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On the Border
On the Border chronicles a radical political education in a time and place charged with idealism and danger. One of the most renowned figures of the Israeli left, Warschawski is known commonly by his nom de guerre Mikado. A Polish Frenchman and a rabbi’s son, he went to Jerusalem as a young man to study Talmud. Warschawski recounts how he became radicalized, and muses on the vibrancy of border cultures that welcome and engage with strangers–where languages exchange phrases and people trade foods. Warschawski’s involvement in radical politics led to inspiring alliances with Jews, Muslims, Christians and atheists. Yet as the border lines hardened and Mikado became a movement leader, he became targeted by the Shin Bet, Israel’s notorious intelligence agents, who eventually arrested him. Incarcerated and interrogated for 20 days, Mikado gives his readers an insider’s view of the psychological and political pressures that Shin Bet brought to bear, even on Jews, and never lets you forget the severity of treatment that his Palestinian colleagues faced. Throughout his story, Warschawski remains something of a scholar, a philosopher schooled in Talmudic reasoning, ready to argue, always searching for the larger meaning of justice and decency. The lessons he draws from his experience on the border between Israel and Palestine should be instructive for all the places where cultures rub against each other for better and worse. Warschawski’s perspective offers hope for the rich cultural and political exchange that these places offer their inhabitants, and hope indeed for his adopted land. Winner of Le Prix des Amis du Monde Diplomatique (2002). Michel Warschawski founded the Alternative Information Centre in Jerusalem, a Palestinian-Israeli organization that disseminates information, research, and political analysis on Palestinian and Israeli societies as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while promoting cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis.
176 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2004
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October 31, 2025
Michel Warschawski used to be a leader of the Trotskyist group usually known as "Matzpen." I didn't agree with him on everything then, but I had enormous respect for him. The Socialist Workers Party, which I was a member of and am now a supporter of toured him in New York during the period leading up to his trial (see the book).
The book doesn't have the answers (there aren't any easy ones), but it's a wonderful book based on his personal and political experiences that shows all the contradictions of Israeli Society (and also of the West Bank Palestinians who he worked with). That's why I consider the book important.
I was very disappointed to hear that Warschawski has supported Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) which has been growing among people from different backgrounds, some of whom know nothing about Jews, Israel, or anti-Semitism. This group works closely with Hamas and tries to give it a progressive cover. All the supporters of BDS who I have talked to (quite a few) claim that Israel has no right to exist. This is what Putin says about Ukraine! To me there is s paper thin wall between saying Israel doesn't have the right to exist and saying the six million Jews of Israel don't have the right to exist. Some people I know now claim that this is the position the SWP and the Fourth International used to have. This is absurd! How can a position (which was admittedly wrong) calling for a "democratic secular Palestine" where Jews and Palestinians could live as equals the same as a slogan that "Israel has no right to exist" with no mention of Jews! From what I can see, many of these people have already crossed the line into anti-Semitism. I hope Warschawski changes his position on this. See The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch. Also, essential reading is The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation
A recent article in the Militant, Vol. 89/No. 39, November 3, 2025
SWP forum: ‘There is no peace in Gaza’ By Andrea Morell
SAN LEANDRO, Calif. — “There is no peace in Gaza today,” Socialist Workers Party National Committee member Norton Sandler told a well-attended Militant Labor Forum here Oct. 17. Sandler is the party’s candidate for governor of California.
“The Militant,” he said, “provides clarity and a guide to action for the working-class public. But there are occasions when an adjustment is needed on its coverage. This is such an occasion.
“It is this picture,” he said, pointing to a photo on page 7 of the Oct. 27 issue showing Hamas executing a number of Palestinians in Gaza it branded as “collaborators” with Israel. “That should have been on the front page.”
There is a war going on over who will control Gaza — these murdering Nazi-like thugs or Israeli forces, the only ones today capable of destroying them, he said. “These brutalities by Hamas give us the most important opportunity we’ve had to explain their real nature.
“Always remember Hamas’ roots are in collaboration with the German Nazis and the Holocaust,” he said. He held up a copy of The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch: Stakes for the International Working Class.
“Look at the two pictures on the front: one is Jews being rounded up to be sent to Hitler’s death camps from the Warsaw Ghetto, the other is Hamas thugs taking Naama Levy hostage as part of their Oct. 7, 2023, pogrom in Israel that killed 1,200 people, the largest pogrom since the Holocaust.”
