Review of Zachary Lockman's Comrades and Enemies : Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine 1906-1948. University of California Press 1996

(Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol 28, no.2 winter 1999)

Post Zionism is in full bloom among a new generation of Israeli historians and sociologists, and though it might still be marginal in the Academy, it has undoubtedly made its mark in an ongoing public debate in Israel, a country uniquely self absorbed and self obsessed. Some of its critics, like Amnon Rubinstein, regard it as a sign that ‘Zionism has won and the Revolution has failed’ (Haaretz, 12 June 1997), while proponents like Ilan Pappe choose to see it as posing a challenge to the ‘collective Zionist historiography’ made from ‘within the context of a Zionist society ’(History & Memory , No.1,1995. Pp. 67 &85). This is of course a purely internal Israeli debate, a sign perhaps of Israel's coming of age, and of a hegemonic presence reinforced in the words of Arye Shavit by the possession of ‘Dimona, Yad Vashem, and the Shoah Museum’(Haaretz, 3 April 1997). On the other hand, Critical scholars like Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, Gershon Shafir, and Gabi Piterberg, censure Zionist historiography for its refusal to see the Palestinian presence and narrative as constituting an integral part of the shape the imagining of the Zionist-Israeli nation took. In some respects Lockman’s endeavor to produce what he regards as relational history, is an attempt to present a new kind of narrative which treats the existence of the Arabs as an essential constituent element in the formation of the Zionist project and the Yishuv, an integral part of the story rather than just a footnote. His intentions notwithstanding , the end product is yet another historical account which privileges the history and perspectives of the Yishuv. By basing itself almost exclusively on what Lockman characterises as Left Zionist thought and practice, the end result is a postmodern rehabilitation, if not of the colonialist endeavor itself, then of the colonialist men who appear as the tragic heroes of this endeavor.

Lockman`s lengthy and detailed text is centered on an exploration of the thought and practice of the left wing of the Zionist movement and its manipulation of a tiny segment of a small section of Palestine's indigenous population, namely Arab workers. To this end it reconstructs the history of one specific group of Arabs and Jews in Palestine: the railway workers. Some numbers are in order if we are to fathom the relative weight of this group within the population. In 1924 railway workers numbered approximately 2400, and the overwhelming majority of those were Arabs. In 1926, out of a total of 3182 railway workers, 405 were Jews, while In 1935 the Railways employed 3171 Arab workers and 345 Jews. At about the same time, Haifa port, another mixed workplace to which Lockman directs his attention, employed some two dozen Jews as opposed to some 450 Arab workers. In the Forties, the British authorities set up Labour Camps , which employed over thirty thousand workers, of whom 22,000 were Arabs and 9000 were Jews. Two things become apparent immediately: that the overwhelming majority of the workers are Arab, and the numbers involved are minuscule. These are important considerations to keep in mind for two reason. First, because the focus of Lockman`s narrative is exclusively on the discussions and debates among Jewish workers, and second because we are not presented with a narrative of the beginnings of an organised Arab working class, nor of the birth of mixed Arab-Jewish trade unions. The emphasis is not even on those handful of Arab workers who for a brief period were organised within the separate structures established by the Histadrut, itself not a trade union in the traditional sense, but an institution whose primary purpose, as Lockman recognises, was to foster the settlement of Jewish workers in Palestine, and to build a Jewish commonwealth. As he so eloquently demonstrates, the Histadrut never lost sight of its primary aim, which was to place Jewish workers in jobs on the railroads as part of the broader campaign for the conquest of labour and the achievement of Hebrew Labour. Additionally, the tasks of Jewish labour organisers overlapped with Intelligence work. Not only were prominent Jewish Labour activists doubling as intelligence agents, but both Jewish and Arab organisers regularly passed on information about Arab conditions to the political Department of the Jewish Agency. An additional aim of Jewish labour leaders was to insulate Arab workers from the "negative influences" of Arab nationalist activists seeking to mobilise them against Zionism.

