Summary
Palestinian communist leader from a prominent Bethlehem Christian family, a Palestine Communist Party central committee member since 1936 who presented himself to Aharon Cohen as a noncommunist Arab activist and in 1944 surfaced on the central committee of the National Liberation League (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 3367-3371, 3455-3459).
Details
- Al-Bandaq came from a prominent Bethlehem Christian family, was a leftist with close and long-standing connections with the PCP, and was widely believed to be a member of the still illegal party’s top leadership; Cohen accepted his assurances that he was not currently a party member and promoted him as the prototype of a new breed of leftist but noncommunist Arab activist (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 3367-3369).
- Cohen discussed with al-Bandaq using Hashomer Hatza’ir funds to launch a newspaper for antifascist propaganda and Arab-Jewish cooperation on the basis of political equality, helped plan an Arab socialist party, and by February 1944 had with him formulated a draft programme which seemed to recognise Jewish rights and interests in Palestine (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 3367-3369).
- In fact al-Bandaq was not only a PCP member but had been a leading central committee member since 1936, and in 1944 he surfaced as a member of the central committee of the newly formed National Liberation League; Lockman suggests his motives in pretending otherwise — extracting material resources his party could use — are perhaps comprehensible (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 3369-3371).
- At the end of May 1943 al-Bandaq and Emile Habibi were among the Arab militants who issued a central committee statement defining the PCP as “an Arab national party which includes in its ranks Jews who accept its national program” (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, line 3459).
Related pages
Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, Aharon Cohen, Palestine Communist Party, National Liberation League, Hashomer Hatza’ir