A memo sent to Hamas commanders the morning of the Oct. 7 pogrom by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar tells them to “kill everyone you encounter” and “end the children of Israel.”
“Stomp on the head of soldiers” and “slaughter some of them with knives,” he said. Entire neighborhoods or kibbutzim should be burned to the ground, he instructed, while being filmed and broadcast to the world.
“Slit their throats. Slit them as you are trained,” one of the commanders told his men. And “take a lot of hostages,” said another.
This is exactly how Hamas cadres are educated today, Sandler said. Most workers aren’t aware of any of this.
“As soon as the Israel Defense Forces pulled back in Gaza, Hamas thugs crawled out of their tunnels to reassert their control over Gaza,” he said, “and are using the same brutality against Palestinians who oppose them today.”
“In spite of President Donald Trump’s hullabaloo about peace, there is no peace in the Mideast,” Sandler said. And, he added, any place else in the world.
“It is clear that the Trump administration secured the release of the hostages Hamas held by guaranteeing the thug outfit that it could rule Gaza for now. Trump told the Wall Street Journal, ‘We gave them permission.’
“Hamas is using the time to regroup, rearm, rebuild their devastated military and prepare the next assault on Jews. They will not rest until all the Jews in Israel are either killed or driven out,” Sandler said. “That is why the big majority in Israel — not all, as seen in many middle-class demonstrations — see no security from another Holocaust until Hamas is defeated.”
Though he is a capitalist politician, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is firm on one thing: “Never Again” another Holocaust. This explains his deep support in the working class in Israel.
Sandler said the accord that led Israel to stop fighting came under “extreme pressure from the U.S. ruling class.” Washington seeks to impose a “Pax Americana” in order to dominate this oil- and gas-rich region of the world and the labor power of its inhabitants at the expense of all competitors.
“Rather than providing peace,” Sandler said, “it accelerates the drive toward World War III, a war that will involve all the nuclear powers.”
Turkey is now angling to replace a weakened Iran as the region’s major anti-Israel power, Sandler said, noting that Ankara has long supported Hamas. Turkey’s presence in Syria is a threat to the Kurds there, as well as to Israel.
Hamas’ support is rooted in Jew-hatred, Sandler said. This isn’t a “Middle East question,” but a “world historical phenomenon, endemic in the imperialist epoch.” It’s prevalent on U.S. college campuses today and a deadly threat to the working class and the unions as the class struggle deepens.
‘Normalization of antisemitism’
We see the “normalization of antisemitism in U.S. politics” unfolding in the mayoral election in New York, Sandler said, where openly antisemitic Zohran Mamdani may well become the next mayor. Mamdani refuses to demand Hamas disarm and calls for the arrest of Netanyahu for “war crimes.”
“Hamas must be disarmed,” Sandler said. “But they have no intention of doing so. The Nazis never surrendered, they left that to the German military brass as their cadres attempted to escape to Argentina and elsewhere, to spread their fascist agenda.
“Unless Hamas is defeated and Gaza held by the IDF, there will be no peace, and the threat of another Holocaust remains,” he said. “But Jew-hatred is not eternal, as the Zionists claim, anymore than capitalism or imperialism is eternal. The Socialist Workers Party is grounded in the Marxist view that the Jewish question is a class and national question that can only be resolved tied to the struggle of the working class and victorious proletarian revolutions.”
“The party stands with the Palestinians against Hamas repression. The crushing of Hamas is the only way to open the door to independent class-struggle developments there,” he said. “This is what can start forging ties and overcoming differences between Jews and Palestinians, other oppressed peoples in the region — a socialist revolution and the elimination of Jew-hatred.”
U.S. hands off Venezuela, Cuba!
Turning to Venezuela, Sandler said what the U.S. capitalist rulers are doing today is the largest U.S. military buildup in the region since Washington’s 1989 invasion of Panama. They’re deploying F-35 fighter jets, guided missile destroyers, boats fitted for landing troops, reaper drones and more in the Caribbean.
“The pretext is that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro runs a drug operation flooding the U.S. with cocaine,” he said. “They want to get rid of Maduro and, above all, send a message to China to back off in Latin America. And, it is a real threat to Cuba.”
The recently renamed War Department and the desire of its secretary, Pete Hegseth, to eliminate “fat troops” from the military “is all preparation for war. And the military buildup is going on worldwide.”
