A striking example of how far the official Communist movement had gone, even before the outbreak of WWII, in abandoning opposition to Zionist colonization support for Arab resistance is this formal statement on events in Palestine from January, 1939. Crucially made months before the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact altered the whole military-political landscape, the text places the bulk of blame not on Zionist policy, not on a duplicitous British imperialism, but mainly on Arab sympathy for anti-Jewish Germany policies fostered by fascist agents and intrigues in the Holy Land meant to destabilize ‘democratic’ Britain. A dramatic shift by the official Communists from hostility to the Zionist movement since its inception and the total rejection of Zionist nationalism’s necessary imperialist alliances. While many left formations did not go as far as the Comintern and Soviets in embracing the Zionist project, nearly all the were influenced by events and modified their positions. Those issues included the victory of fascism in Germany and growth elsewhere; a new wave of European pogroms; F.D.R.’s refusal of U.S. asylum for fleeing Jews; decades of immigration leading to increased Jewish population in Palestine; increasing violent Arab resistance to Jewish colonizers; the Communist Party’s move to the ‘Popular Front’ which sought alliances with liberal forces; and lastly the British ‘White Paper’ of 1939 which sought to gain Arab support in the coming war by curtailing Jewish settlement. As a result, the official Communist Party first separated Palestine from the rest of the Arab Revolution, then dropped opposition to Jewish immigration; and finally supported the partition of Palestine and the formation of the State of Israel, which was championed by the Soviet Union at the UN and instrumental to Israel’s founding.

‘The Fighting in Palestine’ from Communist International. Vol. 16 No. 1. January, 1939.

THE bloody clashes in Palestine become more and more violent. The country is in a state of war. Barbed wire separates Palestine from Syria and Trans-Jordan. Communications between many towns and villages are discontinued. In Jerusalem, Haifa and Jaffa street fights, often lasting for days, continue to flare up. The fighting has long burst open the framework of mere local disturbances between the domiciled population and the British colonial troops. The hand of German fascism is in the game. The fights are being dramatically parceled out by the propaganda of Goebbels, while German agents are active on the spot as “advisers and instructors.”

In September, 1938, one hundred Arabs took part in the organization of the Nuremberg anniversary of the Nazi Party. In order that it could play the part of protector to pan-Islam, German fascism put these people up as representatives of the Arabian countries. It allows no opportunity to slip of emphasizing that the struggle of the Arabs has aroused the support of Germany and that Germany’s sympathies are on the side of the Arabs. The agents of German fascism are everywhere forming links destined to make possible a wide pan-Arabian and pan-Islamic movement. Characteristic of this is a declaration by Mohammedans in India, which was circulated by the German press and German news agencies, and which constitutes a link in the chain of pan-Islamic efforts under German patronage.

With this kind of activity, German fascism is pursuing its own aims. The Arabs are mere pawns in its game. This is well in line with the general attitude of fascism which supports one side in the great wars for freedom that are being fought out at this moment by the peoples of Spain and China. The same German press, which hypocritically protests in the name of “humanity” against the destruction of Arab villages in Palestine, extols the devastation that is being wrought in Spain by German and Italian aviators and soldiers. The same German press, in whose columns the least utterance from the reactionary Islam side is exaggerated beyond all measure and converted into an affair of universal importance, preserves a systematic and completely dead silence about what is being said and done in India, in the Malay Archipelago and in other Eastern countries on behalf of the Chinese struggle for freedom against the Japanese intruders.

The fascist propaganda headquarters in Berlin is providing suitable forces for undermining activity among the Arabs and Mohammedans. For a year Schwarz van Berk, chief editor of the Angriff, has been traveling in Egypt, Palestine and the neighboring countries; Siebrurg, correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung in France, has reconnoitered in Tunis, Algiers and Syria. According to communications received from the press in Syria, the German newspaper correspondents “working” in Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Palestine recently held a conference with a view to concentrating the entire activity of these correspondents in the Arabian countries. At the conference, the propaganda methods to be used by German fascists in Arabian countries were discussed. The chief of the Propaganda Ministry, Goebbels, pays out monthly £3,000 towards the upkeep of correspondents in Egypt, and this machinery is simultaneously engaged in espionage.

