Summary
The Jaffa-based Arabic newspaper which, in Zachary Lockman’s account of the 1920s, warned Arab workers that Jewish unions involved themselves in Arab workers’ affairs only in Jewish workers’ interest, called on them to quit Jewish unions and form their own national labour organisations, and attacked the Histadrut’s organising efforts as exploitation of indigenous workers (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, line 1004; Chapter 2 notes 45, 48).
Details
- By summer 1927 Filastin was expressing pleasure that Arab workers were heeding its warnings that “the Jewish unions got involved in [Arab] workers’ affairs only when it was in their own interest, in the interest of the Jewish workers, while the Arab worker was in their view only an instrument with which to threaten the government if it did not submit to demands to provide jobs for Jewish workers at high wages” (line 1004; Chapter 2 note 45, citing Filastin, August 19, 1927).
- Lockman cites as examples of Palestinian nationalist attacks on the Histadrut’s organising its June 4, 1926 article “Indigenous Workers between Zionism and Communism” and its August 19, 1927 article “Our Workers Awake… The Jewish Unions Exploit the Forces of the Indigenous Workers… Need for the Establishment of National Unions” (Chapter 2 note 48).
Related pages
Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, Al-Karmil, Histadrut, Palestine Arab Workers Society