It has been well established that communism and socialism played important roles in the historical development of the political cultures of both Palestine and Israel. The Palestine Communist Party was, at one time, the official representative for the Middle East region for the Communist International. What is less known is how a party that had much of its ideology in common with the Jewish and Zionist communities could, by the late 1930’s, become so estranged from it and by the end of that decade would cease to function as a coherent body for many years. How could a party that for much of its early existence was predominantly Jewish find itself ostracized and shunned by the larger Zionist community in Palestine? Much of the story lies with the policy of Arabization that the party pursued following the Wailing Wall riots of 1929 but there is still much that is less known such as why did the party pursue such a policy as Arabization? Did the party members understand the implications of the policy of Arabization and the natural outcome of such a policy? How did the party intend to pursue this policy in Palestine despite a lack of an organized working class and basic knowledge of communist ideology among the native population? Perhaps most importantly, how would the party relate to and deal with the three main centers of power in Palestine during the British Mandate including the British Mandate authorities, the Zionist Organization, and the local Arab elites?
By building upon the work of the Subaltern Studies Group, I hope to demonstrate that the work of the Palestine Communist Party with the Arab peasantry of Palestine during its early years of existence places this group into the Subaltern realm of politics. It is through the experience of rebellion against the British that these subaltern actors gain their voice and a place in which to express that voice. The Party was among the only organized groups that actively sought out the Arab peasant in outreach and by 1929, the Arab peasant was the preoccupation of the Party, perhaps to its detriment. Once mobilized to the impending dangers to their way of life, the peasants in Palestine called upon traditional form of organization and built upon old patterns of relations and kinships to facilitate that organization. But the use of traditional methods of organization should not mislead us to believe that what was witnessed was the reinvention of something old but rather demonstrate the “constant process of invention” of a modern culture that was carried out in light of British occupation and Zionist immigration (O’Hanlon and Washbrook, 209). In the final analyses of the PCP, their efforts to shape and lead the agrarian revolt in the East ended in failure but the fruit of their labor continues on in both the Israeli and Palestinian societies.