The German and Italian fascist agents in Palestine, who are exploiting to the utmost the antagonism between Jews and Arabs, produced artificially by British imperialism, are striving to intensify this national hate between the two. They seek their lieutenants among the native sheiks and feudal chiefs; but principally among those Arabs who were formerly agents of British imperialism.

Max Grün, one of the German fascist professors, delivered in Rome a lecture, in which he made the following statement about the Palestine question among other matters:

“With the help of the Arabs, Italy can easily destroy the Mosul-Haifa petroleum pipeline and thereby deprive the English Mediterranean Fleet of its fuel.” That is the practical explanation of the sentences in the Frankfurter Zeitung dated November 29, 1938, stating “that Germany’s great partner, fascist Italy, is destined to become a leading power in the Mediterranean, and that the English claim to world power via the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean was limited by the natural rights of a strong Italy.”

The German and Italian fascist agents are also engaged in the smuggling of arms. The arms transport goes through Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Palestine, and supplies the insurgent Arab movement in whose leadership Italian and German officers are active. According to a report of “Reuter’s Agency,” arms to the value of £20,000 were smuggled, from Germany and Italy alone into Palestine in five month of 1938. It is obvious that these figures by no means represent the actual volume of arms traffic. The English Colonial Minister MacDonald, answering a question in the House of Commons, stated that the bombs exploding in Palestine were not of German origin. This “refutation” does not alter the essential truth of the matter, for German and Italian fascist agents can also send English bombs to Palestine. Photos published in various newspapers of guns and light machine guns used by the Arab insurgents, however, prove clearly that the insurgents’ weapons are of German origin.

The responsibility for the bloodshed in Palestine is borne by the pro-fascist government of Chamberlain, which by its policy of provoking and stirring up national dissension in Palestine, and by its concessions to Mussolini and Hitler, incites more strongly than ever their aggressive desires, however, and grants them great freedom of trade. This responsibility is also shared by the agents of British imperialism in the ranks of the Jewish bourgeoisie, who back the national suppression of the Arabs in Palestine.

The native Jewish population in Palestine lived for centuries in brotherliness and friendship with the Arabs. The workers and peasants among the Jewish emigrants and the entire working class Jewish population can and wish to live in peace with the native Arabs. If the Jewish workers can compel the reactionary leaders of the Histadruth trade union to finish with their policy of disunion and create a united workers’ movement, this unity would deal British imperialism and German and Italian fascism a serious blow. Such unity is a guarantee of brotherliness and friendship between the Jewish and Arab workers. It alone can lead to the restoration of peace in Palestine and to the withdrawal of German and Italian fascist influence.

The responsibility for the present bloodshed in Palestine also falls upon those reactionary elements among the Arabs who constantly betray the interests of their own country. At the head of the insurrection now stands the Mussulman priesthood in Palestine–the Mufti Ali Hussein–a bought agent of German fascism, whom the fascists claim to be a fighter for the interests of the Arab people.

Ali Hussein and his crew are not only no representatives but they are wreckers and betrayers of the real national movement for the independence of the Arab people, of the just cause of the Arab masses. Mufti Ali Hussein and his clique do not shrink from organizing plots and provocation against the real revolutionary leaders of the Arab people. With such corrupt methods and with such provocation they mask themselves before the Arab people. These traitors are to the forefront in inciting national dissension between Arabs and Jews. They do not confine their agitation to Palestine but carry it on in all Arab countries. Recently a clash occurred also in Iraq between Jews and Arabs.

