab Communists' search for identity could not be shared by their Jewish comrades, for whom the 59

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State of Israel afforded a secure and strongly sensed homeland. The latter objected to an uncritical acceptance of the progressive and anti-imperialist aims of the Arab states which, they said, would 'plunge the Party into a position of being led by, rather than leading, the Arab nationalist movement.'16 For their part the Arab Co1nmunists acknowledged that 'chauvinist attitudes within the Arab national liberation movement do occasionally come to the fore . . . ' but · declared that 'these negative phenomena are only temporary difficulties within the Arab movement for national liberation.'1 7 In fact, the Arab faction's view of Arab nationalism was not at all as uncritical as the Jewish Communists maintained: in a report to the Nineteenth Plenary Session of the Central Committee of Rakah (February 8-9 , 1968 ) , Tewfik -Toubi argued that Arabs had, by omission, helped to delay a Middle East settlement: The mistakes and weaknesses of the anti-imperialistr Arab National Liberation Movement, like the absence of a democratic programme for a peaceful solution of the Palestine problem, for instance, made it easier for the imperialists and the Israeli rulers to keep open the conflagration of the conflict. . . 1 s As nationalism did for the Arab Communists, so Zionism provided a focus for the Jewish faction, which began to make approaches to the Zionism of the Israeli State, while the Arab faction remained faithful to the Party's policy of total repudiation of the Zionist principle. With the Arabs denouncing Zionism as an alliance with the imperialist forces of the world, particularly the United States, the Sneh-Mikunis group insisted that it be treated as a national movement - 'without total rejection and without total defence, but to affi1·1n its 1 9 progressive aspect and to negate its negative aspect.' Accordingly, the Jewish Coinmunists called for Jewish immigration and adherence to the Zionist aim of preserving 'our 2 0 ' Against strong opposition from particular Jewish character. the Arab faction, which advocated collaboration with the 60

I

Communist parties of the· Arab world2 1 , they also envisaged the formation of a 'popular front' with certain Zionist workers' parties and argued that the Party should make concessions on principles and, especially, on tactics. At the 1965 Congress when the split occurred - the Mikunis-Vilner group urged close cooperation with Mapa1n or any other party prepared to work for the national interest of Israel, to raise the workers' standard of living and which favoured peace and progress. 2 2 The Arab objection to what was apparently a Communist prograinme par excellence - that is, the betterment of working-class life - was prompted by the fact that Mapam was c11rrently entering into alliance with Israel's ruling Mapai party (an alliance concluded during the 1969 parlia1nentary elections) and that any rapprochement with Zionist workers' parties at this · stage would thus have entailed more or less complete identification with the Israeli State's policy on major issues . .Equally, the Jewish faction's proposal clearly had Israeli Jewish votes in mind, whereas the Vilner-Toubi group sought Arab support. Rejecting the 'popular front' , the Arab Corm11unists demanded that the Party remain faithful to Marxist-Leninist 2 to the adhere 3 doctrine of a 'closed party.' and dogmas Concessions of ideology should not be made in order - to widen the Party base: In the present structure of the political parties in Israel, one cannot draw a distinction between those which are ready to collaborate with the Communists and those who oppose such a collaboration. As things stand, the possibility of transforming the Communist Party of Israel into a popular party does not exist. 24 The Soviet Union Previous sections of this study have shown that, since its very early days, the Israeli Communist Party had abided by Kremlin policy and continued to do so steadily until 1965. Such straightforward allegiance resulted from the fact that the Party' s founders were of Russian origin and had emigrated to

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Palestine during the first decade after the Russian Revolution, at a tirne when the pioneering spirit was at its height. Despite subsequent disputes and splits, therefore, the Soviet Union had retained a major influence on the Party. On the Palestine partition plan, the Party had adh�red to the policies - and policy changes - of Moscow (see Chapter One) ; in 1948 it had been mainly the Soviet Union's support for the establishment of the State of Israel that had prompted the two Communist factions to merge. At tirnes, the allegiance to Moscow persisted even at the expense of popular support; by backing Iraqi President Qassim in his dispute with Nasser, the Party lost three of their six seats in the 1959 Knesset elections. By the time of the 1 965 split, Israel and the Arab states were under mounting tension and the Jewish Cornrnunists, fearing for the safety of their country, strongly resented Soviet alignrnent with the Arab world - a position which, by the sarne token, the Arab faction applauded. The Sneh-Mikunis group declared that 'Moscow's policy in the Arab-Israeli conflict was opportunistic, and despite its Leninist phraseology, based on big power interest. ' 2 5 Departing from the traditional Party line, as well as that of the Vilner-Toubi group, the Jewish Communists became critical of the Soviet Union on more than one level. Particularly open to dispute were (.1 ) the success of M arxist-Leninist ideology as applied to the Soviet Union, (2) Moscow's policy in Czechoslovakia and its rivalry with China, and ( 3 ) the Soviet attitude towards the Jews, quite apart from its part in the Middle East confrontation. The Arab faction of the Party considered the Soviet Union as the ' first home of socialism' and an ally in 'our common struggle for the victory of the high ideas of Marxism­ Leninism' 2 6 and for the unity of the world Co1nmunist movement. The Jewish Party members, on the other hand, were less enthusiastic: . . . a series of democratic freedom is still l1=1cking, in particular in the domain of political, ideological and cultural life, without which real socialist democratisation

62 ..

is i1npossible . . . the incorrect application of the just socialist principle 'to each according to his work' is still . 2 1 . . . d mue cont

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Elaborating on these views in an interview with Haolem Hazeh ( October 9, 1968), Moshe Sneh said that a balanced assessment could only show that 'socialism has still not been realised in either the Soviet Union or any other country belonging to the Socialist camp.'28 The Arab Communists inevitably praised Soviet foreign policy, whether or not concerned with Israel its�lf, as a faithful 29 expression of 'proletarian intemationalism.' In particular, they approved of 'bridling the dangerous activity hostile to socialism within Czechoslovakia and outside . . . Our Communist Party supports the internationalist principle concerning the duty of the socialist countries to defend together the socialist gains in every socialist country.' 3 0 On this issue the Jewish faction took a dia1netrically opposed stand and condemned Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. The Czech writer Ladislav Mujacka visited Israel at the time of the invasion, 'found his way' to the Sneh-Mikunis group and declared that Maki, after many mistakes, at least had found its natural place in Israeli society. 31 During the Sino-Soviet rivalry, the Arab faction identified totally with the Soviet Union. At the post-split Fifteenth Congress, Emile Habibi said: · we supported, through complete conviction and without doubts, the resolutions of the Moscow consultations. We condemned through conviction and we condemn now too the splitting activities of the Chinese leadership which brought great harm to the whole international movement of liberation of the peoples.3 2 •

One of the resolutions of the Arab faction congress was to give ' support to the Soviet Union in its dispute with China.' No mention of the differences between Moscow and Peking was made at the congress of the Jewish faction of the Party 3 3 ; 63

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indeed, the Jewish Co1n1nunists did not align themselves with China against the Soviets. Instead, they refused uncritical endorsement of the Kremlin's foreign policy. Arab and Jewish Cominunists were no closer together in their estimation of the Soviet attitude towards the Jewish people. The forn1er were in complete agreement with Kremlin policy ; the latter demanded a radical change in Communist theory on the matter. Invoking the Middle East conflict, the Six-Day War and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Moshe Sneh said: All these great events have set at naught the shallow theory, originating from as far back as the French Revolution, that progress will bring the Jews eman­ cipation, and consequently assiinilation. Historic reality has proved that the tendency to existence and preservation . of the Jewish particularity and the process of national re­ generation in the historic homeland is incomparably stron­ 34 and absorption. tendency . t o assimilation ger than the . Sneh criticised the Soviet attitude to Zionism which, despite his previous attacks, he now considered as a national movement, and he demanded that the Communists do the sa1ne: I I'

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The Soviet attitude - which completely whitewashes the Arab national movement, inclusive of all reactionary elements found in it, and which presents, as against that, Zionism as an imperialist Nazi monster, has nothing in common with an objective, rational scientific attitude. . . a s

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Arab-Jewish differences within the Communist Party were perhaps most marked in the case of the Soviet Union's stand on the Middle E ast confict, if only because this was the most pressing issue of the day. The Arabs again declared thorough concurrence with Moscow; the Jewish faction, through Sneh, accused the Soviets of misrepresenting the case and failing to work in a spirit of peace: . . . all the socialist states and Communist Parties should 64 •

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have placed the Israeli-Arab dispute in its proper national context and refrained from supporting either side against the other ; instead they should have influenced both sides in the direction of negotiation, mutual agreement and peace. 3 6 He added that if, as they � had charged, the conflict was 'not a clash between nations but a deliberately prepared plot by the most reactionary imperialist forces,'3 7 the Russians could have prevented this. In any case, they had failed to help reduce the tension in the area. If the Arab declarations of a 'war of liberation of Palestine from the Israeli occupation', of 'wiping out Israel', of 'annihilating Israel', had encountered severe condemnation by the diplomacy, the press and radio of the socialist countries, the tension in Israel-Arab relations would never have built up to such dangerous di1nensions in the spring of 1967 . . .3 8 THE SPLIT OCCURS

If these issues contributed to a climate of dissension within the ranks of the Israeli Communist Party, foremost among them was undoubtedly the divergence of opinion on the Arab-Israeli conflict as a whole. As the tension increased and Israeli Jews feared that Israel was threatened with destruction,so each side reached its own interpretation of the conflict. The obscurity of Communist rhetoric, which had, since 1948, covered the Party's ainbiguous stand on the issue, was dispelled. On one side, Israeli Arab supporters of the Conm�1unist Party began to call for a new platform that would reflect the Soviet ·Bloc's increasingly pro-Arab policies. On the other, the Jewish Communists waxed critical of Nasser and the Arab leadership, claiming that the Arab approach, and not that of the Israeli leaders, held out a risk of war. In 1964, Mikunis - one of the strongest critics of the Arab governments - denounced what he described as the 'total negation of Israel' by Algerian President Ahmad Ben Bella. 39 65.

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Ben Bella's approach to the Palestine problem, he claiined, was contrary to the principles he professed and jeopardised the 'vital national interest of the Palestine Arab people as well as that of the I sraeli people. ' It was unthinkable that the President of Algeria should deny his socialist ideal for the sake of attacking Israel. Mikunis went on to distinguish between Israel' s proiinperialist rulers - who should indeed be condemned - and its right to exist as an independent state, which Ben Bella had denied. This chauvinistic concept had been rejected by 'all the consistent forces of peace and socialism, with the Soviet Union in the lead', since 'as a result of specific historical circumstances, Palestine emerged from a wholly Arabic country 0 4 . . . ' bi-national Arab-Jewish one to a Mikunis' article was the subject of violent discussion with the Arab Cormnunists, who only agreed to its publication with much reluctance and as a result of Jewish insistence that it be used to extend the Party's influence a1t1ong the Israeli Jews. The Arab faction saw in this a major concession to the Jewish Conununists at the expense of its own popularity with the Arabs and possibly to its desired rapprochement with the Communist parties of the neighbouring Arab states.4 1 With the exception of this article, however, the official organ of the Party, Kol Ha-'am, retained a semblance of impartiality on the Arab-Israeli conflict - until January, 1965 . However, an article published on March 12 ( 'Doctrines that Are Opposed to the Cause of Peace' ) gave evidence of a change of tone and rebuked Nasser for his policy on I srael: Here is an instance of clear contradiction between a general tendency which serves the interests of peace and indepen­ dence of nations and a particular policy with regard to I srael which is antagonistic to the cause of peace and the right of every people to national and political indepen­ dence. These views were challenged by Nasser's protagonists ainong I sraeli Communists during the discussion that preceded the

