Difference between revisions of "Antifa: Mandatory Palestine in 1936"

The Role Played by Foreign Fascism in the Events in Palestine.

The clearly fascist members of the Arab nationalist movement were able to create a rapprochement between the latter and German and Italian fascism. For some time now, Hitler's "Mein Kampf" has become the bedside book of Arab intellectuals and youth who feel drawn more towards German fascism because of its attitude towards the Jews.

Hitler aroused the admiration of the Arab press, which only added its fear of seeing Hitler's anti-Semitism push German Jews to emigrate to Palestine. The Arab fascists want to approve of Hitler's extermination but they claim that everyone must take responsibility for fighting the Jews within the framework of their own country while avoiding the inconveniences of this fight for other peoples. .

The latest events in Palestine have confirmed the affinity and mutual sympathy between Arab and German fascism. On April 15, when Chazan and Dannenberg [Dannenberg] were attacked and murdered, the attackers also threatened a German, but as soon as he had made them understand who they were dealing with, they left him alone and returned the money they had taken. they had just stolen it from him.

Another German, after driving through the Arab town of Jenin, was entering the Haifa-Apoulah [Afiulah] road which leads to Tel Aviv, when he was surprised by the crowd. But no harm was done to him as soon as he shouted “Heil Hitler” while saluting with raised arm... This happened during the first week of the unrest (April 19-26). Around the same time, motor cars occupied by French, Italian and German charge d'affaires took the same road, escorted by the police. The convoy was preceded by a motor truck. The latter, at one point, suffered a volley of gunfire. The driver of the truck was injured, but managed to escape, fleeing in the direction of the convoy following him, while his attackers set his load on fire. Meanwhile, the three cars had reversed and reached Shekem, where the police requested, by telephone, instructions to Jerusalem. They were ordered to immediately continue their journey to Haifa. But the German and Italian consuls, without waiting for a response from Jerusalem, had already set off again, crossed Jenin without escort and were in no way inconvenienced. The French consul, on the other hand, did not risk it...

The Palestinian newspaper “Davar”, in its edition of June 3, reported that in Acre pamphlets were distributed, signed “The Nazi Party” (“Alhizew anazi”) and accusing the government of working only for the benefit of the Jews.

In 1934, the party's new secretary-general, Radwan al-Hilu, deemed the newspaper incompatible with Palestinian national interests and sentiments, and shut it down. It was replaced with a different secret newspaper, Nidal al-Sha'b. Nidal al-Sha'b was published continuously until the split between the Arab and Jewish members of the party in 1943 and the resignation of Radwan al-Hilu from the party...

A memorandum from ‘Antifa’ Eretz Israel to the workers movement and progressive public opinion in the world. […] The hand of fascism from abroad in events.

The distinct fascist elements in the Arab national movement became close, housemates with German world fascism. Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf” has long since become obsolete as the ‘guide’ for the Arab intelligentsia and the youth. An excessive affection is known among them for German fascism, which is very close to them in its opposition to the Jews. Hitler’s rise to power was received in the Arab press with cheers of sympathy despite the fear that Hitler’s anti-Semitism would increase the immigration of German Jews to the Land of Israel. In other words, they agree with Hitler to beat the Jews, and how much better it would be if everyone beat his own Jews. Arab fascism’s sympathy for Germans and mutual friendly relations stood out this month in recent events.

Very close to the events, during the first attack by Tulkarm, April 15, when Hazan and Danenberg were murdered, the attackers released one of the passengers and returned his money, when he declared his Germanness. And in the case of a German who passed through the Arab city of Jenin (on the road from Haifa to Afula to Tel Aviv) and was attacked by the crowd, as soon as he raised his hand in the “Heil Hitler” greeting, they returned the greeting and let him continue his journey. This was in the first week of the events (April 19-26).

Some time later, a group of passengers passed through the same road, among them the French, Italian and German consuls, each in his own car. They were accompanied by a military guard, who received an order not to shoot. The truck, which drove first, was attacked. The injured drivers moved to the other cars, the truck was burned and the convoy returned to Nablus. There the military guard got on the phone with the authorities in Jerusalem and received a vigorous order to take the passengers to Haifa. The German and Italian consuls did not wait and passed Jenin safely without any guard. Only the French consul did not feel that he was so inoculated… – In Acre, leaflets were distributed in Arabic with the signature of the “Nazi Party” (Al Khizm a Nazi [الحزب النازي]).

