The Movement and the Middle East : how the Arab-Israeli conflict divided the American Left / Michael R. Fischbach.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fischbach, Michael R., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Arab-Israeli conflict--1967-1973--Foreign public opinion, American.

Arab-Israeli conflict.

New Left--United States--History--20th century.

New Left.

Israel--Foreign public opinion, American.

Israel.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (313 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2020]

Biography/History:

Michael R. Fischbach is Professor of History at Randolph-Macon College. He is the author of Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color (Stanford, 2018), among other works.

Summary:

The Arab-Israeli conflict constituted a serious problem for the American Left in the 1960s: pro-Palestinian activists hailed the Palestinian struggle against Israel as part of a fundamental restructuring of the global imperialist order, while pro-Israeli leftists held a less revolutionary worldview that understood Israel as a paragon of democratic socialist virtue. This intra-left debate was in part doctrinal, in part generational. But further woven into this split were sometimes agonizing questions of identity. Jews were disproportionately well-represented in the Movement, and their personal and communal lives could deeply affect their stances vis-à-vis the Middle East.The Movement and the Middle East offers the first assessment of the controversial and ultimately debilitating role of the Arab-Israeli conflict among left-wing activists during a turbulent period of American history. Michael R. Fischbach draws on a deep well of original sources—from personal interviews to declassified FBI and CIA documents—to present a story of the left-wing responses to the question of Palestine and Israel. He shows how, as the 1970s wore on, the cleavages emerging within the American Left widened, weakening the Movement and leaving a lasting impact that still affects progressive American politics today.

Contents:

The times they are a changin' : the New Left and revolutionary internationalism

Conflict in the ivory tower : campus activism

(Fellow) travelers : left-wing youth in the Middle East

Israel exceptionalism : Jewish attacks on the New Left

Theory and praxis : the old Left against Israel

The ghost of revolution past : conflicted communists

We're not gonna take it : the socialist lurch toward Israel

Give peace a chance? : the ambivalent anti-Vietnam War movement

After the storm : divergent left-wing paths

Shadow of the Cold War : the continued pro-Israeli pushback

Taking root : new thinking goes mainstream

Identity politics and intersectionality : feminism and Zionism.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781503611078

1503611078

OCLC:

1198929203