66

•

opening of the Fifteenth Congress of the Party. In an attempt to avert an open clash, the Party platfon11 was defined in general terms, although these were soon contradicted by the Jewish leadership. On May 19, Kol Ha- 'am published two sets 2 'Opinion Aleph' and 'Opinion Beth'4 interpretations of identified with Vilner and Toubi on the one hand and Mikunis and Sneh on the other, which served to highlight the gravity of the dispute between the two parties. At the sa1ne time another development was taking place among the Jewish members of the Party. With the escalating tension in the area (brought about by the Israeli plan to divert the Jordan River and the nuclear programme in Dimona), the Jewish Communists sought an end to their isolation from the Jewish community in Israel. With an eye on 'respectability' and their standing with the Jewish community and the Israeli government, their attitude towards Zionism and the authorities beca1ne one of acceptance. 4 3 During the same year of 1965, Moshe Sneh travelled to Eastern Europe on behalf of the Israeli regime with a request for pressure to be put on Syria not to execute the spy Elie Cohen. 4 4 It seems likely that these two processes - the Arab move towards nationalism and the Jewish approach to Zionism and the establishment - went hand in hand, and that the split was a mutual one away from the previous state of apparent unity.4 5 At the last minute before the Fifteenth Congress was due to open, visiting delegates, particularly the Soviet party with the backing of members of the Russian embassy in Israel, forced an agreement to postpone it until after the parliamentary election in November. However, this agreement was denounced and a date was finally set for August 4. The two factions agreed to leave discussion of the disputed issues to a committee elected by the congress. The congress was to be attended by one delegate for every five Party members; total numbers are given in Table Thirteen. The results of the R ainleh area elections for delegates to the congress gave birth to violent altercations between the two factions. Of the cell's thirty-eight members, twenty (al1nost all Arabs) supported Fraction A and prior agreement had been 67

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reached between the Arab and Jewish groups to have equal nuinber of delegates. On the eve of the elections, however, Emile Habibi and other Arab Cormnunist leaders pressured their colleagues to cancel the agreement and vote only for Fraction A as a protest against the exclusive election of Fraction B delegates in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The Ramleh Fraction B, in turn, boycotted the voting and held a separate meeting at which four delegates were chosen. Fraction A proceeded to elect a full complement of eight representatives. 4 6 At a meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee, the members of Fraction A demanded the recognition of their eight Rainleh delegates, and that the Central Cormnittee itself and the Commission of Control also attend the congress. Since twenty-two of the forty-one members of these two bodies were from Fraction A, Fraction B sprang to the defence of its majority. The Central Committee, the Political Bureau and the Secretariat redoubled their efforts to settle the dispute. During the negotiations, Fraction A proposed the forn1ation of branches to elect the Central Cominittee on an equal basis, a proposal rejected by the Jewish group on the grounds that the equality of the opponents in such branches would threaten the Party with paralysis. Fraction B responded with a promise not to exploit the majority it believed it held in the Central Co1mnittee, by not increasing the number of its delegates in the upper echelons of the Party. It suggested the organisation of proportional elections for the Central Committee and the Politburo, but this idea was also turned down. Finally Moshe Sneh proposed that the two fractions part on good terms, and his proposal was accepted. On August 2 the decisions on the split passed at this meeting were made public by the Central Committee. Arrangements had been made to hold the Party congress on August 4 and accordingly it was settled that Fraction B would hold its meetings there on the fourth, fifth and sixth of the month, with Fraction A convening over the following two days . •

68

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An equally constituted Arab-Jewish Communist cornmittee was set up to distribute the Party's property. Meeting of the Mikunis-Sneh group (Fraction B)

·

Taking part in the congress of Fraction B were 226 delegates with executive vote, forty-eight advisers representing thirty-six sections of the Party and many Jewish guests. 4 7 The sessions were opened by Shmuel Litvak, member of the Central Committee and secretary of the Tel Aviv Section, who summarised the events since the 1961 congress. Party Secretary General Shmuel Mikunis then read the report of the Central Committee, beginning with an attack on the Israeli government's domestic and foreign policies. Much of the speech was devoted to the split, clai1ning that the partisans of the Vilnet-Toubi group were opposed to the application of Party policy, to the adaptation of Marxist-Leninist principles, to the changing situation inside and outside Israel and to the tightening of the bonds of internationalism with Israeli patriotism. Mikunis asserted that the agenda for the scrapped Fifteenth Congress had been designed to justify the Arab faction's mixture of bourgeois nationalism and Jewish nihilism. Fraction A's dogmatism, he said, forced it to view Israel as a blow to the anti-imperialist movement; in fact, the State had not been created by imperialists and it was the duty of the Communist Party to defend its right to exist as well as the legal prerogatives of the Israeli Arabs. Speaking later, Moshe Sneh concentrated on the dispute with the Arab faction and described the congress as a turning-point for international Communism, the safety of Israel and the Middle East as a whole. War could - and therefore should be prevented in spite of imperialism and before its destruction. The Arab group had not grasped this new factor, taking a stand opposed to Israel's interests as well as to the principles of Marxism-Leninism, and verged on Peking Communism. For Fraction A, anti-imperialism, rather than their attitude towards I srael or the workers of their countries, was the yardstick with which to measure the stature of Arab leaders. 69

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TABLE 13 Delegates to the Fifteenth Communist Party Congress by Area

Area

•

•

•

Fraction A

Fraction B

Tel Aviv

0

115

Jerusalem

0

16

The South (Ra1nleh exepted)

0

Sharon

2

Shfeila (plain)

14

Haifa

33

Nazareth

89

Harneshoulash (Triangle)

21

Negev

TOTAL •

•

•

10 16 10

5

3

164

. 115

Source: This table and the following minutes of the two congresses are taken from Est et Quest, No. 349 (October 16-31, 1965 ) , pp.1 7-21. Note that the Arab group within the Party was referred to as 'Fraction A' and the Jewish group as 'Fraction B' . •

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The Arab-Israeli conflict, Sneh said, was transitory only in Arab eyes ; for Israel it was potentially disastrous. Sneh went on to affirm that his group would oppose any call for the annihilation of Israel, even if it ca111e from anti-imperialists and Cominunists such as Ulbricht, Chou En-lai or Mao Tse-tung. He firn1ly denounced the reasoning of Fraction A that since both the Party and the Arab leaders stood up for the legal rights of the Palestine people, the Party should support the Arab leaders. Sneh clai111ed that the Arab states could have set up an Arab nation in Palestine in the areas they occupied during the Israeli war of Independence, had they genuinely wished to do so . The statements and decisions of the congress, read on the third day, are su1nmarised below: -The present congress was the only legal congress of the Israeli Comrnunist Party and was alone qualified to take decisions and elect the various Party institutions. -No other party had the right to speak in the naine of the Israeli Communist Party, to exercise its powers or to claim any of its prerogatives. -The congress called on Party members who had joined Fraction A to continue their activities within the Party with all the duties and obligations previously implied. Those institutions elected at this congress would do their utmost to facilitate their comrades' integration µ}to the life of the Party. - 'Arab nationalist deviation' as well as 'Jewish nihilism' would be purged from the Party. -While recommending an interest in the condition of Jews living in the USSR, Fraction B took the unusual step of denouncing the anti-Soviet campaign which generally accompanies sympathy with the Soviet Jews. Having elected the Party's various institutions, the congress of Fraction B concluded with an appeal to its partisans and sympathisers support during the forthcoming parliamentary electoral carr1paign. Meeting of the Vilner-Toubi group (Fraction A) The Arab group's meeting was held in Jaffa on August 6 and

71 '

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ended the next day. More than 220 delegates, including Jews and Arabs, plus a nu1nber of guests, participated. As at Fraction B 's congress, no foreign delegation was invited. Tewfik Toubi opened the sessions with violent criticism of the Jewish group which, he said, was the product of a number of Central Committee members leaving to set up an exclusively Jewish party. Set against the Arab-Israeli structure of the Party, the same members had earlier provoked a crisis within the ranks. He considered that the Mikunis-Sneh faction had revealed its nationalistic tendencies by recognising only a Jewish majority in the Party. Summing up his group's position on the Arab-Israeli conflict, Toubi declared that Israeli recognition of the refugees' rights in accordance with the 1947 United Nations resolution would be sufficient to solve the dispute. He also appeared to require a return to the frontiers fixed in 1947. Meir Vilner presented the report of the Central Committee. Analysing the international and Middle E ast situations, he vigorously attacked the Israeli government and clai111ed that it had failed to solve a single problem. He criticised the Israeli aid extended to developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America as being at the service of ' neo-colonialism.' Energetically, he denied the accusation that Fraction A had deviated in · the direction of Chinese Communism and -re-- emphasised his party's connections with the CPSU rather than Peking - a statement repeated by Emile Habibi and other speakers. Vilner said that his group opposed any denial of Israel's right to exist. Without ignoring the fact that certain Arab leaders contested this right, Maki should act primarily as an Israeli party, paying attention to the internal scene before the negative trends from outside. The Party's own internal situation had developed insufficiently, he said, pointing out that over the past year the circulation of Kol Ha- 'am had dropped by seven per cent at home and thirteen per cent abroad. On the other hand, Al-Ittihad had registered a gain of 4.2 per cent, representing a thirty per cent rise since the 1961 congress. 72

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t

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'

Vilner presented a programine for his party covering the following lines: struggle for peace; support for the struggle for national liberation; liberation from NATO dependence and closer links with the Soviet Union; abolition of the military government, and an end to the expulsion of, and discrimination against, Arab peasants; respect for the principles of democracy ; and alignment with the USSR in its dispute with China. The decisions of the congress reflected Fraction A's view that in the search for an Arab-Israeli peace settlement Israel should first recognise the rights of the Arab people of Israel and, above all, the right of the Arab refugees to choose between return and indemnity. The party declared itself the sole Israeli Communist party, uniquely entitled to represent the aspirations of the Jewish and Arab peoples together for the reason that forty per cent of the Jewish membership had voted in its favour. Added to the Arab 4 8 members - supposedly one third of the total - this support constituted sixty per cent of Maki's strength. In order to stress the bi-national character of the Party and to refute charges that it had an Arab majority, predominance was given to Jews in the Central Committee ( ten Jews for nine Arabs ), in the Central Commission of Control (four to one) and in the Political Bureau (four to three). The two separate congresses of Fractions A and B consecrated the split in the Communist Party of Israel. All future attempts to reunify the Party were to fail - a testament to the deeply-rooted conflicts which were confirmed in 1965. After the meetings, and a court case, the two sides took up their shares of the Party's property. The Sneh-Mikunis group retained the Kol Ha-'am organisation, the central office and all the meeting-places in the Tel Aviv zone. Fraction A kept the Al-lttihad works, all meeting-places in Arab districts, four out of five meeting-places in Haifa and those of Petah Tikva, Bnei Brak and Ramleh.4 9 Fraction B preserved the name of Maki, despite a claim by the Arab group. The latter then demanded to submit its list to the Knesset and Histadrut under the name of ' The Jewish-Arab 73

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Communist Party' (Rakah) ; but it was obliged to be content with the Knesset approved title of 'The New Communist List in Israel. ' CONSEQUENCES OF THE SPLIT

•

The 1965 Knesset elections The elections to the Fifth Knesset, held on November 2, 1965, were the first after the Communist Party split. The Jewish faction took a serious blow in winning only one seat, against the (Arab) New Communist List's three, as opposed to the undivided Party's win of five seats in the 1961 Knesset elections. Antagonism between the two factions led to a reduced overall Communist vote and the loss of one seat. Table Fourteen compares the Communist results in the elections for the Fifth and Sixth Knessets. The drop in Jewish Communist support is significant and appears even more clearly on analysis of the votes obtained by the two groups. Table Fifteen demonstrates that while the Israeli Communist Party (Jewish) recorded a heavy loss, the New Co1nmunist List (Arab ) improved its standing. It can be seen that the Communist Party as a whole lost about 6,000 votes from the Jewish sector and gained about 4,000 from the Arab sector. Separately, the Arab faction won 3,413 Jewish votes, while the Jewish faction scored only 617 ainong Arabs, despite a vigorous Jewish campaign in Arab areas. The success of the New Conrmunist List owed a great deal to a wave of Arab nationalist sentiment among the electorate. During the campaign, Cairo Radio broadcasting to the Arab minority openly urged them to vote for the New List. The Arab faction made much of these calls and published extracts in its organ, A l-lttihad, while the E gyptian radio continued to refer to them in the period before the elections. 5 0 This role of nationalism accords with the immediate reason for the Conununist Party split - the attitude to the Arab-Israeli conflict - and the fact that it occurred along nationalist lines. The pro-Nasser Arab electorate in Israel was

74

bound to welcome the New List, therefore, and approve of its denunciation of the Jewish faction's alignment with the Israeli government.

