Book Review: Zack Lockman, Comrades and Enemies.

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.