A major work on the structure of Egyptian capitalism and the changes it has undergone throughout its history, arguing that these changes can be understood only as part of developments in international capitalism and the demands of advanced capitalist countries.
A common image employed in interpreting the Israeli-Arab conflict views it in terms of a moral symmetry: both parties ‒ Israeli Jewish and Palestinian Arab ‒ are in the right, both have a legitimate claim to the same country and are engaged in a tragic struggle with each other for possession of the land. But beneath the surface its basic message seems to be that the one party (Israel) is human and the other one is not.
In the Arab world, not only has there never been a serious bourgeois-liberal challenge to religion and clericalism, but the left too has for the most part avoided the issue or pussyfooted round it.
On Edward Said's Orientalism, and Orientalism in reverse
The Jewish religion and its attitude to non-Jews - Part-1: Prejudice and Prevarications
The Jewish religion and its attitude to non-Jews - Part-2: Structure of the Legal Edifice
In order to gain a critical understanding of the persistence of Islamic archaism and all its paraphernalia, one must approach it through the logic of its own history, as well as that of the Arabo-Muslim bourgeoisie of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
None of the expectations, predictions and prognoses of left circles, whether inside or outside Iran, have been confirmed by the passage of time. The speed with which a highly repressive and deeply reactionary regime has emerged, in the wake of colossal mass mobilisations involving millions, has left many in political shock and disillusionment.
The political contradiction between zionism and secularism is the basic reason for the power of religion and its influence on the minds of most Israeli Jews; it is also one reason why the Secular Movement cannot become a mass movement.
Saadawi criticises western feminists who isolate the problems of women from the political and economic situation. But Saadawi heads for another precipice, one that would cast into the abyss the very Arab women she has taught so much. It is the precipice of a nationalist defensiveness that ultimately minimises the injustices of Arab society and denies all authentic reality to the struggle the author herself strives to serve.
I don't see any contradiction between the struggle for the Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and the struggle for a Palestinian state. I also don't see a contradiction between this struggle and the struggle to build bridges to the Jewish proletariat and for the gradual erosion of the ideological hegemony exercised by the zionist leadership ‒ a struggle which is absolutely necessary and should be supported by all means.
Khamsin is bereaved. Eli Lobel, editor and founder of our journal, has died tragically on Thursday, October 4th 1979. The life-story of this outstanding revolutionary socialist and great internationalist is, in more than one way, the story of a whole generation, the tragedies and noble struggles of a whole epoch.
The three men who prepared the meeting that is considered the birth of the Lebanese communist party represented three important components in the formation of the party: Yusuf Yazbek, the romantic Lebanese liberal with a radical socialist streak; Fu'ad Shimali, the worker who had gathered his trade-union experience in Egypt, and Joseph Berger, the Palestinian Jewish communist of Polish origin who provided the relations with the Comintern.
An analysis ot the positions and activity of various Arab Communist Parties in relation to the partition of Palestine and the Palestinian resistance movements, focusing on the effect which subservience to the official line of the Soviet Union had on their efforts.
A critical review of studies published by Mario Offenberg, Jacob Hen-Yov, Suliman Bashear, Maher Al-Charif and Musa Budeiri.
The little-known uprising in the Gilan province of northern Iran, gave birth to an insurgent republic that was established in June 1920 and lasted for sixteen months, and its legacy is important for the workers' movement in both Iran itself and the wider Middle-East.
A bibliographic list selected and put together by the Khamsin collective on the history of the Communist Parties of the Arab East, with books amd articles in five different languages.
Text of a talk by Mohammed Ja'far [Kanan Makiya] on the development of the Arab ruling classes during the 1960s and 1970s, their integration into the world market and the effect this has on the possibility for revolutionary change in the Middle-East.
The position of women and the nature of the sexual division of labour which exists in Israel cannot be discussed in isolation from the zionist characteristics of the society. The colonialisation process, its requirements, its constraints, its internal contradictions and the political conflicts to which it gave birth are reflected in every aspect of life of Israeli society ‒ including the position of women.
Introduction ‒ Palestinian Workers, A Reserve Army of Labour in the Israeli Economy, by Emmanuel Farajun, Tel Aviv, July 1979. Originally published in Hebrew May 1978.