I

I ,!

The Soviet Union and the two Communist factions The events of August, 1965 concerning the Communist Party of Israel had been followed with much concern in the Kre1nlin. Immediately after the split, the leader of Fraction B had prepared a report on its congress and forwarded it to Communist parties and their newspapers abroad. The results of the elctions for the Sixth Knesset showed that the split had da,naged the movement as a whole, and the leaders of the two factions were su11nnoned to Moscow with reconciliation of the two 'enemy brothers' in mind. Having failed to persuade the groups to send their representatives as one delegation, Moscow invited them separately to a tripartite meeting in December, 1965. Mikunis and Sneh and Vilner. and Toubi met on that occasion with Mikhail Suslov, member of the Praesidiu1n and party secretariat, and Boris Ponomarev, in charge of relations with the Coinmunist parties of non-socialist countries. Each faction explained its position on points of divergence which included the attack on Ben Bella in Kol Ha-'am and the proposed formation of a popular front, both of which had met with Arab Communist objections. At the end of the meeting the Soviet leaders played down the depth of these differences and urged the reunification of the Party within a year. This the Jewish group considered unrealistic, but Fraction A made a series of proposals for unity which included ( 1 ) the creation of a joint conciliation committee, ( 2 ) efforts by the Knesset and Histadrut, ( 3) an end to mutual hostility and ( 4) establishment of a joint editorship of the Party press. .. This attempt was not successful. Moreover, a later initiative through which both factions were represented at the twenty-third congress of the CPSU and signed a joint statement came to nothing, and when Moshe Sneh accused the Arab states of being responsible for the war - an attitude diametrically opposed to the Soviet point of view - he enlarged .

75 -

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TABLE 14 Communist Results in the 1961 and 1965 Knesset Elections Sixth Knesset

Fifth Knesset Votes

Percent

Votes

Seats

Israeli Communist Party (Jewish)

Percent

Seats

13,617

1.1

1

27,413

2.3

3

41,030

3 .4

4

.

4.2

42,111

5

New Communist List (Arab) TOTAL

4.2

42,111

5

Source: Est et Quest, No. 356 (Februai-y 1-15, 1966), p.17.

•

..

1

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I

TABLE 1 5 Jewish and Arab Communist Votes in the 1961 and 1965 Knesset Elections

Fifth Knesset Jewish Votes

Arab Votes

Israeli Communist Party (Jewish) 22,211

Sixth Knesset Jewish Votes

Arab Votes

13,000

617

3,413

24,000

20,000

New Communist List (Arab) Source: Est et Quest, No. 3 56 (February 1-1 5, 1966), p.17.

•

the rift between Maki and the Kremlin which had been opened by pre-war tension. Accordingly, the Soviet leadership announced that Rakah was the truly internationalist party of the two and the only representative of Israel's working class, whereas Sneh charged Moscow with deviation from the policy of non-involvment followed in the conflicts between India and Pakistan and India and China. 5 1 Rakah was recognised by the Soviet Bloc as the officiai Israeli Conm1unist Party in July, 1967 and most other major Communist parties followed suit. Only Rumania and smaller European parties such as those in Holland, Switz�rland and Scandinavia continued to acknowledge Maki.5 2 A ttitudes of Rakah and Maki to the June, 1967 war

On the eve of the third Arab-Israeli war, Rakah was recognised in Moscow, had a ninety per cent Arab majority, but was known in Israel as an electoral list only; Maki, almost purely Jewish, was held by the Israeli governinent to be the sole Communist party in the state. Coming two years after a split prompted largely by the Arab-Israeli conflict, . the June war concl�sively demonstrated the irreconcilable positions of Israel's two Communist parties. Having finallly opted for exclusively Jewish and Arab support respectively, Maki and Rakah felt more free than ever to express their interpretations of the events, and the entire war - causes and consequences alike - was viewed differently by either party. Rakah blained Israel as the instigator: ' The war which was started by the E shkol-Dayan-Begin government is an aggressive war . . . ' 53 while Maki maintained that the Arab states were the aggressors: ' The truth is that Israel has repelled and defeated an aggression which threatened her very existence, and did not attack her neighbours. '5 4 In lipe with their views on the eve of the split, Rakah saw the cause of the war as imperialist designs in the area; M aki accused the Arab states of having joined forces to destroy I srael. In his report to the twenty-first plenary session of Rakah' s 78

central committee on the causes of the war, Meir Vilner clain1ed that America had provoked the war to pave the way for a pro-U.S. govern1nent in Syria. A statement by Sneh, on the other hand, charged Egypt and Syria with plotting the battle against Israel. 55 The alignments of Maki and the Israeli government on the one hand and Rakah with the Soviet Union on the other becaine, with the polarising effects of the war, increasingly clear. Maki adopted government demands for conditional withdrawal from the occupied territories to be matched by modifications of the pre-war frontiers; in an interview, Sneh declared that an unconditional retreat would be 'tantamount to inviting another war. ' Peace was possible while Israel remained 6 5 invincible. Rakah, for its part, gave unconditional support to the U.N. Security Council resolution of November, 1967, and pronounced itself against any territorial annexations, calling for the unanimity of all those with similar views. 5 7 The June war undoubtedly provoked divergences between the two parties over the internal policies of the Israeli government. From this date, for instance, Maki espoused the view that militarisation of the state was essential and in Knesset budget sessions gave its vote for official policy. Rakah, meanwhile, consistently objected to militarisation measures in the budget, American aid and the like. But if the war had triggered a process of national polarisation, this effect was more marked on the Jewish Communist ( Maki) side. After the war Maki did little to conceal either its alignment with the Israeli State or its profound satisfaction at ' acceptance' in the Jewish community. Secretary General Shmuel Mikunis explained with evident relief his strong sense of returning to the Zionist fold after Maki had unreservedly espoused government policy in June, 1967 : . . . our patriotic behaviour has opened for us the heart of the masses of Israel . . . Our position has been . . . considerably reinforced recently as the coming elections will show. I can now attend a workers' rally with my 79

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comrades. We are being applauded by those who despised us before the war. Our compatriots have had the revelation of our faithfulness to the security of our state and of its people. 5 8

•

The 1969/1973 Parliamentary elections The 1969 Parlia111entary elections in Israel were the first to take place after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the conclusion of which saw the Israeli occupation of more Arab land, in the Sinai, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank of Jordan, as well as Gaza. It was not surprising that the climate in Israel was one of political hardening vis-a-vis a Middle East settlement, and party platforms, at least on the Zionist side, reflected a clear tendency towards expansionism and the retention of the newly occupied land. Among other things, the Labour Party official Platform Committee decided: ' The nation will retain the Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip and a considerable part of the Eastern and Southern Sinai Peninsula. ' Security being the key word of Israeli statements during the period that preceded the 1969 elections, the official Platforn1 Corrunittee also said that the Jordan River would remain the 'eastern security border. ' The platfor1n further stated that 'freedom of navigation from Eilath southwards should be guaranteed by the independent forces of Israel, which should control the region of the Straits. ' The Committee · had indicated that ' internal disagreements still existed on several issues, ' a1nong which were the status of the West Bank and, more immediately, the status of the Arab population it contained. While General Dayan had urged Arab economic integration into Israel, other party leaders saw this as the first step toward their eventual absorption and the end of the Jewish state. It is worth noting in this context that objections to Israeli expansionist schemes were only made in so far as these schemes would endanger the Jewish character of the Israeli state, expansion itself being acceptable to the Israeli leadership. The disagreement between Dayan and other party leaders such as Pinhas Sapir and Abba Eban was quickly solved with the Labour Party's adoption of two· electoral platforms. In order to preserve unity within its"ranks, the party

80

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· distinguished between written and oral platforms. Territorial claims were not specified in the written platfor1n, which merely indicated that Israel would not return to the pre-war frontiers and that Jerusalem would remain the capital of the state. The oral platform specified the following: ( 1 ) The Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip would be retained, ( 2 ) a belt including the Gaza Strip and Eilath to the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula would be retained to protect Israel's outlet to the Red Sea which implied the annexation of territories in the Sinai - the extent of which was not specified, and ( 3 ) the Jordan river would remain a security border that no Arab ar1ny would be allowed to cross. The oral platfor1n also provided that borders between Israel and its neighbours were to be deter1nined by agreement with the Arabs at peace talks without prior conditions. Considerations of security and development were to guide the incoming government in the establishment of per1nanent urban and rural Jewish settlements in the territories occupied during the June 1967 war. Thus after ten days of dispute within party ranks, during which Dayan had threatened to for1n a list of his own and had put forward his own candidature for the premiership, a compromise was reached, and Dayan in a televised speech acknowledged that ' the Labour Government offered the best prospects for solving the nu1nerous problems facing Israel.' This compromise was reached when the Labour Party called on the Meir government to decide on the 'perrr1anent' establishment of 'urban and rural' Israeli settlements in the Arab territories which had been occupied by Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, according to ' security requirements' .' The concept of 'pe1·manent' settlements was a concession to General Dayan while the reference to 'security requirements' was a gesture towards Eban, Dayan having asked for 'strategy' requirements. The platform adopted by the Labour party was generally accepted in Israel as government policy since the party was expected to gain more than half the national votes in the October 28 general elections. •

81

In this atmosphere, the two Israeli co1n1nunist parties each waged their own campaigns, and their platfom1s reflected the pos·itions they had expressed after the 1967 war. This war had consecrated Maki's integration into the Zionist fold. As a result it had analysed the war as an aggression on the part of the Arab states, and had voted to retain the occupied land. On the other hand, Rakah, now the New Communist List, had adhered to the United Nations Security Council resolution 242 calling for the withdrawal of Israel from the newly occupied land. Rakah's pro-Arab attitude, especially vis-d-vis the future of the land occupied during the war of 1967, gave it a new impetus with the Israeli Arab voters and the recognition of Arab Communist parties while keeping_ its Jewish membership. The party held its sixteenth Congress in Tel Aviv from January 30 to February 1 , 1 969, and as in all previous congresses, half of the 376 delegates were Jews and half Arabs. One of the French Communist Party delegates, Paul Courtieu, said that 25 delegates of Jewish origin spoke and 18 Arab delegates took part in the discussions. Courtieu told. the PCF weekly, France Nouvelle ( February 19), that the 35 members elected by the Congress to the Central Committee comprised ' 1 9 comrades of Jewish origin and 1 6 of Arab origin'. A message of greeting from the illegal Jordanian Communist Party was described by Courtieu as 'one of the most important and moving moments of the congress,' saying that it was the first ti,ne that such a message had been sent to the Israeli Communist Party. The message hailed the struggle of the Israeli Communists and their 'internationalist attitude' during the June 1967 war, and called for the evacuation of the occupied territories and the recognition of the national rights of the Arab people of Palestine. Courtieu said there was also a message from the Jordanian Communist organisations working in the occupied territories, as well as another from a Jordan Communist 'at present imprisoned in an Israeli gaol.' Soviet party Central Comn1ittee members, Vassiliy Shauro and Vadim Rumyantsev, attended to make it the first official Soviet visit to Israel since the USSR broke off diplomatic relations with Israel following the 1967 war.

82

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TABLE 16 'lbe 1969 and 1973 Municipal election results, by main list

ALL. ELIGIBLE VOTERS VOTED VALID VOTES

28 October 1 969

31 December 1 9 73

1,572,206 1,242,265 1,188,615

1 ,926,234 1,410,681 1,376,936

By Percentage

Alignment Labour Mapam Alignment Israel Workers' List Mapain Mapai Ahdut Ha 'avoda .1 B.G.D. 2 Likud Gahal (Herut-Liberal Block) Free Center State List Herut (Freedom Party) 3 Liberal Party 4 Independent Liberals 5 Moked Communists New Communist List (Rakah) Minorities Lists Other Lists TOTAL

39.9

37.3

14.7

14.5 27.1

24.2 1.8 1.7

4.0

3 .9

0.7 1.0 4.0 8.0

1.0 4.4 11.3

100.0

100.0

0.5

1 ) Because of the various combinations of the components of this list (Mizrahi and Mizrah workers; Aqudat Israel; Aqudat Israel Workers), votes are given as a national total. 2) Likud includes Gahal, Free Center, State List. 3) Until Fourth Knesset - 'General Zionists'. 4) Until Fourth Knesset - 'Progressive Party'. 5) Moked includes Israel Communists and the Thelet Adom movement.

