Discussion Forum: It is completely illusory to imagine that a viable advanced economic and social order can be established in Palestine, capable of increasing qualitatively the material, cultural and social welfare of the Palestinian masses, without the active participation of the Jewish proletariat.
Matzpen's editorial: Whereas the duty of socialists in the Arab East – as in Europe – is to march in the forefront of the trend for unification, and endeavour to crystallise a common programme for a socialist revolution, the Communist parties are at best dragged in the wake of the current, or worse: try to obstruct it.
The autonomy is in reality exactly what it looks like on paper — an alibi and cover not for the creation of a Palestinian state but for more or less rapid colonization and annexation to Israel of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Critical marxist evaluation of women's situation in the Middle East is almost non-existent... In this issue of Khamsin we make an attempt to remedy these deficiencies.
The members of the Khamsin collective announce with deeply-felt grief the sudden death of Nigel Disney, a dedicated member of our collective. Nigel, born in Nottingham, died at the age of 26 on the 24 June 1978 in a London hospital.
Article by a Lebanese woman describing the position of women in both Muslim and Christian communities as the country slid into civil war.
A look at the changes in Palestinian society since the beginning of zionist expansion in the region and its affect on the position of women.
Legislation dealing with marriage, divorce, and the status of women (inferior in all cases) is still based on, or directly inspired by, Koranic law in all the Arab-Islamic states. What role is played by Islam, what is its influence, and how is it used in the oppression of Arab women.
This article aims to show how the objective and subjective henchmen of Zionism in the West, in their attempt to fluster the critics of Zionism, present ‘leftist’-tinged arguments in support of the Israeli state, but especially directed against its Jewish opponents of the anti-Zionist socialist movement inside Israel.
Text criticising Samir Amin's view on the formation of Arab nations, analysing from a Marxist perspective the construction of Arab nationalism, Islam and the need for working class internationalism in the Middle-East.
A powerful and confident Israel is an essential linchpin in the new American hegemonic structure in the Middle East. American policy must therefore heed the very deep-seated zionist rejection of the idea of creating even a small Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan.
The myth of the supposed liberation and equality of Israeli women, while perhaps gratifying a deep-seated need for feminists in search of identity, cajoles most Israeli women into a state of spirited resignation – content with a public image that bears little or no resemblance to their actual situation.
Yehoshua Porath of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has written what will undoubtedly become the standard reference work of the history of the Palestinian national movement, and deservedly so: this despite the fact that at times he seems unable to free himself from his political prejudices, and abdicates his professed role of detached historian to don the mantle of the partisan adversary.
Salim Tamari responds to Mohammed Ja'far's article on the PLO and the Palestinian national liberation movement: Only in the occupied territories (and Israel) do Palestinians have a 'proper' (though dislocated) and differentiated class structure. But there all forms of class consciousness are being submerged by the realities of national oppression in the daily confrontation with the occupier.
Zionism is a false solution to the Jewish problem and is based on a capitulation to antisemitic arguments. It is a project for establishing, maintaining and expanding an exclusivist state in which racist laws, regulations and practices are enforced. It is a colonizing enterprise at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian people. And it is a staunch ally and instrument of imperialist domination in the Middle East.
Khamsin is a journal by revolutionary socialists of the Middle East. It is also for them, and for socialists in other countries who are interested in that part of the world.
The Oriental Jews in Zionism's dialectical contradictions.
Jews who lived in Egypt for 2,000 years, held important positions in the civil service, were rarely exposed to racial persecution and spoke the language of the people...Yet, in Egypt as elsewhere in the Mashreq, the Jewish population, with rare exceptions, has left the country. Why?
Who are the Oriental Jews, how do they perceive themselves, the Ashkenazi Jews, the Arabs and the Palestinians? There are no simple answers...
Within the limitations inherent in his ideological and theoretical approach, the author attempts to give a comprehensive picture of ethnic relations in Israel.