A short history of Zionist and Israeli political Marxism

ABSTRACT In this article, I argue that despite seemingly intractable disagreements between different Zionist and Israeli political Marxists, they share a common theoretical and political perspective, which cannot simply be summed up as the commitment to a set of universal values. Rather, I argue that common to all Zionist and Israeli political Marxists is a commitment to a particular struggle at their historical moment, only through which universal socialism is claimed to be achievable. I use three examples from different historical periods to demonstrate this thesis. I argue that for Ber Borochov in 1907, the commitment to Zionist immigration and settlement is what enables Jews to participate in a universal socialist revolution; For Moshe Sneh, writing in 1954, only by embracing Israeli patriotism can Israelis work toward socialism; and for Tamar Gozansky in 1986, it is the commitment to Palestinian self-determination that makes possible universal anti-capitalist struggle. Thus, for each of these political Marxisms, universal socialism is only achievable through a commitment to some concrete particular struggle, one that is not expressed in terms of class.