83

TABLE 17 The 1969 and 1973 Results of Elections to the Knesset and Knesset members, by list 28 October 1 969

31 Decem ber 1 9 73

Knesset Results of Knesset members elections mem bers (absolute num bers)

All Egible Voters Voted Valid Votes Alignment Labour Maparn Alignrnent Israel Workers' List Mapam Mapai Ahdut Ha 'avoda Mizrahi and Mirah Worl{ers . Agudat Israel Agudat Israel Workers Likud Gahal Free Center State List Herut Liberal Party Independent Liberals RZ Moked Communists (Maki) New Communist List ( Rakah) Ha Olarn Haze Minorities Lists Other Lists 84

56

1,748,710 1,427,981 1,367,743

2,037,478 1,601,098 1,566,855

Percentages

Percentages

46.2

51

39.6

9. 7 3.2 1.8

10

8.3

5

3.8

•

12

4 2

•

26 2

21.7 1.2 3.1

4

3.2

4

1 3

2 4

Results of elections (absolute numbers)

) )

39

30.2

4

3.6

3

1

1.1 2.8 1 .2 3.6 1.1

2.2 1.4

4

3 .4

3

3.3

I

4.0 II

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The Rakah line was perhaps best described by Secretary General Meir Vilner during an interview with Serge Leyrac (L 'Humanite) April 13, 1971 which was -made during the XXIVth Congress of the CPSU in Moscow where he was leading the Rakah delegation. Speaking of Egypt and Syria, he said that they 'adopted anti-imperialist regimes and have solid friendship links with the Soviet Union,' and added that in these two countries internal transfor1nations had taken place of a progressive character that 'have deep popular roots'. To the question 'What is in this context the policy of the Israeli Communist Party,' Vilner answered: 'Our policy tends to constitute the largest possible front of groups and individuals favourable to the integral implemen­ tation of Security Council Resolution 242, to a peace without annexation, independently from their ideologies and from their appreciation of the six-day war . . . . We fight against anti-Sovietism, the limitations of the freedom of Communists in particular. We oppose, with others, actions against democratic rights, arrests, torture, and destruction in the occupied , areas . . . Rakah' s persistent call for the withdrawal of Israel from the 1967 occupied Arab lands made a profound impression on the Arab vote, and its effects culminated in the 1973 elections, where the substantial number of Arab votes for Rakah increased from 25 to 32 per cent, making it possible for the party to increase its Knesset seats from three to four. In the larger Arab town of Nazareth, Rakah received 59 per cent of the vote, thus causing concern to the Labour Party because leftist support there had been declining. In the September Histadrut voting the Communists received only 25 per cent of Nazareth's votes. Keeping its Jewish-Arab character, although it received the overwhelming majority of its votes from Arabs, Rakah allocated two of its Knesset places to Jewish members of the party. Again in 1973, Rakah' s electoral platform emphasised its call for Israeli withdrawal frm the Arab territories occupied in 1967 and the recognition of the national rights of the Palestinians. Rakah was the only Israeli party to call openly 85

and frankly for a complete withdrawal from all the occupied territories. The 19 7 3 Knesset elections showed the impact of the Arab vote. It is clear that Rakah scored a major success on the Arab popular level. It secured approxi1nately 43,000 Arab votes in 1 97 3 as compared with 29,87 1 in the previous election. There is no doubt that the October 197 3 Arab-Israeli war contributed a great deal in reinforcing the nationalist feelings of the Israeli Arabs. As it did to the rest of the Arab world, this war enhanced their morale and destroyed the myth of the invincibility of the Israeli army. More than that, the growing resistance of the Arabs of the occupied territories gave them more faith in the idea of a new Palestinian state, which, if it did not concern them personally, gave them a feeling of belonging to one's own people. As for Maki, it received only 0. 7 per cent of the Arab vote in 1969, whereas Rakah received over 29 per cent of it. At the 1973 Knesset elections, Maki submitted a joint list ( Moked) with the Thelet Adorn movement. Its electoral platform called 'Peace Plan' was based on the following principles: Egypt: phased settlement, ' a piece of land for a piece of peace, ' i.e. every Israeli withdrawal should be accompanied with an Egyptian peaceful move. The demilitarisation of Sinai was a basic condition for withdrawal. Golan Heights: rectification of borders with the de­ militarisation of a large area. Palestinians : They would get the right to self­ determination, with or without Jordan; every evacuated area would be demilitarised.

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Moked gained no Eighth Knesset, seats with only 22, 147 at the . votes. Maki continued to suffer a number. of setbacks after the 1973 elections. After the death of Moshe Sneh, Mikunis was alone at the lead of the old party. On November 15, 1974 Mikunis, then 71, announced his resignation from the post of Secretary General, saying that he was resigning because of the failure of the party to oppose the Israeli raids against the fedayeen bases

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in Lebanon and government policy in the Arab occupied territories. In June, 1975, Maki rcport,"'peared from the Israeli political scene. Rakah, for its part, continued in its pro-Soviet and pro-Arab line to the point of asking on November 26, 1974, in a joint communiqu� issued in Berlin with the East German Communist Party, for the withdrawal of 'Israeli occupation forces' from the land seized during the 1967 war. The communiqu� went on to call for a 'resumption of the Geneva conference with the shortest delay and the participation of all parties concerned, including the Palestine Liberation Organisation.' •

CONCLUSION

By a study of the Israeli Communist Party, a major conclusion can be drawn: in regions of conflict, a Communist party containing a clash of nationalities within its ranks is bound, ultimately, to divide along nationalistic lines. In the case of Israel, the nationalistic force in question was first and foremost Zionism which, by virtue of its narrow chauvinistic concept, was in inevitable opposition to the internationalism put forward by Marx and Lenin. From the very early years of its existence, if not from the first day of its foundation, therefore, the Party had to attempt the reconciliation of the Jewish national struggle with the wider demands of socialism, for Zionism - a nationalist movement par excellence - looked for a solution to the Jewish question outside the context of the world revolution, ll1 the establishment of a separate Jewish state. In the Soviet Union, Zionists had worked solely for the exodus .of organised Jewish groups, whereas Marx had ruled out the emancipation of the Jews as a separate issue, calling rather for the liberation of European society from capitalism and arguing that the freedom and equality thus achieved would benefit all humanity, Jewish and Gentile alike. Equally, Lenin believed that the assimilation of Jewish communities into Socialist society would bring a solution to the 87

question of the East European Jews. Taken together, the two Communist thinkers advanced views on the Jewish question that differed on first principles with those of the Zionist movement, and it was this fundamental discrepancy that flawed the Communist Party in Palestine when it sought to bridge the gap through 'proletarian Zionism.' As has been demonstrated, the Socialist-Zionist contradic­ tion was evident throughout the various stages of the Party's history, and led inevitably to internal dissension and division. Each split or upset corresponded to incidents with a nationalist background. A measure of stability within the new Israeli State probably due to the Party's officially recognised status and its participation in the Knesset - proved of little strength, and intensification of the Arab-Israeli conflict brought the Communist Party's fragile unity to an end. Again, the major issue behind the split was a nationalist one ; as has been shown, factional rapprochement with national groups or its consequences was behind the division. The split into two distinct nationalist groups ca1ne as a culmination of the contradiction between nationalism and internationalism - a contradiction rendered more acute by the tensions in the area Each faction was tom by conflicting loyalties: to the internationalist principles of Communism, and to national interests. The October 1973 war and its afte1·math changed the two factions. Maki understandably disappeared from the Israeli political scene, having lost its credibility with the Jewish masses while being unable to appeal to the Arab masses of Israel. As for Rakah, which has relied more and more on the Arab vote, the tendency towards relaxation in the Arab-Israeli conflict has given it a new impetus. With peace talks taking place, no matter how slowly, between Arab states and Israel, Rakah has become no more isolated in its views that Israel should remain, and a Palestinian state should be fo1·med. The closer the area moves toward a peaceful settlement the more Arab votes Rakah will presu1nably receive. One danger for Rakah' s future, however, would be the creation in Israel of

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similar groups to itself but with better Jewish support, one such group being the recently formed Ya'ad party. Other dangers exist. Despite the fact that Communist support for the Arab cause significantly adds to Rakah gains a1nong the Arabs, it does not reach the point where the Party can clai1n to represent the Arab community in Israel. Rakah's faithfulness to the Soviet Union and its anxiousness not to lose its legal status in Israel and thus disappear from the parliarnentary scene limit the extent of its support for the Arabs. It has not, for exa1nple, re-exainined its position on the existence of the State of Israel. Never having denied that existence, Rakah is unable to embrace the Palestinian commandoes' cause unless the latter modifies its attitude vis-a-vis its ultimate aim of creating a democratic state of the whole of Palestine. In any case, as things now stand, it is highly unlikely that Rakah can make appreciable progress in the future.

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APPENDIX

Extracts from 'Opinion Aleph' and 'Opinion Beth' OPINION ALEPH

We have taken exception to and we have condemned negative declarations regarding Israel's right to exist, irrespective of their sources. We have taken exception to and we have condemned the support that is being given to the adventurist designs of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Palestine Liberation Army, since we consider their goals a denial of Israel's right to exist and at the same time dainaging to the just cause of the Arab Palestine people. . . While there also exist adventurist circles in the Arab countries which support the idea of a war against Israel, international realities in our part of the world are such that no single state has the strength necessary to launch a war without becoming part of a general imperialist war plot in the Middle East. Even Ben Gurion refrained from starting a war until he becaine involved in the 1956 Franco-British conspiracy against Egypt. . . Every instance of inflation of the issue and its presentation as evidence of a danger of war, as well as all denials of the right of the Palestine Arab people to organise themselves and to fight democratically for their rights may lead to an apology for the government's policy which denies the lawful rights of the Palestine Arab people and, indeed, their very existence. . . The main struggle of our Party, the struggle for a change in Israel's policy, calls for vigilance against the danger of being deceived by the intimidating propaganda of ruling circles and by the artificial inflation of the 'danger of destruction' allegedly implied in the negative pronouncements of Arab leaders . . . •

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There is an ever-present danger of war, and it stems from the imperialist intrigues against the anti-i,nperialist Arab states. Thus the danger is an iinperialist aggression with the assistance of the rulers of Israel. . . We reject the theory that the Israel-Arab dispute is, basically, a conflict of two nationalisms, with each of them refusing to recognise the rights of the other. This theory serves to conceal imperialism's interest in formenting and fanning the conflict. Ojectively, such a theory minimizes the perils of official policy. . . The theory of the ' struggle between nationalisms' leads its authors to consider the anti-imperialist policy as · well as the social changes in some of the Arab states and their struggle for the just rights of the Palestine Arab people to be an Arab nationalist drive for the liquidation of Israel, as if all the policies and struggles of the Arab peoples were directed against Israel. . . True, chauvinist attitudes within the Arab national liberation movement do occasionally come to the fore . . . but these negative phenomena are only temporary difficulties within the Arab movement for national liberation . . . The Arab anti-imperialist movement which is growing into a movement for social liberation is funda1nentally a democratic movement. It is not ' a mixture of progress and reaction' . . . it has within it chauvinists and reactionary forces struggling against the growing progressive forces and pushing· them in the direction of negative and reactionary positions. B ut this is secondary rather than principal, temporary rather than permanent. The negative features of the Arab liberation movement will �adually weaken and disappear. . . In the nationai liberation movement there may be shadows, ups and downs and temporary retreats, but none of these are characteristic of its development. Typical of the development is the establishment of closer ties with the USSR. The progress of the movement for social liberation caused a number of Arab states to embark on the path of non-capitalist development. Non-differentiation between the transitional negative sides and the essential tendency may, in the final analysis, lead to finding fault with the Soviet policy of political and economic support of anti-imperialist Arab states, to finding fault with the 92