The operation of the Nazis in Israel was forged in the German colonies in Israel in Sharona, Wilhelma and the German colony in Haifa. Sharona’s Germans immediately joined Hitler when he came to power. There was a case where a Jew was beaten there…

Italy tried years ago to expand its network in Israel. It is a mistake to think that in this case only the Abyssinian issue fulfilled its role. A few years ago, Italy tried more than one attempt to acquire economic and political influence in Israel. Italy built buildings, brought its insurance companies into the country, founded cultural clubs there to teach the Italian language and literature, paid for Italian teachers for the high schools. At the expense of the Italian government, textbooks and notebooks are given to students for free.

The newspapers published news about the participation of the Italian fascists in the recent events.

On June 7th, the newspaper of the Egyptian government party ‘Rose al Yusuf’ in Cairo published an article in which it demanded from the ‘Arab Higher Committee’ in Jerusalem to deny the news, carried in Egyptian newspapers, that he was receiving support from a foreign source. The newspaper adds that the news is based on serious facts and demanded a clear answer from the committee. The denial did not come.

Although there are rumors that the police discovered the names of the Arab leaders, who received 2000 pounds from Italy and 5000 from Germany.

The few facts, which certainly do not exhaust the material, clearly prove that the German and Italian fascists had a hand in the events of E.Y. [Palestine], intending to win them the friendship of Arab fascism in Israel.

It goes without saying that it is an exaggeration to think that it was “foreign intervention” that caused the outbreak of events. It only served as a kind of their “helpmate”.

However, it was our duty to point this out, so that the social nature of the foreign movement becomes even clearer and to pose the question to the progressive public:

How can an antifascist explain this matter? It was possible for one movement to fulfill two missions: revolutionary, worthy of sympathy, and fascist, worthy of condemnation. Who is the antifascist who will explain this complex? No! Fascist “revolutionary” has not yet gained sympathy and love from the fighters of fascism.

P. C. P. and the events

A sad chapter in itself is the behavior of the Communist Party in Israel amid these bloody events. When it comes to the “Communist Party”, everyone can surely imagine that the party appearing under that name, whatever its attitude to the very question of Jewish immigration and rooting in Israel, will oppose it in any way to the chauvinists on any side, condemn the bloody terrorist attacks on innocent people, on women and children, condemn as a matter of course the burning of the fields and the destruction of the labor of working people. Emphasize the slogan of class war instead of a war of nationalities. But no, not in the least!

This is not the first time that P.C.P. Joins the chauvinistic incitement of the most reactionary Arab circles and supports it in every lecture. Suffice it to mention one case from the recent past. When some time ago smuggled weapons were discovered in cement barrels in the port of Jaffa, although it is not clear who and for whom these weapons were smuggled in, the Arab instigators nevertheless raised a cry, because the Jews brought weapons into the country in order to kill nothing more and nothing less. So the P.C.P. put out a proclamation, in which it tried to outdo the Arab fascist nationalists by inciting against the Jewish settlement, in this proclamation it addressed the “Arab people” in a distinctly nationalist style under the name of “the fathers, who shed their blood for the homeland” and conducted a really horrible propaganda, because “the confiscated weapons were not intentional but towards the hearts of the Arabs, in order to destroy them to the point of boycott”. Although P. C. P. clearly knew that the Jewish settlement did not conduct or prepare to conduct slaughters in the Arabs. By the way, the course of recent events has clearly demonstrated who is in possession of large treasures of smuggled weapons and who used them to attack innocent passers-by and workers in rejected villages. It is worth mentioning that when this announcement was published around the world, it caused a great outrage among the Jewish masses, and the Jewish communist press abroad (Morgen Freiheit” in New York and “Neye Presse” in Paris), and was forced to declare that this announcement was nothing but a provocation. It was also difficult for them to imagine, communists will publish such a chauvinist proclamation that incited people against people. Here in Israel, the PCP did not deny the authenticity of the proclamation and did not deny itself to even from a single line of the inciting document, whose friends abroad evaluated it as a provocation.

