This book traces the origin and development of the communist movement in Palestine and Israel, examining in detail the problems affecting It In the years preceding Israeli statehood In 1948. focusing on these problems within the context of events in the Ylshuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) and the International communist movement, Dr. Rubenstein analyzes unpopular positions advocated by the Communist party, Its efforts to remain loyal to Moscow's dictates, and the succession of rifts within the movement. Concludes with an overview of the communist movement In Israel today, Dr. Rubenstein explains the virtual extinction of party influence on the current lsraeli political scene.

Investigating the Communist International's involvement in Palestine during the 1920s, this unusual study encompasses the rise of the Zionist settlement in the region, the gradual emergence of Arab nationalism, and the increasing difficulties facing the British mandatory government in reconciling the growing Arab-Jewish strife. The Communist International, searching for revolutionary situations in the underdeveloped world, attempted to use the unrest in Palestine to undermine the British mandatory government. In the process the Communist International and the Palestine Communist Party were confronted by an expanding popular movement— Zionism—which they tried to suppress. The situation was unique. The Palestine Communist Party's leadership and membership were predominantly Jewish, and perceived the Communist International's anti-Zionist policies as a threat to the existence of the entire Jewish community. Hen-Tov made five investigative trips to Russia. He not only reconstructs the situation in the 1920s, but also explains the roots of the strong anti-Israel position taken by the Soviet Union today.

By building upon the work of the Subaltern Studies Group, I hope to demonstrate that the work of the Palestine Communist Party with the Arab peasantry of Palestine during its early years of existence places this group into the Subaltern realm of politics. It is through the experience of rebellion against the British that these subaltern actors gain their voice and a place in which to express that voice. The Party was among the only organized groups that actively sought out the Arab peasant in outreach and by 1929, the Arab peasant was the preoccupation of the Party, perhaps to its detriment. Once mobilized to the impending dangers to their way of life, the peasants in Palestine called upon traditional form of organization and built upon old patterns of relations and kinships to facilitate that organization. But the use of traditional methods of organization should not mislead us to believe that what was witnessed was the reinvention of something old but rather demonstrate the "constant process of invention" of a modern culture that was carried out in light of British occupation and Zionist immigration (O'Hanlon and Washbrook, 209). In the final analyses of the PCP, their efforts to shape and lead the agrarian revolt in the East ended in failure but the fruit of their labor continues on in both the Israeli and Palestinian societies.

"Illuminating. . . . The entire field of modern Middle Eastern Studies still has remarkably little closely researched social history of this sort. Beinin's study adds to the work recently published by revisionist Israeli historians, debunking the dominant view of the origin and early history of the Palestine conflict and extending the revision into the 1950s and early 1960s. His explanation of the different political paths that were taken, turned back from, and lost sight of is an important—indeed vital—contribution to contemporary scholarly and political understanding."—Timothy Mitchell, New York University

Challenges the nationalist and Zionist hegemony by discussing the hidden history of Communist and bi-national movements in Israel.