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Soviet policy of political and economic support of anti-imperial­ ist Arab states as the United Arab Republic and Algeria. . . OPINION BETH

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While our struggle is directed primarily against the rulers of Israel and their complete disregard for the rights of the Palestine Arab people, it is also incumbent upon us to take a forthright stand against every manifestation of disregard for the rights of Israel, regardless of their source. . . Our opposition to manifestations of Arab chauvinism will not result in any slackening of our principal struggle which is directed against anti-Arab chauvinism and against official Israeli policy . . . Our Party believes that Israel's recognition of the rights of the Arab people will bring about the Arab · countries' recognition of Israel and her rights, and we demand that Israel be the first to recognise the rights of the other; the first, but not the only one. Without recognition by the Arabs of Israel's right to at least exist as a state, there is no possibility whatsoever of negotiating a peace settlement. . . It is, however, irresponsible to obscure the difference between considering imperialism and its Israeli lackeys as the principal threat to peace and considering them the sole threat. Moreover, it is i1·responsible to assert categorically that there is no danger of a war instigated by the Arab states, as ·if anti-imperialism immunised them against starting wars. Besides it is well known that not all of the Arab states are, in fact, anti-imperialist, and also that even those among the Arab states which generally pursue an anti-imperialist policy consider the State of Israel an ' exception' to which the principles of peaceful coexistence and peaceful settlement of disputes do not apply. Finally, at least one neighbouring Arab state, Syria, openly advocates the launching of an aggressive war against Israel in the name of ' the liberation of Palestine' . . . The Party firmly rejects the baseless and insulting claims that its opposition to the slogan of destroying the State of Israel is tantamount to 'being deceived by the intimidating propaganda of Israel's reactionary circles'., that an 'inflation of 93

the danger of destruction', the ' fostering of despair', a1nount to giving aid and comfort to the ruling circles' policy of force, to their arms race and their links with imperialism. The opposite is true. Whenever we take a stand against displays of Arab chauvinism, we also affirm that a change in Israel's policy in the direction of freeing the country from dependence on i1nperialism and a recognition of the rights of the Palestine Arab nation is the surest road to the banishment of hatred and fear. . . The pronouncement by the Arab Communist parties on the Palestine problem points to imperialism as the chief common enemy. It condemns the services rendered to i1nperialism by both Arab and Israeli reactionaries. It warns against the danger of war and against 'provocative aggressive actions' by either side. It calls for a peaceful solution of the problem, one that would satisfy both the Arab people and the people of Israel. It does not shirk from exposing leaders of a Socialist, a Communist party and their disgraceful policies on the Palestine problem, their encouragement of militaristic Arab adventurers to drive Israel into the sea. There is no reason why the Communist party of Israel should not act along parallel lines without any hesitation or doubts. B ut some of our members do not share this view. . . According to the views held by some of the members of our Party, the Communist Party of Israel is not entitled to deal on an international level with matters that directly affect our Party, not even to the extent that other Co1nmunist parties do when they come out in defence of Israel and her rights. This is not internationalism. Indeed, this is a serious misunderstand­ ing of the nature of internationalism. . . A total and enthusiastic identification by the Communists with the an�i-imperialist Arab rulers - and this in spite of their avowed intention to destroy the State of Israel by political or by military means - would . . . drive a wedge between our Party and the people of Israel. . . 1 •

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources Al-Ittihad. Haifa Al Jadid. Haifa Communist Party of Israel, Central Committee, Foreign Relations Department. Information Bulletin. Haifa: Com­ munist Party of Israel, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969. Vilner, Meir. Lecture on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Israeli Communist Party. Tel Aviv: Mimeographed, March 28, 1970. Documents Final Report of the United Nations Economic Survey Mission for the Middle East. Doc. AAC 25 /6. Pt. 1. 1949. Some Remarks Concerning the Left in Israel. Document submitted for discussion ainong the members of the Israeli Socialist Organisation. Tel Aviv: 1967. A Survey of Palestine. vol. II. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine, 1946. United Nations, Permanent Mandates Commission. Fifth Session, Geneva, 1 924. Doc. 733 /103. February 6, 1925. United Nations, Special Committee on Palestine. Report to the General Assembly. Doc. A/364. vol. I. 1947. Interviews

Israeli Socialist Organisation leader, interviewed by Leila S. Kadi. London: 1971. (Extracts of this interview were pub­ lished in Sh 'un Filistiniyya, No. 2 (May, 1971). Beirut: Palestine Research Centre.) Habib Kahwagi, co-founder of the Al-Ard group, interviewed by Dunia Nahas. Beirut: February, 1971. 95

Secondary Sources

Akzin, Benjamin. State and Nation. London: Hutchinson University Library, 1964. Ayoub, Suhail. A l Hizb ash-shuyu 'i fi Suriyya wa Lubnan, 1922-1958. Beirut: Dar al Hurriyya Iii Tiba'a wal Nashr, 1959. Badi, Joseph. The Government of the State of Israel. New York: Twayne, 1963. Baron, Salo W. The Russian Jew under Tsars and Soviets. New York: MacMillan, 1964. ' ' Ben Dan'' ( Porat, Ben, and Dan, Uri). L 'Espion qui venait d'Israel. _ Paris: Fayard, 1967. Ben Porath, Yoran. The Arab Labor Force in Israel Jerusalem: Maurice Falk Institute for Economic Research, 1966. Bernstein, Marver. The Politics of Israel: The First Decade of Statehood. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957. • Bethmann, E.W. Decisive Years in Palestine. New York: American Friends of the Middle East, 1957. Czudnowski, Moshe M., and Landau, Jacob M. The Israeli , Communist Party and the Elections for the Fifth Knesset. Stanford, Conn.: Hoover Institution, 1965. Larwazah, Al Hakam. A sh-Shuyu 'ya A l-Mahalliyah wa Ma 'rakat A l-Arab A l Kawmiyya. 3rd ed. Beirut: : Maktabat Mneimneh, 1963. Degras, Jane, ed. The Communist International, 1919-1943. vol. II and III. London: Oxford University Press, 1956. Deutscher, Isaac. The Non-Jewish Jew. London: Oxford University Press, 1968. Dubnow, Simon M. History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. vol. III. Philadelphia, Pa.: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1964. Eisenstadt, S.W. Israeli Society. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967. Fein, Leonard J. Israel: Politics and People. Rev. ed. of Politics in Israel. Boston: Little, Brown, 1968. Friedmann, Georges. The End of the Jewish People? New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1968. 96

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Hermone, Jacques. La Gauche, Israel et les juifs. Paris: Table Ronde, 1970. Hurewitz, J.C. The Struggle for Palestine. New York: W.W. Norton, 1 950. Jiryis, Sabri. The Arabs in Israel. Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1969. Kadi, Leila S. Arab Summit Conferences and the Palestine Pro blem (1936-1950) (1964-1966). Beirut : Palestine Research Center, 19 6 6 . Kahwagi, Habib. Al- 'Arab Fi Dhul Al-Ihtilal Al-Israili Munzu, 1 948. Beirut: Palestine Research Center, 1972. Kayali, Abdul W ahab Al. Tarikh Falasteen Al Hadith, Beirut: Arab Institute for Studies and Publications, 1970. Kraines, Oscar. Government and Politics in Israel. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961. Landau, Jacob M. The Arabs in Israel. London: Oxford · University Press, 19 6 9 . Laqueur, Walter Z. Communism and Nationalism in the Middle East. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. _ - . The Soviet Union and the Middle East. London: . Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1959. _ - . The Struggle for the Middle East. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961. Leon, Abraha1n. The Jewish Question: A Marxist Inter­ pretation. Mexico City: Ediciones Pioneras, 1950. Lowenthal, Marvin, ed. The Diaries of Theodor HerzL New York: Dial, 1956. McIntyre, Ian. The Proud Doers: Israel after Twenty Years. London: B.B.C. Publications, 1968. Morcous, Elias. Tarikh Al-Ahzab Ash-Shuyu 'yah Fi' Al- Watan A l-Arabi. Beirut: Dar Al-Taliya, 1964. Peretz, Don. The Middle East To-day. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963. Preuss, Walter. The Labor Movement in Israel, Past and Present. Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1965. Sayegh, Raymond. Le Systeme des partis politiques en Israel Beirut: Librarie Samir, 1971. Schwarz, Walter. The Arabs in Israel. Faber and Faber, 1959. 97

Segesvary, Victor. Le realisme Krouchtchevien. Neuchatel, Switzerland: Editions de la Baconniere, 1968. Selig1nan, Lester G. Leadership in a New Nation. New York: Atherton, 1964. Stock, Ernest. From confiict to Understanding. New York: Institute of H111nan Relations Press, 1969. Talinon, J.L. . Destin d'Israel l'Unique et l'UniverseL Paris: Calinann Levy, 1967. Weinstock, Nathan. Le sionisme contre Israel. Paris: Maspero, 1969.

Joumals, Periodicals and Pamphlets

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L 'A rche. Paris. No. 152. Est et Ouest. Bulletin de l'Association d'Etudes et d'lnformations Politiques Internationales. Paris. Facts A bout Israel. Israel: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Information Division. Jerusalem. General Monthly Bulletin of Current Statistics. Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, Jerusalem. vol. XIII, No. 12 ( 1947 ). Israel Horizons. The Israel Weekly Digest. Jerusalem. 1957, 1958. The Jerusalem Post. Tel Aviv. 1968, 1969. Journal of Politics. Gainsville, Fla. vol. XVII ( November, 1957 ).

Midstream. Theodor Herzl Foundation. New York. 1966. New Outlook. Tel Aviv. The Other Israel. Israeli Socialist Organisation. Tel Aviv. 1968. Les Temps Moderns. Special Issue ( 1967 ), ''Le Conflit Israeloarabe''. Paris. The Twentieth Century. London. vol. CL, No. 893 ( 195 1 ). The Zionist Review. Published by the Organ of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. London.

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CHAPTER ONE 1 More precisely, March 1 919. Authorities differ as to the exact date. Marver Bernstein (The Politics of Israel: The First Decade of Statehood, 1 9 5 7 ) traces the foundation of the Party to the early 1920s, whereas Nathan Weinstock (Le sionisme contre Israel, 1969, p.196) puts the date between 1 9 1 9 and 1 920. Walter Laqueur, in Communisam and Nationalism in· the Middle East (1961, p. 73), gives the year 1919 without specifying the month, and adds: ''The small groups which had split away from the Jewish labour parties in Palestine and Eastern Europe (Poale Zion, Workers of Zion) established themselves as a political organisation, at a conference on the Jewish New Year in September, 1920. '' (p. 7 5. ) The author of this study was able to ascertain the correct foundation date by communication with a member of the Israeli Communist Party Politburo who forwarded a mimeographed copy of a lecture delivered in Arabic on March 28, 1 970, by the Secretary General of the Rakah, Meir Vilner, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Party, in which the history of the Party was reviewed for the first time. In point of fact, as noted by Vilner, the anniversary had fallen in 1969, but the pressures of preparing for the Party's Sixteenth Congress and, later, for the Knesset and Histadrut elections had precluded celebration that year. 2 Israel, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Infor1nation Division, Facts About . Israel, 1 964/65, 1965, p. 46. 3 Some Remarks Concerning the Left in Israel. Document submitted for discussion among the members of the Israeli Socialist Organisation, 1967, p. 4. 4 S.M. Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, vol. III, 1 946, p. 6 5-66. 5 Salo W. Baron, The Russian Jew under Tsars and Soviets, 1964, p. 1 7 0. 6 Baron, op. cit. , p. 1 7 1 . It is worth noting, however, that although the Bund pointed out ''national-cultural autonomy'' and claimed a separate organisation of the Jewish proletarian masses within the Bolshevik Party, they saw their struggle hand in hand with the Russian masses and opposed sharply any Zionist idea. Their struggle was in Russia, not in Palestine. Even if there was no place for a separate Jewish organisation, Lenin had said, Jewish masses in Russia, in Ukraini a, h�d their own strongly-developed Yiddish-proletarian culture

