Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State
Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State: Israel’s Control of a National Minority (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980).
Zionism Good and Bad
Jacobo Timerman, The Longest War (London: Chatto & Windus, 1982).
New Data on Palestinian Workers in Israel
A survey covering the inhabitants of the territories who work inside Israel, conducted by the manpower planning section of the Department of Employment, reveals that in 1981 some 76,000 of them were working in Israel. In 1971, the equivalent figure had been 21,000 and in 1975 it had been 66,000. According to the survey, financed by the Defense Ministry through the coordinator of activities in the territories, the inhabitants of the territories constitute about 5.5 percent of workers in Israel.
The Peace Now Demonstration of February 10, 1983
This account by Shulamit Har-Even appeared in Yediot Aharanot on February 14, 1983. It was translated from Hebrew by Israel Shahak. According to Shahak, who was present at the demonstration himself, the pro-Sharon crowd was made up of West Bank settlers (“Gush Emunim types”) and young yeshiva students of the Agudat Israel Party, both of these largely Ashkenazi, and a separate group of young Oriental Jews brought in on special buses from Beit Shemesh. Shahak observed that while the Peace Now crowd was continuously joined by new marchers, virtually no individuals joined the pro-Sharon group during the demonstration.
Divisions in the Kibbutz
Israel’s kibbutzim, each a block of neat cottages built round a communal dining room, have always concerned themselves with more than the shared tilling of soil pioneered by Jewish settlers in 1911. Since the prospect of a spring election appeared in the autumn of 1982, kibbutz members have been preparing their customary campaign on behalf of factions in the Labor opposition with which they are affiliated. Well organized and articulate, they have provided Labor with campaign bases, public speakers and leading political figures.
Israeli Economy Struggles for Appearance of Solvency
In a year when much of the world endured a protracted economic crisis, and Israel itself was politically torn by the invasion of Lebanon, that country&rsquos economy appeared deceptively unruffled. True, inflation rebounded to a near-record level of 131.5 percent, [1] but most of the country’s citizens seemed to be well cushioned from its effects. Unemployment stood even at 5 percent — about 65,000 persons — a rate that has not changed since 1979. Unemployment does not seem to have been exported to the Occupied Territories either, as a record number of workers from the West Bank and Gaza are currently employed in Israel.
“There Is a Basis for an Israeli-Palestinian Strategy of Joint Struggle”
Daniel Amit is a physicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is a founding member of the Committee Against the War in Lebanon and its predecessors, the Committee in Solidarity with Birzeit University and the Committee Against Settlement in Hebron. During the 1982-1983 academic year, he is Einstein Professor at Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Studies. He spoke with MERIP editors in New York at the end of January, just before the Kahan Commission issued its final report on the Beirut massacres.
What are the main accomplishments of the Committee Against the War?
Iron and a King
There is a new wisdom, already becoming conventional, which explains Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and the attendant massacres of Palestinians and Lebanese by reference to two crucially interconnected developments in Israel: the “orientalization” of Israeli society and the rise to power of the Likud government. “Sharon’s war” is seen as a consequence of Begin’s alliance with the Oriental Jews. [1] Even Chancellor Bruno Kreisky of Austria, a consistent and outspoken advocate of mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO and of the establishment of a Palestinian state, has explained Israeli policy in similar terms: “So today Israel has a majority of Moroccan Jews, Jews from the Arab world….
From the Editors (May/June 1983)
This is the first of several issues we have planned which will examine the Middle East in the wake of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon last June. This issue explores the existing political divisions inside Israel itself. Kenneth Brown investigates the complexities underlying Israel’s own “war between the Jews,” and dispels some of the more superficial characterizations of that country’s intersecting ethnic and political cleavages. Brown takes issue with the widespread notion that the most chauvinist and repressive features of Israeli politics can neatly be ascribed to the electoral weight of Jews of Arab and North African backgrounds.
