The Palestine Communist Party, its arabisation and the Arab Jewish conflict in Palestine, 1929-1948

Abstract

This thesis is devoted to a studly of the communist movement in Palestine during the British Mandate with special emphasis on its growth within the Arab section of the population. Chapter one traces the development of the Palestine Communist Party as an outgrowth of the Zionist labour movement and its progress during the first ten years of its existence as a predominantly Jewish organisation. Chapters two and three examine the Comintern's preoccupation with the necessity of Arabising the Party and traces the Party's early attempts to penetrate into the Arab community, its reactions, to the Comintern's directives and the actual process of Arabisation and the policies pursued therein. Chapter four looks at the Party's policies and role vis-a-vis the Arab Rebellion of 1936-39, and the development of a Jewish opposition culminating in the first major split of the Party. Chapter five is devoted to an examination. of the Party's position during Second World War and its faithful adherence to the twists and turns of Soviet foreign policy. It also traces the Party's increasing involvement within the Arab community as evinced by its activity in the labour movement. Chapter six deals with the split of the Party in 1943, its origins and the consequent establishment of separate Arab and Jewish communist organisations, 9 and the development of the Jewish communists up to 1948. Chapter seven examines the establishment of an Arab national communist movement; and looks in detail at communist activity within the Arab working class and the intelligentsia. It closes with an analysis of the communist response to partition and the attempts made to justify it. The primary sources upon which this study is based include the following: the the publications of the Palestine Communist Party and National Liberation League, intelligence reports of the British Colonial Office and the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem, the official publications of the Comintern, and personal interviews with old party members.