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and tradition, which was, in some sense, the legitimate basis for the Bund position. What the Poale Zion and other Zionist groups which came after did, was to misuse this factor for their own, anti-revolutionary ends. 7 Some Remarks Concerning the Left in Israel, p. 5. 8 Meir Vilner, Lecture on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Israeli Communist Party, March 28, 1 970, p. 6. 9 Ibid., p. 7. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. , p. 9. 1 3 Laqueur, op. cit., p. 75, citing ''The Communist Movement in Palestine'', part 1 (in Yiddish), Der Punk (1930). 14 Vilner, op. cit., p. 5. 15 Ibid., p. 9. 16 Ibid., p. 10. 17 Ibid., p. 11. 18 Ibid. · 19 Laqueur, op. cit., p. 7 5. 20 Speaking for the Histadrut Committee, Isaac Ben Zvi justified the rejection in these terms: ''If we had to take up a position on the MPS before this congress, we would have chosen a negative one since the party had been spurned by both left and right �ngs of the Poale Zion . . . We would �ot have allowed it to participate in this congress. ''But the Hebrew Socialist Workers' Party appeared only a few days ago and we knew nothing about it. '' (Vilner, op. cit., p. 12.) 21 Abdul Wahab Al Kayali, Tarikh Falasteen Al Hadith, 1970, p. 174-79. Also, Archives of the Colonial . -Office, London. The exact number of casualties were: Arabs: 48 dead and 7 5 wounded; Jews: 4 7 dead and 146 wounded. 22 Permanent Mandates Commission, Fifth Session, 1 924, February 6, 1 925. 23 Ibid. 24 Nathan Weinstock, op. cit., p. 1 97, and Vilner, op. cit., p. 1 2. 25 For a number of years thereafter the Communist Party was identified with the terin ''the Bloc''. It took part in the elections at the Second Histadrut Congress but failed to win significant support. 26 Vilner, op. cit., p. 13. 27 Laqueur, op. cit., p. 77: 28 Ibid., p. 77-78. This decision went unrevoked for twenty years; it was abolished only in 1 944. 29 Ibid. Furthermore, an article in the Communist International press •

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in 1 9 2 5 characterised Zionism as a movement diverting attention from the oppressed Jews and swaying Arab anti-imperialist resentment against the Jewish community. (Jane Degras, ed. , The Com munist International, 1 91 9-1 943. vol. II, 195 6, p. 187 .) 3 0 . Of the 36,0 00 imm igrants to Palestine in 1925 ' most were lower class ; few pio neers. The Palestinian economy did not flourish as expe cted and real estate speculation in the cities gave rise to an artificial prosperity which was to lead to the crash. (Laqueur, op. cit., p. 7 8 . ) 31 Ibid. , p. 7 9 . 32 Ibid., p. 83 . by the Exec utive Committee of the Communist take n ion reso lut A 3 3 • International on October 1 9 , 1929 linked the riots to the nationalist agitation which _was taking place in neighbouring countries. In this of the International attempted to demonstrate leaders the ment docu masses was Arab the an expression of ''the struggle of uprising the that between imperialism and the working masses of the colonial . ', countries . It also contained strong criticism of the ' 'defects of the Party'' which includ ed the failure to ' 'notice that the religious national conflict was turning into a general national anti-imperialist peasant action''. In the same spirit, Party leaders were bitterly reproached for their failure to establish contact with the Arab masses in general and the peasantry in part icular. The reso lutio n attributed the ''deficiencies and errors'' of the Party to the lack of a coherent policy of Arabisation. (Degras, ) . 2 . p l, Il 8 l. o v ., it c . p o 3 4 L a q u eu r, op. c it ., p . 8 5 . 35 Ibid., p . 8 7 - 88. 36 The entente reached by the Communists and the Arab nationalists led to strong c1·iticism of the Communist line in the Zionist press. In an article written in 1935 by Joseph Cohen and published in the Zionist Review under the significant title of ''The Communist Challenge and a Zionist Reply '', the Commu nists were branded as ''enemies of Zioni sm . . . Jewis h Comm unists are so incensed that they are filled with a desire to destroy Zionism and all its works. They do not scruple in using every possible metl1od, fair and unfair, to harm the Movement . . . In Palestine they unite with the Arab Effendis to stir up Arab nationalistic sentiment against the Jews . . . Communism is not interes ted in the Jewish positio n as such. The Jews are not an end in them selves but the m eans to an end . . . '' (Joseph Cohen, ''The Comm unist Chall enge and a Zionist Reply'', The Zionist Review, N.S . II, No s. 6 and 7 [ Au gust-September, 1 93 6 ] , p. 91. ) 37 Laqueur, op. cit., p . 89. 3 8 Nakhman Listvinski, a Jewish Communist, was asked to attend a congress in Beirut, at which h e advised the Syrian Communists to .

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change their attitude to nati_onal parties and groups in Syria and Lebanon ; these, he said, should be violently opposed. (Suhail Ayoub, Al Hizb ashshuyu 'i fi Suriyya wa Lubnan, 1922-1 958, 1 969, p. 76-77, citing Al-Jamahir, No. 36 [July 1 6, 1 9 59 ] . ) 39 Ibid., p. 78. 40 Laqueur, op. cit., p. 96-97, citing Party Executive leaflet, (November, 1936). 41 Weinstock, op. cit., p. 199. 42 Mark Alexander, ''Communist Strategy in the Middle East'', The Twentieth Century, vol. CL, No. 893 (November, 1 9 6 1 ), p. 3 96. Nassar was arrested by the British authorities in 1 938 but later escaped with 'Uda to Iraq. Ip August 1951, he was app9inted secretary general of the Communist Party of Jordan. Whether Mohammad Ni1nr 'Uda was a party Jnember is still not clear today. He was with the Party and worked with it but because of his known strong nationalistic tendences there was a fear to make him a member. 43 E.W. Bethmann, Decisive Years in Palestine, 1 9 57, p. 22. 44 Laqueur, op. cit., p. 99. 45 The same line, however, later led to another major crisis in Communist ranks and in 1 940 the ''Jewish Section'' broke away after violent criticism of both Arabisation and the rapproachement with Arab nationalist leaders. The split was resolved two years afterwards . • (Weinstock, op. cit., p. 21 7.) 46 Laqueur, op. cit., p. 1 01, citing The Communist Party Executive on the Dissolution of the ''Jewish Section '' (in Hebrew), 1 939. 47 Weinstock, op. cit., p. 218.

Ibid. J.C. Hurewits, The Struggle for Palestine, 1 9 5 0, p. 1 22. Ibid., p. 33. Ibid., p. 188. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 203. Later, in April 194 5, a secessionist group founded the '' Communist Educational Association'' which for the first time granted Communist recognition to the Jewish National Home and supported the principle of unlimited Jewish immigration. This group was to rejoin the Mikunis-Vilner Communist Party ranks in 1 948, while maintaining certain contacts with the Stern Gang. It was expelled in 1 949 after a political hold-up and some of its members joined Mapam. (Ibid.,

48 49 50 51 52 . 53 54 55

p. 208. ) 56 Weinstock, op. cit., p. 218.

57 Palestine Government, Jerusalem, A Survey of Palestine, vol. II,

1 946, p. 960-61. 58 Victor Segesvary, Le realisme Khrouchtchevien, 1 968, p. 169.

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69 Ayoub, op. cit., ·p� 1 67, citing Sawt Ash Sha 'ab, No. 1449 (July 27 and 28, 1 947). 60 Vilner, op. cit., p. 1 8. CHAPTER TWO

1 Moshe M. Czudnowski and Jacob M. Landau, The Israeli Communist Party and the Elections for the Fifth Knesset, 1 961, 1966, p. 14. 2 Mark Alexander, op. cit., p. 397. 3 Laqueur, op. cit., p. 1 1 8. 4 Czudnowski and Landau, op. cit., p. 15. On page 96, footnote 19, the authors refer to the source of this information-ha-Ve ' ida ha-arba' 'esre, p. 1 22-and remark: ''It is impossible to verify this information,

but it appears plausible compared to what one knows about the composition of the party and the structure of its committees''. 6 Laqueur, op. cit., p. 1 18. 6 Czudnowski and Landau, op. cit., p. 17. 7 Maki's Jewish strength in 1961 (74.3%) less those Jews who had joined before the creation of the State (16.2% or less) equals 68. 1 % or more. 8 According to the census of May, 1961, the total Jewish population stood at 1 , 9 2 3 , 3 57 of which 880,679 had immigrated since the establishment of the State. (Ibid., p. 95, footnote 22.) 9 Ibid., p. 95, footnote 23. 10 Ibid., p. 1 8, citing Kol Ha-'a m (May 29, 1 961). 11 Laqueur, op. cit., p. 3 25, footnote 60. 12 The creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent consolidation of Jewish rule led to drastic changes in Arab society. Jiryis points out that the Arab masses found themselves without leaders for the simple reason that the traditional notables-capital owners, members of the liberal professions and the educated class­ had left the country. ( Sabri Jiryis, The Arabs in Israel, 1968, p. 121.) 13 Czudnowski and Landau, op. cit., p. 19. 14 Ibid., p. 1 6. 1 6 General A'lonthly Bulletin of Current Statistics, Government of Palestine, vol. XII, No. 1 2 (December, 1947), p. 686. These figures refer to March, 1 94 7 ; in December of the same year the Arab population was 1 , 3 88,000 (Final Report of the United Nations Econo mic Survey Mission for the Middle East, Doc. AAC. 26/6, Pt. I, 1 949, p. 2 2. 1 6 These are adjustments of earlier figures given in the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, Report to the General Assembly, Doc, A/ 364, vol. I, 1 94 7 , p. 64, which were, in turn, arrived at by the same estimation techniques as used by the Palestine government; these

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figures are also based on Facts About Israel, 1 964/65, p. 4 6 . 17 During the British Mandate the ''Triangle '' denoted an area in the district of Samaria, enclosing Nablus, Tulkarm and Jenin. Despite its inhabitants' successful resistance to the entry of Israeli forces during the 1 94 8 war, half the Triangle was annexed by Israel under the Rhodes Agreement of 1949. Named ''Little Triangle'' by the Israelis, it lies about twenty-five miles east of Tel Aviv on the Jordanian border. (Jiryis, op. cit., p. 1 , footnote 1 . ) 18 The massacre occurred on October 29, 1 9 56, leaving dead forty-nine Arab citizens of Kafr Qassim, in the Triangle. (Jiryis, op. cit., p. 91-1 1 8. ) 19 ISO leader interviewed in London, January, 1 9 7 1 . Speaking of the foundation o f the ISO, he said : ''The group was formed in the autumn of 1 9 6 2. Looking back on it, this seems to b e just a part of a process that went on all over the world at that time which is a sort of revival of the left by people who, in various countries, became disillusioned with the Communist parties because of their unrevolutionary character . . . ''On the whole, ISO was founded by people who were either members of the Communist Party, or supporters of it, in addition to some people who were not organised or supporting the party at that time. ' ' 20 ''Excerpts from the Report o f the Central Committee to the XV congress of the CPI. ' ' Communist Party of Israel, Central Committee, Foreign Relations Department, Information Bulletin, special issue ( October, 1 9 6 5 ), p. 16. 21 · Al-Jadid (October-November, 1 95 6 ), p. 4-8. 22 Landau, op. cit., p. 92. 23 Al-Jadid (December, 1 9 5 5 ). 24 For this and the four subsequent sections on the Knesset elections, see the appropriate tables ( Four, Five, Six, Seven and Ten). 25 Benjamin Akzin, ''The Role of Parties in Israeli Democracy'', Journal of Politics, vol. XVII (Novem.ber, 1 9 5 7 ), p. 5 0 7 . 26 Landau, op. cit. , p. 1 09, citing•Kol Ha- 'am (December 1 0 and 1 3, 1 9 5 8 ). 27 Akzin, op. cit., p . 5 0 7 . 28 Landau, op. cit., p. 1 1 4 . 29 Ibid. 30 This promise was never fulfilled. 31 New Outlook, vol. III, No. 3 ( 2 5 ) (January, 19 6 0 ), p. 24. 32 Information in this section is taken largely from an interview held by the author of this study with Habib Kahwagi, a founder of Al-Ard, in Beirut, February 1 9 7 1 . Additional material is derived from Landau, op. cit., p. 9 2-107. 33 The Law o f Citizenship, enacted by the Knesset on April 1 , 1 9 5 2, was opposed by Arabs because it granted automatic citizenship to a