The war question cannot be separated from what is transpiring in the U.S. economy, Sandler said. “They’re rebuilding industry to make steel, aluminum, chips and much more, all aimed at preparation for war production.”
In Trump’s battle against immigrant workers, the U.S. rulers seek to legitimize use of the military against the working class on U.S. soil. In 2002 the Northern Command was set up with responsibility for U.S. military operations in the U.S. and the rest of North America, which the SWP said was aimed at the working class. “There is broad revulsion against this among working people. The labor movement needs to take the lead on pushing this back,” Sandler said.
“The employers are digging in, but there is resistance,” he added, citing today’s labor battles and some victories involving hundreds of thousands of workers across the U.S. and Canada.
“The need for a revolutionary working-class party in the U.S. is at the heart of everything we do,” Sandler said, “and if you join the SWP, you are joining a line of march toward workers taking political power. We find this is an increasingly attractive course in the working class today.”
The book doesn't have the answers (there aren't any easy ones), but it's a wonderful book based on his personal and political experiences that shows all the contradictions of Israeli Society (and also of the West Bank Palestinians who he worked with). That's why I consider the book important.
I was very disappointed to hear that Warschawski has supported Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) which has been growing among people from different backgrounds, some of whom know nothing about Jews, Israel, or anti-Semitism. This group works closely with Hamas and tries to give it a progressive cover. All the supporters of BDS who I have talked to (quite a few) claim that Israel has no right to exist. This is what Putin says about Ukraine! To me there is s paper thin wall between saying Israel doesn't have the right to exist and saying the six million Jews of Israel don't have the right to exist. Some people I know now claim that this is the position the SWP and the Fourth International used to have. This is absurd! How can a position (which was admittedly wrong) calling for a "democratic secular Palestine" where Jews and Palestinians could live as equals the same as a slogan that "Israel has no right to exist" with no mention of Jews! From what I can see, many of these people have already crossed the line into anti-Semitism. I hope Warschawski changes his position on this. See The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch. Also, essential reading is The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation
A recent article in the Militant, Vol. 89/No. 39, November 3, 2025
SWP forum: ‘There is no peace in Gaza’ By Andrea Morell
SAN LEANDRO, Calif. — “There is no peace in Gaza today,” Socialist Workers Party National Committee member Norton Sandler told a well-attended Militant Labor Forum here Oct. 17. Sandler is the party’s candidate for governor of California.
“The Militant,” he said, “provides clarity and a guide to action for the working-class public. But there are occasions when an adjustment is needed on its coverage. This is such an occasion.
“It is this picture,” he said, pointing to a photo on page 7 of the Oct. 27 issue showing Hamas executing a number of Palestinians in Gaza it branded as “collaborators” with Israel. “That should have been on the front page.”
There is a war going on over who will control Gaza — these murdering Nazi-like thugs or Israeli forces, the only ones today capable of destroying them, he said. “These brutalities by Hamas give us the most important opportunity we’ve had to explain their real nature.
“Always remember Hamas’ roots are in collaboration with the German Nazis and the Holocaust,” he said. He held up a copy of The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch: Stakes for the International Working Class.
“Look at the two pictures on the front: one is Jews being rounded up to be sent to Hitler’s death camps from the Warsaw Ghetto, the other is Hamas thugs taking Naama Levy hostage as part of their Oct. 7, 2023, pogrom in Israel that killed 1,200 people, the largest pogrom since the Holocaust.”
A memo sent to Hamas commanders the morning of the Oct. 7 pogrom by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar tells them to “kill everyone you encounter” and “end the children of Israel.”
“Stomp on the head of soldiers” and “slaughter some of them with knives,” he said. Entire neighborhoods or kibbutzim should be burned to the ground, he instructed, while being filmed and broadcast to the world.
“Slit their throats. Slit them as you are trained,” one of the commanders told his men. And “take a lot of hostages,” said another.
This is exactly how Hamas cadres are educated today, Sandler said. Most workers aren’t aware of any of this.
“As soon as the Israel Defense Forces pulled back in Gaza, Hamas thugs crawled out of their tunnels to reassert their control over Gaza,” he said, “and are using the same brutality against Palestinians who oppose them today.”
“In spite of President Donald Trump’s hullabaloo about peace, there is no peace in the Mideast,” Sandler said. And, he added, any place else in the world.
“It is clear that the Trump administration secured the release of the hostages Hamas held by guaranteeing the thug outfit that it could rule Gaza for now. Trump told the Wall Street Journal, ‘We gave them permission.’
