Summary
Palestinian communist organisation whose Haifa and Galilee leaders, in Manna’s account, chose cooperation with Israel during the 1948 war and united with Maki in October 1948 (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.37, 41).
Details
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Emile Habibi chose his way to remain in Haifa with the leaders of the National Liberation League, which united in October 1948 with the Israeli Communist Party (Maki) (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.37).
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In Haifa and the Galilee the majority of its leaders chose to cooperate with Israel and opposed the entry of Arab armies into the Palestine war; the position became particularly apparent in July 1948, when League leaders chose to cooperate with the Israeli occupation in their regions (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.41).
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Chapter 3’s opening (part 3) presents League members as a special case of “pessoptimists”, guided by expelling British colonialism from the Middle East and reinforcing Soviet influence, who emerged relatively quickly from the ruins after the Nakba and charted a path against the Arab nationalist current, joining Maki in October 1948 as the first of the remainers to integrate into the Jewish state’s political organizations (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.117).
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League activist Habib Zurayq distributed the League’s anti-war pamphlet against the intervention of Arab armies in the Galilee pocket at the beginning of October 1948, leaving bundles in ‘Ilabun’s centre at night (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.94).
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Before the merger with Maki, the League expressed its positions on the Palestine war in a publication signed with three Arab communist parties, dated early October 1948, with unsparing criticism of English and American colonialist war projects and reactionary Arab regimes (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.122).
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Chapter 3 in full (part 4) gives the League’s trajectory: al-Ittihad opposed partition until the eve of the 29 November 1947 vote, turmoil followed, and a February 1948 Nazareth declaration supported partition, reached by simple majority, not consensus, over Emile Tuma’s dissent (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.125-127).
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The League escalated in June 1948 to calling Arab armies ‘invaders’ and distributing ‘An Appeal to the Soldiers’ to Egyptian soldiers, edited by secretary Fu’ad Nassar; distributors were arrested on the Arab side and held at Abu ‘Ujayla in Sinai (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.132-133).
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After Nazareth’s occupation the League under Saliba Khamis organised Arab workers on refugees’ lands with the military governor, and an August 1948 security-services document called League members ‘a real ally of the state of Israel’ (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.135, 139).
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Dozens of League comrades were permitted to return from Lebanon in summer and fall 1948, mostly by land, with Mapam help; lawyer Hanna Naqqara returned by plane on 10 August 1948 (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.137-138).