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Jew, provided only that he had been born in Palestine or Israe1, or had immigrated before July 14, 1962. Arabs, by contrast, were obliged to fulfil additional requirements such as furnishing documentary evidence of P�estinian nationality or previous residence in Israel, or compliance of Inhabitants Ordinance; some Arabs possessed with the Registration • no such documents. ( Oscar Kraines, Government and Politics in Israel, 1961, p. 170.) 34 Some Rema rks conce rning the Left in Israel, p. 7. 35 Laqueur, op. cit., p. 1 1 8-1 9. • 36 Laqueur, op. ci t., p . 1 1 5. 37 Ibid. 38 Information on the ISO included here is based on the interview cited in note 19, this chapter. CHAPTER THREE

1 Czudnowski an d Landau, op. cit., p. 4 . 2 Israeli Weekly Digest (February 20, 1958), p. 4. Kraines (op. cit., •

p. 7 3 ) suggests that the union of Egypt and Syria as the United Arab Republic had stirred up the Israeli Arabs to the extent that Communist Party leaders were ''suggesting the possibility of an independent Arab Galilee to be linked with the new Arab State.'' It should also be noted that Habibi 's views were shared by at least some other members of the Party. In 1957 Tewfik Toubi also an Arab Communist Knesset deptlty, had addressed Arab villagers and urged them ''to disobey the police and not be afraid of the State of Israel because is is only a passing phenomenon. '' (Israel Weekly Digest [ November 14, 1 9 57 ] , p. 3 . ) 3 Bernstein, op. cit., p. 69. 4 This nationalism was evident to several outside commentators. The French writer Robert Mizrahi noted that ''many people think the Israeli Arabs, or at least the educated Israeli Arabs, are less inclined to Pan-Arabist feelings than the Arab masses. in Egypt or Syria because they enjoy the benefits of living standards which are far higher than in surrounding countries' ' but confessed his surprise that ''many Arab intellectuals in Israel feel quite strongly about the matter.'' (New Outlook, vol. VII, No. 6(64) [July-August, 1964 ] , p. 43. ) In this context, it is significant that Arab Communists have traditionally been regarded as members, even leaders, of the Israeli Arab intelligentsia. Amos Kenan writes to this effect: '' • . . the New Communists ( Rakah ) are the only Arab, non-Zionist party. That is the reason most outstanding Arab writers are New Communists.'' (New Outlook, vol. IV, No. 1 ( 1 2 0 ) [January-February, 1971] , p. 19-20.) 5 Maurice Friedberg, ' 'The Split in Israel's Communist Party '',

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Midstream (February, 1 966), p. 22. 6 Ibid., p. 23-24. 7 lnformatir;,n Bulletin (October, 1 968), p. 27. 8 The Jerusalem Post (January 7, 1 969), p. 7. 9 Information Bulletin, special issue (October, 1 965), p. 50. 10 The same divergence of opinion was to recur after the June 1967 war in the context of withdrawal and recognition. (See below) 11 Information Bulletin, special issue (October, 1965j), p. 23. 12 Al-Ittihad (May 27, 1966). 13 Information Bulletin (June, 1 969), p. 28, citing an interview • with Meir Vilner by th� Cuban Information Agency at a press· conference given by the delegation of Israeli Communist Parties while attending the Consultative Meeting in Moscow, June 9, 1969. 14 Landau, op. cit., p. 88. 15 S.N. Eisenstadt, Israeli Society, 1 967, p. 404, citing A. Mansour, ''The Modem Encounter between Jews and Arabs'', New Outlook, vol. V, No. 3 (1962), p. 59-63. 16 Friedberg, op. cit., p. 24. 17 Ibid., p. 23. 18 Information Bulletin (February, 1 968), p. 1 0. 19 Information Bulletin (October, 1 968), p. 36, citing interview interview with Moshe Srieh in Haolam Hazeh (October 9, 1968). · 20 The Jerusalem Post (January 21, 1 968). 21 Est et Ouest, No. 349 (October 1 6-31, 1965), p. 20. 22 Ibid., p. 1 8. 23 Est et Ouest, No. 356 (February 1-1 5, 1 966), p. 1 9. 24 Ibid. However, this view was opposed by the Kremlin leaders who, in this matter, were closer to the Mikunis-Sneh group. 25 Walter Z. Lacqueur, The Struggle for the Middle East, 1 969, p. 165. 26 Toubi's opening speech to the first session of the Fifteenth Congress, held after the split. (Information Bulletin, Special issue [October, 196 6 ] , p. 12). 27 Ibid. ( October, 1968), p. 21, citing lecture ''On the Problems of Communism, Democracy and the Jewish People'' in Kol Ha- 'am (August, 1968). 28 Ibid. (October, 1968), p. 35. 29 Ibid. (October-November, 1967), p. 1 0. 30 Ibid. (August, 1968), p. 2-3. 31 Al-Ittihad (June 14, 196 8). Although reported by the Arab faction, this information is in all probability accurate; a number of Israeli Jews at the time had been accused of fomenting the anti-Soviet revolt in Czechoslovakia. 32 Information Bulletin, special issue (October, 1 96 5 ), p. 39-40. 33 Est et Ouest, No. 349 (October 1 6-3 1, 1 96 5 ), p. 1 9.

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34 Information Bulletin (October, 1968, p. 35-6, citing interview • with Moshe Sneh in Haolem Hazeh (October 9, 1968). 36 Ibid., p. 36. Sneh 's views reflect nationalist thinking and the rapprochement with the Zionist parties. Neither was this his first change of heart ; as pointed out earlier, he had originally been a Zionist militant and had taken part in the founding of the Haganah. 36 Moshe Sneh, ''From the Anti-Imperialist Viewpoint'', New Outlook, vol. 11, No. 1 (94) (January, 1968), p. 20. 37 ''For the Just Cause of the Arab Peoples'', Asia and Africa Today (October, 1 967). 38 Moshe Sneh, op. cit., p. 361-62. 1 39 Speech by Ben Bella on August 13, 1964 in the People's Palace in Algiers on the occasion of his receiving the Lenin International Prize for strengthening peace between nations. 40 New Outlook, vol. VII, No. 9 (67) (November-December, 1964), p. 76-78. 4 1 Est et Ouest, No. 349 (October 16-31, 1965 ), p. 20. 4 2 See Appendix. 43 Weinstock, op. cit., p. 361-62. 44 ''Ben Dan'' (Ben Porat and Uri Dan), L'Espion qui venait d 'lsrael, 1 967, p. 255. 4 6 In a special study supplied by the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the split is ascribed for the most part to the Arab Communists' radicalism and their support for the Egyptian leadership in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Discussing the split, Laqueur (The Struggle for the Middle East, pp. _ 1 65-7 ) also makes no specific mention of any move by Jewish members towards Zionism. The author of this study nevertheless concludes that the split represented mutual and equal · divergence. 46 The Arab faction gave a different account of the dispute, with Tewfik Toubi accusing the Mikunis-Sneh �oup leaders of having created it ''artificially''. He claimed that they had expelled three members of the Ramleh branch local committee and, by virtue of their majority on the committee reduced them to candidate members, aiming to change the branch's balance of forces. (Information Bulletin, special iss�e (October, 1965) , p. 6--7.) 47 Following a decision of the Central Committee taken before the split, no foreign delegation - not even the diplomatic representatives of East Europe in Israel - had been invited. 48 The two factions are in fact generally estimated to have had equal memberships. 49 Est et Ouest, No. 349 (October 16-31), p. 21. 50 Est et Ouest, No. 3 5 6 (February 1-16, 1966 ), p. 17. 61 Laqueur, The ·Struggle for the Middle East, p.166, citing Kommunist, No. 1 1 (July, 1967) and Pravda (August 8, 1967 ). •

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52 Ibid. 53 Ibid., p. 256-57, citing the decisions of the Communist Party Central Committee (16th session), June 22, 1 967. 54 Ibid., p. 262, citing Moshe Sneh, ''From Victory in a War of Defence to a Durable and Just Peace'', Kol Ha-'am (June 30, 1967). 65 Ibid. 56 New Outlook, vol. XI, No. 1 (94) (January, 1968), p. 52. 57 L 'Humanite, (April 13, 1 967 ). 58 Le Monde, (November 8, 1967).

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APPENDIX

1 Friedberg, ''The Split in Israel's Communist Party'', op. cit., p. 19-25

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108

INDEX Acre, Arabs in, 33, 49 Afula incident, 18-19 Ahdut Ha'avoda (Socialist Zionist Union of the Workers of the Land of Israel), 1 3 , 14, 15 Al-Ard group, 9, 49-51, 52 Al Fahoum, Taber, 49 Algeria, 34, 93 Al-Hamishmar, 5 2 Al Husaini, Haj Amin, 19, 22 Al-Ittihad, 24, 72, 73, 74; and discrimination, 34; and Popular Front, 50, 51 Al-Jadid, 34, 51 Allah, Khaled Awn, 49 Al-Manshiyah, 1 7

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41, 50-1, 56, 67, 69, 7 1 ; and Rakah, 60, 7 4; and Suez War, 34; and Zionism, 67, 69-61 Arab Public -Committee for Protection of Imprisoned and Exiled, 50 Arab revolts, 21-3, 33, 66 Arab Workers' Society, 25 Arabic language, in Israeli schools, 59 Arabisation, of PCP, 19-23, 33, 66 Arabs: and equa:lity of rights, 40, 49, 68; intellectuals, 34, 39; and Israeli Communist Party, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34 35, 39, 40, 41; and Israeli policy, 4 1 ; proletariat, 1 6, 21, 23, 24, 33; refugees, 32, 39, 41, 72, 7 3 ; students, 34-5; teachers, 32, 34 Assefat Hanivharim, 20 Association for the Promotion .of Trade (with USSR), 31 Averbalk, Wolf, 18

Annual Supplement of the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia, 27 Anti-semitism, 1 5, 5 3 Arab Anti-Fascist league, 24 Arab Communists: and Arab nationalism, 2 5, 59-60; and Israeli state, 2 6 ; and labour movement, 24; and Maki, 39, 56, 66; and partition, 2 5 ; and Rakah, 82; and Second World War, 2 3 ; and Soviet Union, 63, 7 6 ; and Zionism, 25, 60 Arab Conference, Seventh, 19 Arab Front (later Popular Front), 50-1 Arab Higher Committee, 21 Arab-Israeli conflict, and ICP split, 74, 88 Arab-Israeli wars: 1948, 3 6 ; June 1967, 7 8, 8 1 , 82, 8 7 ; October 1 9 7 3 , 86, 88 Arab Labour Movement, 23, 24 Arab land, appropriation, 49 Arab nationalism: and Arab­ Israeli conflict, 86; 1 8 , 19, 20, Communists and, · 2 2 , 56, 60; and Maki, 35, 39,

Balfour Declaration, 2 2 Barius (Progress), 15 Bedouins, 18, 29, 39 Beersheba, 33 Ben Bella, Ahmad, 6 5-6, 7 6 Ben Gurion, David, 63, 91 Beyoya, Hanoch, 22 Biltmore Program, 24 Binationalism, advocated for Palestine, 26 Bnei Brak, 7 3 Bolshevism, 14, 15 Borochov, Ber, inverted pyramid concept, 12-13, 16 Boulos, Boulos, 49 British Administration in Pales.tine : and Communists, 33; and MPS, 1 7 Bulgaria, and Maki/Mapam, 52 Bund, 11-13