No true adherent of democracy and freedom can dispute the right of the Arab people to national self-determination. And it is the duty of the democratic elements, especially in England, to oppose the Chamberlain government’s policy of oppression in Palestine, and to compel British imperialism to put a stop to it and to grant the Arab people full democratic rights in its own country. But at the same time the masses of the Arab people must be made to realize that they are unconditionally obligated to purge the Arab national movement of all agents of German and Italian fascism and to show by deeds that the fascist conquerors, who are the worst oppressors of weak peoples, do not belong in Arabia.

No man of honor can remain indifferent to the catastrophic situation in which the Jews residing in capitalist countries find themselves. German fascism is organizing Jewish pogroms. In broad daylight the fascists are whipping the Jews out, stripping them of their possessions, torturing them and throwing them into concentration camps. The Jews fleeing from the bestial actions of fascism are seeking a refuge in various countries. Many Jews who believe in the promise made by British imperialism that a “Jewish National State Home” was founded in Palestine are now streaming into that country. Palestine cannot accommodate all emigrants. It would result in chasing the Bedouins and the fellaheens from their own land. But the working class Jews who have emigrated to Palestine are already finding out the kind of “National Home” British imperialism has prepared for them.

The chief culprit in the bloodshed in Palestine is German and Italian fascism, which is using to the full espionage, provocation and trickery in order to unleash a new world war.

Peace and unity in the fight for the independence of Palestine are possible and necessary to the working class Jews and Arabs. This fight must not only be directed against British imperialism with its agents in the Zionist bourgeoisie and against the reactionary Arab sheiks and feudal chiefs, but mostly against the organizers of provocation and the pogroms the German and Italian fascists.

In their plans of aggression, German and Italian fascism are going far beyond the new carving up of Europe. They want to have the last say in the Mediterranean and Red Sea territory. Their gaze is fastened upon colonies and also upon those countries which are under the influence of British imperialism. Since the Munich arrangement, Hitler and Mussolini have begun to speak still more openly and cynically about them.

The old plan of German imperialism to possess a direct line of communication from the North Sea to the Black Sea, to Bagdad and Mesopotamia, is being energetically pursued by fascism. To this end they have inaugurated the airline Berlin-Bagdad-Teheran-Kabul.

Chamberlain, who wants to divert the thieving glances of Mussolini and Hitler from the English colonies, has turned over Ethiopia, Austria and Czechoslovakia for German and Italian fascism to tear to pieces. But Chamberlain’s capitulation to Hitler and Mussolini has not reduced the appetite of these aggressors. The British government concluded a “gentleman’s agreement” with Mussolini by which it desires to establish a balance of power in the Mediterranean. How the balance of power is actually constituted, if a free passage is given to the “Rome-Berlin Axis,” is described by the Frankfurter Zeitung of November 29 in these words:

“France finally…must realize that the new power relations in the Mediterranean can no more be overthrown by alliances than those in Eastern Europe. In short, the status quo existing previously in Europe has been yielded to something totally different, and this must be recognized as irrevocable.”

The course of events in Palestine, and in the East, as a whole, illustrates the fascist view of “equilibrium” and “peaceful settlement.” German fascism and its Italian ally are getting a foothold in these regions and are making them bases for their struggle for the imperialist domination of the world.

The ECCI published the magazine ‘Communist International’ edited by Zinoviev and Karl Radek from 1919 until 1926 irregularly in German, French, Russian, and English. Restarting in 1927 until 1934. Unlike, Inprecorr, CI contained long-form articles by the leading figures of the International as well as proceedings, statements, and notices of the Comintern. No complete run of Communist International is available in English. Both were largely published outside of Soviet territory, with Communist International printed in London, to facilitate distribution and both were major contributors to the Communist press in the U.S. Communist International and Inprecorr are an invaluable English-language source on the history of the Communist International and its sections.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/ci/vol-17/v17-n01-jan-1940-CI-USA-riaz-orig.pdf