“Hamas is using the time to regroup, rearm, rebuild their devastated military and prepare the next assault on Jews. They will not rest until all the Jews in Israel are either killed or driven out,” Sandler said. “That is why the big majority in Israel — not all, as seen in many middle-class demonstrations — see no security from another Holocaust until Hamas is defeated.”
Though he is a capitalist politician, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is firm on one thing: “Never Again” another Holocaust. This explains his deep support in the working class in Israel.
Sandler said the accord that led Israel to stop fighting came under “extreme pressure from the U.S. ruling class.” Washington seeks to impose a “Pax Americana” in order to dominate this oil- and gas-rich region of the world and the labor power of its inhabitants at the expense of all competitors.
“Rather than providing peace,” Sandler said, “it accelerates the drive toward World War III, a war that will involve all the nuclear powers.”
Turkey is now angling to replace a weakened Iran as the region’s major anti-Israel power, Sandler said, noting that Ankara has long supported Hamas. Turkey’s presence in Syria is a threat to the Kurds there, as well as to Israel.
Hamas’ support is rooted in Jew-hatred, Sandler said. This isn’t a “Middle East question,” but a “world historical phenomenon, endemic in the imperialist epoch.” It’s prevalent on U.S. college campuses today and a deadly threat to the working class and the unions as the class struggle deepens.
‘Normalization of antisemitism’
We see the “normalization of antisemitism in U.S. politics” unfolding in the mayoral election in New York, Sandler said, where openly antisemitic Zohran Mamdani may well become the next mayor. Mamdani refuses to demand Hamas disarm and calls for the arrest of Netanyahu for “war crimes.”
“Hamas must be disarmed,” Sandler said. “But they have no intention of doing so. The Nazis never surrendered, they left that to the German military brass as their cadres attempted to escape to Argentina and elsewhere, to spread their fascist agenda.
“Unless Hamas is defeated and Gaza held by the IDF, there will be no peace, and the threat of another Holocaust remains,” he said. “But Jew-hatred is not eternal, as the Zionists claim, anymore than capitalism or imperialism is eternal. The Socialist Workers Party is grounded in the Marxist view that the Jewish question is a class and national question that can only be resolved tied to the struggle of the working class and victorious proletarian revolutions.”
“The party stands with the Palestinians against Hamas repression. The crushing of Hamas is the only way to open the door to independent class-struggle developments there,” he said. “This is what can start forging ties and overcoming differences between Jews and Palestinians, other oppressed peoples in the region — a socialist revolution and the elimination of Jew-hatred.”
U.S. hands off Venezuela, Cuba!
Turning to Venezuela, Sandler said what the U.S. capitalist rulers are doing today is the largest U.S. military buildup in the region since Washington’s 1989 invasion of Panama. They’re deploying F-35 fighter jets, guided missile destroyers, boats fitted for landing troops, reaper drones and more in the Caribbean.
“The pretext is that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro runs a drug operation flooding the U.S. with cocaine,” he said. “They want to get rid of Maduro and, above all, send a message to China to back off in Latin America. And, it is a real threat to Cuba.”
The recently renamed War Department and the desire of its secretary, Pete Hegseth, to eliminate “fat troops” from the military “is all preparation for war. And the military buildup is going on worldwide.”
The war question cannot be separated from what is transpiring in the U.S. economy, Sandler said. “They’re rebuilding industry to make steel, aluminum, chips and much more, all aimed at preparation for war production.”
In Trump’s battle against immigrant workers, the U.S. rulers seek to legitimize use of the military against the working class on U.S. soil. In 2002 the Northern Command was set up with responsibility for U.S. military operations in the U.S. and the rest of North America, which the SWP said was aimed at the working class. “There is broad revulsion against this among working people. The labor movement needs to take the lead on pushing this back,” Sandler said.
“The employers are digging in, but there is resistance,” he added, citing today’s labor battles and some victories involving hundreds of thousands of workers across the U.S. and Canada.
“The need for a revolutionary working-class party in the U.S. is at the heart of everything we do,” Sandler said, “and if you join the SWP, you are joining a line of march toward workers taking political power. We find this is an increasingly attractive course in the working class today.”