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Chamberlain, Neville, 23 China: Maki and, 72, 73; and Soviet Union, 62, 63, 64, 78 Chinese Communism, 69, 72 Chou En-lai, 7 1 Cohen, Elie, 67 Colonial Office, war policy, 23-4 Committee for the Defence of Children, 31 Committee for the Defence of the Interests of Shoemakers, 32 Communist International (Comintern): and Arabisation, 20, 33; dissolved, 24; MPS and, 17; PCP membership, ·18 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), 72, 75, 85 Courtieu, Paul, 8 2 Czechoslovakia: Arab Communists and, 63; Jewish Communists and, 62, 64; Mapam and, 52, 53 Czudnowski, Moshe M., 27, 29 Daladier, Edouard, 23 Dayan, Moshe, 80, 81 Democratic List of Nazareth, 35 Democratic Teachers' Organisation, 32 , Democratic Women s Organisation, 31 Dimona, nuclear programme, 67 East German Communist Party, and Rak ah, 8 7 Eban, Abba, 80, 81 Egypt: and Arab-Israeli conflict, 79; Maki and, 41, 86; and Soviet Union, 85; Suez victory, 34; union with Syria, 34 Eilath, Israeli occupation, 80, 8 1 el Khazen, Shukri, 49 Farah, Rafik, 49 Federation of (Arab ) Trade Unions and Labour Societies, 23, 24 Fellaheen, 1 8, 19, 20, 22

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First World War, Palestine Socialists' attitude, 14 Forward (fla al-Aman), 20 France: Co1n1nunist party, 82; Maki ahd, 34 France Nouvelle, 82 Galilee, Arabs in, 33 Gaza Strip: Arab refugees in, 32; Israeli occupation, 80, 8 1 General Trade Union, 1 7 General Zionists, 56 Geneva conference, on Middle • East, 87 Golan Heights: Israeli occupation, 80, 8 1 ; and Maki plan, 86 Habibi, Emil: and Arab nationalism, 60, 5 1, 55, 68; Maki candidate, 39; and recognition of Israel, 68; and Sino-Soviet rivalry, 63, 72 Haganah, 56 Haifa: Arabs in, 23, 24, 33, 73; MPS Congress in, 16; Maki formed in, 2 5 Haolem Hazeh, 63 ha-Ve ' ida ha-arba ''esre, 28, 29, 30 Hebrew schools in Israel, 31, 69 Histadrut: Communists and, 26, 86; constructionist policy, 34; founded, 16; MPS and, 1 5, 1 7 ; Maki and, 29, 75; Rakah and, 73-4 Hitler, Adolf, 23 Holland, Communist Party, 78 Hungary, Maki/Mapam and, 6 2 lraq, 23, 40 Israel: aid to developing countries, 72; Arab policy, 39, 41, 49, 67-8, 91-3; law of citizenship, 49; Maki and, 79; parliamentary elections, 3 5, 80-7 ; racist tendencies, 54, 56; and Soviet Union, 33, 52, 6 2, 82; and Zionism, 54, 56, 60

Jewish National Fund, 18 Jewish National Home, 25 Jewish nationalism, growth of, 11-12 Jewish Workers' Council, 19 Jews, Eastern European, 11, 16, 88; and Israeli citizenship, 56; social structure, 13 Jezreel, Valley of, 18 Jordan, Arab refugees in, 3 2 ; Communist Party, 82; and Maki plan, 86 Jordan, ,River, 67, 81; West Bank, 80

Israeli Communist Party (Maki): and Al-Ard, 49-51, 52; and Arab-Israeli conflict, 78-80, 86; disappearance, 87, 88; formed, 25; front organisations, 49; institutions, 81-2; and Israeli Arabs, 82-5, 39-41, 49, 50, 86; and ICP split, 5 5-90; and Israeli state, 79; and Israeli Socialist Organisation, 58-4; and Knesset elections, 86-49, 86; and Mapam. 52-8; membership and composition, 27-8 1 ; and Moked, 86; and Nasser-Qassim dispute, 40, 41, 50; policy, 40; and Soviet Union, 84, 52, 68, 62; and Suez War, 84; and Zionism, 6 1-2, 64, 8 2 Israeli Labour Party, 80-1, 85 Israeli Socialist Organisation (ISO), 34 , 53 -4 lstiqlal Party, 20, 21

KPP, 17, 18

Kafr Qassim massacre, 34, 41 Khoury, Fuad, 50 Knesset: First (1949), 3 6, 39, 66; Second (19&1 ), 39-40; Third (1965), 40; Fourth (1959), 40-1, 61, 62; Fifth (1961), 27, 41, 49, 74-6; Sixth (1965 ), 7 4, 7 6; Seventh (1969), 86; Eighth (1 973), 86; Maki and, 79, 86, 88; Rakah and, 7 3-4, 86, 86 Kol Ha-�m, 66, 67, 72, 73, 76 Koussa, Elias, 49, 60 Kremer, Arlcady, 11-12

Jabbour, 5 0 Jaffa, 23, 24, 3 0, 7 1 ; Arabs in, 33; May Day riots, 1 7 Jerusalem, 1 9, 23, 24, 8 1 ; Arabs in, 23, 24, 3 3 ; Communist Parties in, 58, 68 Jewish Agency, 62, 56 Jewish Communists: and Arab­ Israeli conflict, 6 6 ; and Jewish immigration, 25, 6 0 ; and Maki, 26, 3 0 ; and Palestine Communist Party, 2 6 ; and Second World War, 23, 24; and Soviet Union, 63, 6 4 ; and Zionism, 24, 26, 60, . 61, 67 Jewish emigration, 1 3 , 19 Jewish immigration: and Arab­ Israeli conflict, 32, 8 6 ; Arabs and, 2 1 ; Jewish Communists and, 2 6 ; MPS and, 1 6 ; and Maki, 28, 29, 30, 31 ; White Paper, 22, 2 5 ; Zionism and, 1 6 Jewish labour movement, 1 1

Landau, Jacob M., 27, 29 Law of Return, 56 League for the Defence of Arab Minority, 32 League of National Liberation, 24-6, 39 Lebanon : Arab refugees in, 32; Communists, 21 ; fedayeen bases, 86-7 Left Socialist Party, 63 Lenin, V.I., and Jewish question, 12, 13, 8 7-8 Leyrac, Serge, 86 L 'Humanite, 86 Litvak, Shmuel, 69 Lydda, Arabs in, 33

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Mao Tse-tung, 71 Mapai: Arab Lists alliance, 35, 39, 40; and Mapam, 53, 6 1 Mapam, 40, 52, 53, 61 Marx, Karl, and Jewish question, 87-8 Marxism-Leninism, and Israeli Communism, 61, 62, 69, 87 Meir, Golda, 81 Meirson, Yaakov, 1 5-16 Mifleguet Poalim Socialistim (MPS) (Socialist Workers' • Party), 13, 14-1 5, 1 7, 1 8 Mikunis, Schmuel: and Israeli state, 65-6; and Maki, 31, 40, 72, 86; and oil companies, 57; and Soviet Union, 62, 75; and Zionism, 60, 79-80 Moked, 86 Movement of Arab Farmers against Robbery of the Lands, 49 Movement of Intellectuals for the Defence of Democracy, 49 Movement o f Workers and Farmers against Rising Prices and for a Rise in Salaries, 49 Mujacka, Ladislav, 63 Nakkara, Hanna, 50 Nassar, Fuad, 22 Nasser, Gamal Abdel: dispute with Wassim, 40, 41, 50, 62; Israeli Communists and, 49, 59, 65, 66-7; and Soviet Union, 28, 33, 49, 5 1 , 52, 56; and Syrian Communists, 50 Nazareth, 24, 33, 35, 49, 8 5 ; Maki in, 30, 31, 40, 50 Negev, 29, 33 New Communist List, 27, 74, 75, 82. See also Rakah North Atlantic Treaty • Organisation (NATO), 73

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Oil, and Middle East conflict, 57, 5 8 Opinion Aleph, 67, 91-3 Opinion Beth, 67, 93-4 Oren, M., 5 3 · Palestine : Arab revolt, 56; Britain and, 17, 22, 33; and partition, 2·2 , 25, 62; population, 3 2 ; Zionists in, 13, 1 5 Palestine Arab Workers ' Society, 23, 24-5 Palestine Communist Party (PCP), 1 3-14, 1 5 ; Arabs and, 19-23; and Comintern, 18, 20; Jews and, 25, 27 ; and Second World War, 23: and Zionism, 1 8, 1 9, 25 Palestine Liberation Organisation (and Army), 87, -� 1 Palestinians, and Maki plan, 86 .. Pan-Arab Conference (1 937), 22 Peel Commission, 22 Petah Tikva, 73 Poale Zion, 1 2-13, 14, 1 5, 18 Poland, Maki and, 52; Zionism in, 56 Ponomarev, Boris, 7 5 Popular Democratic List, 25 Popular Front, 50, 5 1 Prague trials, 5 2-3 Qasim, Musa, 1 9 Qassim, Abdel Karim, 40, 41, 5 0, 6 2 Rakah (later New Communist List), 9, 54, 73-4 ; and Arab-Israeli conflict, 7 8-9, 82, 8 5-6, 87, 8 8 ; and Arab nationalism, 59, 60; and Israeli state, 26, 58, 8 8, 89; and Soviet Union, 59, 78, 79, 87, 89 Ramleh : Arabs in, 3 3 ; and ICP elections, 67, 68, 73 Rashid Ali revolt. 2 3

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Rays of Hope Society, 24 Return of the Histradut to the World Federation of Trade Unions, 3 2 Rhodes armistice agreement, 39 Rumania, 5 2, 78 Rumyantsev, Vadim, 82 Russian revolutions, 11, 12, 14 Samuel, Sir Herbert, 1 7 Sapir, Pinhas, 80 Scandinavian Communist Party, 78 Second International, 1 5 Second World War, PCP and,

23-6

Sephardim, and PCP, 1 8 Shafa'Amr, Arabs in, 3 3 Shauro, Vassily, 8 2 Sinai: Israelis and, 34, 41, 80, 8 1 ; and Maki plan, 86 Six-Day War, 57, 64, 85 Sneh, Moshe: and Arab-Israeli conflict, 58, 62, 6 5, 69, 71, 7 5, 79; death, 86; and Mapam, 5 2-3; and Soviet Union, 5 3, 62, 63, 64-5, 75, 7 8 ; and Zionism, 56, 60,

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Soviet Union : and Arabs, 56, 64, 92-3 ; and China, 63, 64, 7 3 ; and Israel, 33, 82; and Jews, 62, 64, 7 1 , 87-8; Maki and, 34, 40, 5 2, 5 3, 61-6, 7 5, 7 8 ; and Nasser, 49, 61, 62, 56; PCP and, 1 5, 17, 1 8, 19, 20, 23, 25, 5 6 ; and Palestine partition, 26, 6 2 ; Rakah and, 7 6 , 78, 86, 8 9 ; and Zionism, 64, 87 Stalinism, and PCP, 20, 23 Straits region, 80 Strikes, 2 1 , 39 Suez War, 34, 6 3 , 91 Suslov, Mikhail, 7 6 Swiss Communist Party, 78 Syria: Arab refugees in, 3 2 ; Communists in, 21, 50; and Israel, 5 7 , 79, 9 3 ; and Soviet Union, 8 5 ; union

with Egypt, 34 Tayyl1a, 39

Tel Aviv, 82; Arabs in, 33; ICP in, 30, 68, 73 Thelet Adorn movement, 86 . Tou bi, Tewfik: and I CP split, 68, 60, 61, 62, 67, 69, 71-4, 76; Knesset candidate, 39 Trade unions, and Maki, 29, 31 'Triangle', Arabs in, 33 'Uda, Himr, 22

Ulbricht, Walter, 71

United Arab Republic, 34, 93 United Nations: and ArabIsraeli conflict, 79, 82, 85; and Arab refugees, 72; and Israeli state, 68; Maki and, 40

United States: Arab Communists and, 60; and Arab-Israeli conflict, 79; Jewish lobby, 67 Vilner, Meir: and ICP split ; 67, 68, 61, 62, 67, 69, 71-4, 7 5 , 79, 8 6 ; and Suez War, 34 •

Workers' Bloc, 17, 18, 36

Ya'ad party, 89 Yanni, Yanni, 49, 60 Yiddish publications, 16, 20 Yishuv elections, 2 6 Zionism: Arab nationalism and, 69-61 ; Israeli Communists and, 24, 26, 5 6, 67 , 79-80, 82, 8 8 ; nationalist character, 21, 56, 87; and proletariat, 14, 15, 17, 18, 33n., 88; Socialism and, 1 2-19, 54

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