British Communists and the Palestine Conflict, 1929–1948

Abstract

During the 1930s and 1940s, the Communist Party of Great Britain was a significant force in Britain on the left-wing of the labour movement and among intellectuals, despite its relatively small membership. The narrative it provided on developments in Palestine and on the Arab nationalist movements contested Zionist accounts. After the 1941 German attack on the Soviet Union, the party, to gain the support of the Jewish community for a broad anti-fascist alliance, toned down its criticism of Zionism and, in the immediate post-war period, to accord with the Soviet Union's strategic objectives in the Middle East, it reversed its earlier opposition to Zionism. During the 1948 war and for some years thereafter it largely ignored the plight of the Palestinians and their nationalist aspirations.