It is not at all clear if Lockman sees these workers as the vanguard of a class conscious social formation that contained within it the promise of a more peaceful future for Palestine. He is adamant, however, about defending Arab workers against accusations of ‘Ignorance, manipulation, individual pathology, or collaboration’, because to do otherwise would be to ‘uncritically adopt nationalism’s own language and ways of seeing the world’(p.366) . Yet at another juncture he writes about their ‘political naiveté’, that they were under the impression that joining a Jewish run organisation would entitle them to jobs in Jewish owned enterprises, and that Left wing Zionists had no compunction in deceiving or misleading Arab workers by downplaying their commitment to Zionism; at the time he describes the Arab workers concerned as being unable to follow discussions in meetings organised by their Jewish mentors due to their lack of knowledge of Hebrew, their ignorance of the ideological differences among the parties of the Yishuv, and of their lack of political sophistication and experience in contrast to their Jewish counterparts.

Perhaps Lockman’s more important contribution is in showing how and where Zionism departs from the traditional settler colonial paradigm. That this is his view is borne out by his characterisation of the events of 1948 as a "bitter and bloody civil war "(p.352).Likewise his belief that BenGurion’s acceptance of the recommendations of the 1937 Peel Commission was based on the readiness to accept a small Jewish state as "this would provide a haven for European Jewry"(p.256).(Tom Segev in The Seventh Million argues to the contrary that the saving of European Jewry was not part of Ben Gurion’s political agenda. Zionism was in the state building bussiness, not the saving of lives). Throughout the text, and not withstanding his critical stance towards nationalism’s own restrictive self conceptions, he makes numerous references to the presence within Palestine (but not as part of the Palestinian work force, which he assumes is naturally made up of Arab and Jews) of Egyptian and Syrian workers. Referring to workers from Hawran seeking employment in Palestine in the late twenties, he writes , without irony, many were not from Palestine but from the Hawran region of French ruled Syria !

He explains at length how much labour Zionist discourse echoes themes found in colonial discourse generally, such as the denial of rational agency to Palestinians and the attribution of anti colonial and nationalist sentiment to the malign influence of a minority of self-interested inciters. Where labour Zionism differed was in the fact that this was couched in the language of socialism, class struggle and working class solidarity ; labour Zionism conceived of itself as a working class and socialist project, a component of the international labour movement. Indeed, according to Lockman's reading up until the 1920's the Histadrut held the notion that success of the labour Zionist enterprise was closely linked to Arab-Jewish working-class solidarity. Lockman sees no contradiction between this and an earlier assertion he makes concerning the role of the colonial regime in contributing to the success of the Zionist project where he writes " the success of labour Zionism's strategy would have been inconceivable in the absence of a sympathetic colonial regime which could hold the indigenous majority in check until the Yishuv was strong enough to stand on its own"(p.57). His final judgment is that much of Zionism's specificity lies in the unique manner and context in which elements of a national project, a colonial settler project, and a socialist or working class project interpenetrated. This, indeed, is an interesting project, and it would have been more illuminating to show what policies labour Zionism chose to pursue when conflicts arose between its nationalist and working class projects, and whether the historical record justifies the belief held by the leaders of Labour Zionism, namely that the goal of socialism in certain historical circumstances can only be attained by giving precedence to national interests over class solidarity, and whether a settler colonial project of whatever nature can indeed establish the new Jerusalem. This would have gone a long way towards fulfilling Lockman’s avowed aim of "undermining the hegemonic grip of nationalist mythologies…..and open(ing) up….new ways of imagining the future"(p.373).

In his recent book on Palestinian Identity, Rashid Khalidy enumerates the various problems faced by those attempting to narrate the history of the indigenous Arab inhabitants of the country both before and after 1948. While many of these are not unique to Palestine, the Palestinian case is complicated further he writes by " the intimate intertwining over the past century..of the Palestinian narrative with one of the most potent narratives in existence, that of Israel and the Jewish People..". Sadly, and contrary to expectation, this book provides additional confirmation of the validity of this assertion.