The Problem of the Middle East

by Tony Cliff

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

Born in Palestine to Zionist parents in 1917, Ygael Gluckstein became a Trotskyist during the 1930s and played a leading role in the attempt to forge a movement uniting Arab and Jewish workers. At the end of of the Second World war, seeing that the victory of the Zionists was more and more inevitable, he moved to Britain and adopted the pseudonym Tony Cliff.

In the late 1940s he developed the theory that Russia wasn’t a workers’ state but a form of bureaucratic state capitalism, a theory which has characterised the tendency with which he was associated for the remaining five decades of his life. Although he broke from “orthodox Trotskyism” after being bureaucratically excluded from the Fourth International in 1950, he always considered himself to be a Trotskyist although he was also open to other influences within the Marxist tradition.

Reviews

[J]

I haven’t read every word in this book, by any means. The polite reason is that I am not sufficiently au fait with the intricacies of early-mid 20th century Marxist analysis to appreciate much of it. So perhaps it should be on the ‘currently reading’ shelf… but that shelf is an unwieldy beast, and soon I will not be currently reading it. So, I have created, appropriately enough, a contradiction — both ‘read’ and ‘dnf’.

That being said, I did read the chapter on Zionism. Utterly fascinating to see the Palestine issue from this perspective, and to gain insights into the politicking in the years leading up to the establishment of the state of Israel. This book was published in 1946. Amid the complexities of the day the author detects a distinct pro-Jewish bias on the part of the British. There is a significant degree of what, for want of a better word, can only be called dramatic irony in the text, given what has happened in the region since 1947. The author’s class-based prescriptions are quaint in their hopeless utopianism. Along the way, of course, as an intelligent, eloquent and motivated observer (a Communist, who was both Jewish and anti-Zionist), he has a lot to say that is quite acute.

“The best prospect the Zionists can hope for is that Britain will give them a Jewish state, even though a pocket state in a small part of tiny Palestine. They think that the partition plan for Palestine can suit the interests of British imperialism under certain conditions. Such a plan will ensure the existence of two irredentist movements, a sharp Zionist struggle for every place of work and foot of ground in the Jewish state, and economic weakness of the mutilated Arab state. These are the pros of the plan from the standpoint of imperialism. The Zionists base their calculations on this factor and on another: it is true that the position of Zionism in the struggle between the different imperialist powers is not predetermined. Ben Gurion and Weizmann can be American agents with the same enthusiasm as they have been British agents for nearly thirty years. Zionist terror is intended to threaten Britain with the possibility of a Zionist switchover to America, and at the same time to make it easier for the British politicians, if they so desire, to permit the construction of a Jewish state in spite of Arab opposition. (They would be able to say to the Arabs that there was a material and moral necessity to give in somewhat to the Zionists.)
Even if this solution is arrived at – which is far from being certain – it will be only a temporary, short-lived postponement of Zionism’s burial. The Jews of Palestine and the Arabs will only be involved by this plan in terrible sacrifices, clashes and bloodshed. The only real solution for the Jewish workers of Palestine is to bridge the gulf between themselves and the tens of millions of Eastern peoples by renouncing Zionist dreams of domination.”