September 18, 2023
Michael Warschawski was the leading figure of Israeli Trotskyism for several decades. His autobiography, first published in French 20 years ago, is available in English as well, but I had an easier time getting a German edition
Warschawski was born in Strasbourg as the son of a rabbi, and as the book's title says, he always felt that he was living "on the border": between France and Germany, between Jews and gentiles, and so on. He moved to Jerusalem in 1967 to study the Talmud, but at the university he came into contact with the Israeli Socialist Organization, better known by the name of its magazine, Matzpen (Compass). Although Matzpen, even at its best times, never had even 50 members, all of Israel was talking about them because they were the only group consistently opposing Zionist colonization in 1967.
This book is particularly interesting right now, during the greatest domestic crisis in Israel's history, precipitated by the judicial reform of the far-right government. Twenty years ago, Warschawski analyzed the contradictions between a "beautiful Israel" (secular and cosmopolitan) in the coastal cities, and the "other Israel" (conservative and religious) on the periphery. These are the two camps facing off right now. Warschawski described two "deadly alternatives": "those who want to make Israel the outpost of the neoliberal crusade among the peoples of the Middle East"; and "those who want to trap it in an armed ghetto under the leadership of rabbis of a new messianism, in which fundamentalism and nationalism reinforce each other."
Today, "Mikado" is not as radical as he used to be. When Matzpen split in the 1970s, Warschawski led the Trotskyist wing based in Jerusalem, later called the Revolutionary Communist League. In the 1980s, the RCL transformed itself into the Alternative Information Center, an NGO which is still working for Israeli-Palestinian coexistence. It's kind of strange that this book omits all reference to the Matzpen split. Am I the only one who thinks that these strategic debates among Israeli communists would be the most interesting thing to hear about? The vision here is one of liberal humanism, with no mention of socialism. But in the context of Israel today, liberal humanism is a brave and radical position.
There is an excellent documentary about Matzpen, which can be seen for free on Youtube, but I think a solid book on Matzpen and the Israeli New Left still needs to be written.
Warschawski was born in Strasbourg as the son of a rabbi, and as the book's title says, he always felt that he was living "on the border": between France and Germany, between Jews and gentiles, and so on. He moved to Jerusalem in 1967 to study the Talmud, but at the university he came into contact with the Israeli Socialist Organization, better known by the name of its magazine, Matzpen (Compass). Although Matzpen, even at its best times, never had even 50 members, all of Israel was talking about them because they were the only group consistently opposing Zionist colonization in 1967.
This book is particularly interesting right now, during the greatest domestic crisis in Israel's history, precipitated by the judicial reform of the far-right government. Twenty years ago, Warschawski analyzed the contradictions between a "beautiful Israel" (secular and cosmopolitan) in the coastal cities, and the "other Israel" (conservative and religious) on the periphery. These are the two camps facing off right now. Warschawski described two "deadly alternatives": "those who want to make Israel the outpost of the neoliberal crusade among the peoples of the Middle East"; and "those who want to trap it in an armed ghetto under the leadership of rabbis of a new messianism, in which fundamentalism and nationalism reinforce each other."
Today, "Mikado" is not as radical as he used to be. When Matzpen split in the 1970s, Warschawski led the Trotskyist wing based in Jerusalem, later called the Revolutionary Communist League. In the 1980s, the RCL transformed itself into the Alternative Information Center, an NGO which is still working for Israeli-Palestinian coexistence. It's kind of strange that this book omits all reference to the Matzpen split. Am I the only one who thinks that these strategic debates among Israeli communists would be the most interesting thing to hear about? The vision here is one of liberal humanism, with no mention of socialism. But in the context of Israel today, liberal humanism is a brave and radical position.
There is an excellent documentary about Matzpen, which can be seen for free on Youtube, but I think a solid book on Matzpen and the Israeli New Left still needs to be written.
June 14, 2011
I found this book very helpful. Michel Warschawski is a French Jew who went to study and then live in Israel in the 1970's. His politics are very very "left." What I liked was how he spells out political movements in Israel since the '70's. As the book jacket says, "Inspired by a socialism without borders." He talks about all the different borders that he has encountered in his life, and how he has negotiated them. He talks about what it means to be a Zionist in Israel, and what it means for an Israeli Jew to really be in solidarity with Palestinians. The book jacket again: "he is a non-Jewish Jew, a non-Zionist Israeli and a non-Arab Palestinian: an embodiment of trans-border loyalty to the higher values of human solidarity." Helpful information about the political waves in Israel in the last 30 years, right, and left. At the very end he paints a picture of an Israel that he could live with.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews