The decade following the Balfour Agreement saw the Zionist colonization of Palestine begin in earnest. In response, the ‘Arab Revolt’ of 1929 occurred with the Daily Worker offering this editorial.

‘The Fruits of Zionism’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 6 No. 149. August 29, 1929.

WHEN Britain secured the league of nations’ mandate for Palestine, Lord Balfour contrived to utilize the Zionist movement to carry out the vicious policy of expropriating the land from the Arabian population. The rich leaders of Zionism were willing tools of Balfour and have, under the guise of building a Jewish nationalist home, carried out the most frightful campaigns of land robbery against the Arab population.

Hundreds of thousands of Arabs have been driven from their land and upon the ruins of the small farms great orange plantations have been established. A few parasite capitalists, leaders of the Zionist movement in Palestine, exploit in the most bestial manner many Jewish workers and thousands of Arabs.

By playing the debased role of puppets of British imperialism for the privilege of sharing in the profits rung from the Jewish and Arabian population, the Zionists have become the symbol of tyranny in the eyes of the oppressed masses. The overwhelming majority of the Arab victims of Zionism in the service of imperialism only see their immediate oppressor, the Zionists. Instead of perceiving their plight as a result of class oppression they see only the racial characteristics. The first stage of revolt of the Arabs is misdirected and includes, without discrimination (if reports from Jerusalem are accurate), all the Jews. Britain is quick to take advantage of the opportunity to conceal the real class character of the movement and proclaim to the world that it is a religious conflict, just as British imperialism tried this spring to befog the class issues in India by interpreting them as strife between Hindoos and Moslems.

But there is an ever-growing number, though at present a minority, that perceive behind the Jewish mask of Zionism the malignant features and the bloody talons of the British ravager of colonial peoples. The Communist Party of Palestine, embracing Jews and Arabs, is striving to direct the movement into open anti-imperialist channels that will drive out the British imperialists and their agents.

Without hesitation the working class must accuse the Zionist leaders for their criminal role. These pawns in the hands of British imperialism have brought about a situation where the Jewish people in Palestine have had to bear the shock of the first colonial uprising. It is precisely these Zionists and the British master class they so willingly serve that are responsible for the massacres in Palestine. The present events are the consequence of their own servility to British imperialism. These Zionists in America and elsewhere who have collected millions of dollars to aid in forwarding the Balfour imperialist policy, are the ones who have brought upon the heads of many innocent people of Jewish lineage the massacres of the past few days.

Britain must be defeated in its attempt, by fanning the flames of religious hatreds, to prevent a joint movement of Jewish workers and Arabs against its imperialist exploitation. The working class of the United States must not be deceived by the hypocritical pleas of the Zionists. The class-conscious Jewish workers especially will not be misled by those responsible for the plight of the Jews in the fake homeland organized to carry out the policies of the imperialist British government, but will aid in every way the attempts of the Jewish and the Arab victims of imperialist rapacity to scourge the class enemy from Palestine.

That the imperialists recognize the character of the movement as a struggle against colonial domination is proved by the speed with which Britain is rushing warships and air forces to the scene of the bloodshed and the hasty action of France in throwing heavier forces into Syria, lying just north of Palestine.

The United States imperialist government is also demanding suppressive measures under the guise of protecting its citizens. The whole imperialist world is alarmed at any colonial outbreak, because they fear such events as those of 1925-26, when the French forces stormed Damascus in order to crush the Syrian revolt, and those in Palestine today may ignite the whole Near East with, the flame of colonial revolt and eventually extend to the rest of the colonial world.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924. National and City (New York and environs) editions exist

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n149-NY-aug-29-1929-DW-LOC.pdf