Palestine: A Socialist Introduction
By Michael Ray
The separation of history into categories is always somewhat arbitrary. But Palestine: A Socialist Introduction, edited by Sumaya Awad and brian bean, came out before October 7th, 2023 — one of those rare days which will forever mark a boundary between before and after.
Israel's genocidal response to the events of that day will forever change the public conversation about the plight of the Palestinians, the nature of Zionism, and the role of the United States in the Middle East. One is tempted to think a book like this should be updated to reflect these developments. On the contrary, it's important to remember a word which defenders of the status quo are always loath to hear: context.
Palestine: A Socialist Introduction is rich in context. It's a collection of essays by various activists and scholars structured into three broad categories. Part 1 covers the history of Israel's colonization of Palestine, Part 2 describes more recent events which have shaped Palestinian resistance to this colonization, and Part 3 shows the intersections between the Palestinian resistance and related movements for liberation, such as the feminist struggle against patriarchy, the "LGBTQIA+ struggle against heteronormativity, and the Black struggle against police brutality and mass incarceration. What unites all of the essays, according to the editors, is the antagonism between socialism and imperialism, which they define as the fight of ordinary working-class people against a global capitalist system hellbent on world domination.
Far from being a weakness, that the essays were written before October 7th is actually one of their strengths. If somebody less historically informed than Mostafa Omar tried to write an article like his The National Liberation Struggle today, it might place too much emphasis on Hamas, downplaying the effects of Israeli Apartheid, the histories of other Palestinian organizations, and the role of external actors in shaping the pre-October 7th political situation on Gaza.
Whenever today's liberal commentary begins with some version of "I condemn Hamas, but Israel is going too far," it's missing the point. While ostensibly sympathetic to Palestinian civilians, this rhetoric elides the conversation about colonialism and plays directly into the hands of conservatives who seek to reduce the situation to some imagined "battle between civilization and barbarism." Likud Party elites may publicly air superficial disapproval toward these liberals, but it wouldn't be surprising if they were privately smirking, knowing they've successfully limited the terms of the debate. On the other hand, when Omar explores the real answers to his own question, "Why did so many Palestinians support Hamas?" it's not whiggish, but prescient. It leads into an analysis which is impressively nuanced given its brevity.
Actually, that's something that could be said about the entire book. I consider myself fairly informed and yet this short, introductory volume has taught me a lot. For example, it's one thing to mention the relatively well-known massacre at Deir Yassin, but it's another for Sumaya Awad and Annie Levin's Roots of the Nakba to describe the Zionist militia's systematic mass execution of Palestinian men, women, and children at Tantura in 1948, and to show that such an atrocity was not at all exceptional.
However, all this attention to detail in such a short space could make the book seem a bit dense to some readers. I'm thinking of the large number of people who have only been acutely aware of Israel-Palestine since October 7th, 2023. Here's Remi Kenazi in the afterword: "If you are reading this book, I imagine you care. You've watched documentaries, you've picked up pamphlets, read articles or books, and you want to know more."
In 2020, when this was written, I would have completely agreed. Anybody who would have picked this off the shelf or ordered it online was probably already familiar with the Nakba, the 1967 occupation, the BDS Movement, and the basic concepts of anti-colonialism and socialism. But the events of the past year have inspired millions of newly-interested young people who certainly do care, but may not yet have watched the documentaries, picked up the pamphlets, or read the articles and books.
There's a reason this is called a Socialist Introduction to Palestine and not just an introduction to Palestine in general. I'd recommend these readers start with a few short articles about Palestinian history since at least 1948, preferably written before October 7th and preferably not from corporate media outlets, before they fully dive into Palestine: A Socialist Introduction. With that small caveat in mind, I would certainly recommend this book to anyone who's interested. It skillfully manages to be short yet detailed, firmly within a socialist framework and yet broad in scope. Anybody who cares about the current crisis in Palestine should read it, as should anybody calling themselves a socialist, a feminist, an anti-racist, or even just a decent human being.
Michael Ray has been incarcerated since he was 18 years old and has dedicated his life to freeing others from the prison-industrial complex. His focus is on exposing harmful thought-patterns lurking beneath the surface of mainstream society.