Summary
The Jaffa carpenter who led a small group of Arab workers allied with Po’alei Tziyon Smol, and who told David Ben-Gurion in December 1925, when Histadrut membership was refused, “We cannot be your slaves” (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 1018-1022).
Details
-
Nassar, an enthusiastic and loyal adherent of Po’alei Tziyon Smol and protégé of its leader Moshe Erem, answered the charge that supporting Zionism made him a traitor by saying he supported it “precisely because I am a good Arab”, because Jewish immigration raised the Arab worker’s wages and standing (line 1018; Chapter 2 note 50).
-
Lockman notes that very few Arabs in Palestine embraced this logic and that it is not clear any of Nassar’s Jaffa group shared his political vision (line 1020).
-
At the December 1925 meeting arranged by Smol, Nassar and his coworkers demanded admission as “loyal members” subject to Histadrut discipline, rejecting a separate club as in Haifa; Ben-Gurion stood firm: “We will not decide here. The members of the Jaffa Workers’ Council will consult with other workers and inform you of their decision. We will not argue about [Histadrut] membership cards. This is our rule, and until the next congress we can decide nothing” (line 1022; Chapter 2 note 51).
-
Nassar travelled to Nazareth to persuade building workers there to join a strike Smol supported, after local Histadrut officials had promised help and failed to act (line 1024).
-
Smol maintained its links with Nassar’s circle after 1927, but it remained a very small and isolated group with no influence on Jaffa’s growing Arab working class (line 1076).
-
In Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, Chapter 5’s opening: Nassar appeared at the January 1930 Arab workers’ congress in Haifa and asked to address it for his pro-Zionist position; the organisers denied him permission and expelled him as a Zionist agent, and he thereafter worked for many years at ‘Etziyon, a Histadrut-owned woodworking enterprise, remaining a staunch Po’alei Tziyon Smol loyalist (lines 2252-2254).
Related pages
Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, Po’alei Tziyon Smol, David Ben-Gurion, Histadrut, Joint Organization