Manoucheir Kalantari
It is with the deepest sadness that I have learned of the death of Manoucheir Kalantari, a dear friend and valiant comrade with whom I worked closely for several years. He was an Iranian socialist who worked for many years as a leader of the opposition in Britain and Western Europe to the Shah’s regime. Kalantari, a lawyer in his middle forties, belonged to the Fedayi-i Khalq guerrillas, who have been fighting the Khomeini government since June 1981. He was killed in a Tehran prison after being captured during a clash with Islamic Guards in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan in April 1982.
Book Notes (March/April 1983)
Sepehr Zabih, The Mossadegh Era: Roots of the Iranian Revolution (Chicago: Lakeview Press, 1982).
A sympathetic narrative of Mossadeq’s tenure as prime minister from April 1951 to August 1953, to the point of being unable to criticize some of the National Front’s more serious blunders. Zabih also exhibits a marked hostility to the Tudeh Party. While a number of useful factual details are provided, there is no insight into the social bases of Mossadeq’s support and no apparent understanding of the socioeconomic conditions which led to both the successes and failures of the National Front.
—Eric Hooglund
Keddie, Roots of Revolution
Nikki R. Keddie, Roots of Revolution: An Interpretive History of Modern Iran (with a section by Yann Richard) (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981).
Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions
Ervand Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982).
A major lesson of the Iranian revolution was how poorly students of the Middle East understood the social and political forces there. This was a country which had been the object of more official and academic study than perhaps any other state in the region except Israel. Yet even four years after the revolution, the dearth of first-rate studies of Iranian society remains apparent.
Hooglund, Land and Revolution in Iran
Eric Hooglund, Land and Revolution in Iran (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982.)
Hooglund, Land and Revolution in Iran
Eric Hooglund, Land and Revolution in Iran (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982).
Mossadeq’s Legacy in Iran Today
Hedayat Matin-Daftari, a lawyer who prominently defended human rights in Iran under the Shah, participated actively in the revolution. Matin-Daftari, widely known in Iran as the grandson and political heir of former Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq, is a founder and leader of the National Democratic Front, which includes many independent Iranian socialists. Fred Halliday spoke with him in London in late 1981 and the summer of 1982.
Was the clerical dictatorship inevitable?
Workers’ Control After the Revolution
In the months preceeding the February armed insurrection which led to the downfall of the Pahlavi regime, the term shura (council) appeared frequently in the speeches and literature of various political tendencies ranging from the Islamic right to the leftist organizations. The most ardent advocates of the shuras were the left organizations, including the Mojahedin, with an emphasis on workers’ shuras. Now, four years into the Islamic Republic, it is clear that repression was not the only cause of failure of these shuras. The question is to what extent the workers could manage to exert control within an overall framework of social relations.
Bazaar and Mosque in Iran’s Revolution
Ahmad Ashraf is a sociologist who studied and later taught at Tehran University and the New School in New York City. Ashraf is the author of “Historical Obstacles to the Development of the Bourgeoisie in Iran,” Iranian Studies 2/1-2 (Spring and Summer 1969). Ervand Abrahamian spoke with him in New York City in February 1983.
Of the many classes and groups that participated in the Iranian revolution, which have won the fruits of victory?
The Reconstruction Crusade and Class Conflict in Iran
The Islamic Republic’s revolutionary credentials are, apart from foreign policy, largely based on the activities of the so-called revolutionary organizations created shortly after the February 1979 uprising. Operating through these popular organizations, the regime signaled a new beginning for millions of Iranians, especially the young, who had been deprived of meaningful social and political activity. In the last three years, these organizations have been the main channel of upward social mobility for clergy and lay people alike. Much of the course of the Iranian revolution and the social basis of the present regime can be discerned in the records of these new institutions.
“A Dictatorship Under the Name of Islam”
The following interview was conducted with Sheikh Izzedin Husseini during a visit he made to Paris in October 1982. This was the sheikh’s first trip outside Iran, and he had taken advantage of his stay in the French capital to go out and have a look at the city—“unlike Khomeini, when he was here,” the sheikh remarked. Later in 1982, Sheikh Izzedin returned to Iranian Kurdistan, as heavy fighting between the Kurdish peshmergas and government forces continued. —Fred Halliday
What is your view of relations between the Kurds and the central government since the revolution?