When the preacher from the Haifa Al-Qassem mosque organized a terrorist gang, which raided the roads with the intention of murdering defenseless Jewish passers-by, after all. P.C.P. not only did it not try to explain to the Arab masses, that this is not the way, rather, to their liberation, PCP along with the Muslim clergy and the nationalist youth influenced by fascism, it praised Sheikh al-Qassem as a “freedom fighter,” who should serve as a role model for the youth.

Any assassination of Jewish lives, from which side it came, with any slogan, was always encouraged and praised by the P.C.P. And this is how it behaves in the current events as well. Not even in one of the multiple announcements, which P.C.P. published in the blood oaths, it does not condemn in a single word the brutal murders of defenseless innocent people. Even cruel atrocities, such as throwing a bomb at the old people’s center in Jerusalem, placing a bomb in a kindergarten in Ness Ziona, throwing a bomb into the train car, filled to the brim with Jewish passengers, which seriously injured women and a two-year-old boy, even in cases like this PCP does not find not even a single word of condemnation in announcements, on the contrary, all of this is raised to the level of “acts of heroism”.

In every publication P. C. P. is to purge the Arab reaction of any responsibility for the events. The only culprits are the Jews, in the well-known formula: “The Jew must be burned” … and they spread various different libels and rumors about the Jewish settlement, in order to inflame the hatred towards the Jewish masses.

After the bomb was thrown at the school in Tel Aviv on the border of Jaffa and miraculously only 9 children were injured, from 6 to 11 years old, the Arab newspapers announced, in order to clear the murderers, that the bomb was thrown by communists, and when a suspected Arab was arrested – they revealed their opinion, that He is a communist, when the suspect was released – the fascist Arab newspapers continued in its accusations against the communists. It only added that this crime was committed by the Jewish communists. Since the Jews are the ones who brought communism to the Israel, and wherever a communist — he is a Jew, so declares and informs ‘Falastin’, one of the leading chauvinist newspapers. In response to this, P. C. P. put out a proclamation, in which it proves its “righteousness” and lays all the blame for throwing the bomb on the Jews – – – themselves, who threw the bomb on their own sons, in order to arouse anger among the Jewish workers towards the Arabs and P.C.P. doesn’t this bring to mind the claim of the ancient anti-Semites from the time of the Tsar and the modern ones in Poland, that the Jews are staging riots on themselves, in order to arouse anger against the Russian or Polish people?

P. C. P. Not in any of its pamphlets mentions even a single word that the Arab reactionary circles are interested in inciting the Arab masses against the Jews, in order to distance themselves from the anger of their exploiters and leave them in ignorance and slavery.

PCP rejects any suspicion that the current leaders of the Arab National Movement have any fascist tendencies or any connection with fascist elements in Israel, despite all the facts that confirm this.

P. C. P., it did not highlight any of her own slogans throughout the days of the events, she is constantly being dragged along the tail of the reactionary leaders, each time clinging to their own slogans and defending them without any hesitation.

In all announcements P. C. P. , there is not a single word against the Effendi and the ‘Nationalists loan sharks’, who mercilessly strip the skin of the fellahin. In general, there is nothing in these proclamations about the division into classes and about class antagonisms in the Arab people. Rather, P. C. P., they talk enthusiastically about the “national unity” of the Arab people, as if national unity is the latest ideal of the communists, despite the fact that this unity means surrendering the working masses to the unlimited influence of the exploiters and the clergy. In contrast, PCP, in its campaign to deepen the national hatred, pointing to the Jews as the haters of the Arab people.

Even imperialism is mentioned by P. C. P. as hated only because of its supposed help to the Jews. Instead of explaining to the masses, Jews and Arabs alike, that the imperialist government does not support either the rights of the Jews or the rights of the Arabs, but rather the rights of the British Empire, points out P. C. P. the British rule as a protector of the Jews.

We believe that it is permissible to prove that this kind of propaganda has nothing to do with communism and is a betrayal of internationalism.

What can be the result of this propaganda, when it acquires influence on the masses? It pollutes the air with poisonous fumes of chauvinism. It deepens the chasm between the masses of the two nations instead of helping to close it. It increases the positions of the reactionary leaders and helps to tighten the ties between the Arab masses and their leaders, who do not intend at all to liberate the masses…