Michael R. Fischbach

Black internationalism : Malcolm X and the rise of global solidarity -- The fire this time : SNCC, Jews, and the demise of the beloved community -- Reformers not revolutionaries : the NAACP, Bayard Rustin, and Israel -- Balanced and guarded : Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Arab-Israeli tightrope -- The power of words : the Black Arts movement and a new narrative -- Struggle and revolution : the Black Panthers and the guerrilla image -- Middle East symbiosis : Israelis, Arabs, and African-Americans -- Red, white, and black : communists, guerrillas, and the black mainstream -- A seat at the table : Andrew Young and black foreign policy -- Looking over Jordan : Joseph Lowery, Jesse Jackson, and Yasir Arafat

Transnational Countries of Color

Black Power and Palestine

After sketching the historical background and reviewing conflicting estimates of the amount of property involved, the volume investigates U.S. and UN settlement proposals developed--behind closed doors--in the 1950s and '60s, and explains how the peace process from Camp David I to Camp David II and beyond has actually hindered a settlement of property claims.

Addressing Claims for Property Compensation and Restitution

The Peace Process and Palestinian Refugee Claims

In the twenty years that followed the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, 800,000 Jews left their homes in Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Morocco, and several other Arab countries. Although the causes of this exodus varied, restrictive governmental measures and an outburst of anti-Semitic feeling during and after the war were major factors. Some of these "Mizrahi" Jews, most of whom were not active Zionists, were forced to leave behind property of great financial and ancestral value-property that was sometimes seized by the governments of the countries they fled. In this book, Michael R. Fischbach, who has dedicated years to studying land and property ownership in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict, reconstructs the circumstances in which Jewish communities left the Arab world. Conducting meticulous and exhaustive research in the archives of Washington D.C., Jerusalem, London, New York, and elsewhere, Fischbach offers the most authoritative estimates to date of the value of the property left behind. He also describes the process by which various actors, most importantly the State of Israel, linked the resolution of Jewish property claims to the fate of Palestinian refugee property claims following the 1948 war. Fischbach considers the implications of contemporary developments, such as America's invasion of Iraq, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and Libya's attempt to shed its international pariah status, which have impacted pending claims and will affect claims in the future. Overall, he finds that many international Jewish organizations have supported the link between the claims of Mizrahi Jews and those of Palestinian refugees, hindering serious efforts to obtain restitution or compensation.

Jewish Property Claims Against Arab Countries

The Arab-Israeli conflict constituted a serious problem for the American Left in the 1960s: pro-Palestinian activists hailed the Palestinian struggle against Israel as part of a fundamental restructuring of the global imperialist order, while pro-Israeli leftists held a less revolutionary worldview that understood Israel as a paragon of democratic socialist virtue. This intra-left debate was in part doctrinal, in part generational. But further woven into this split were sometimes agonizing questions of identity. Jews were disproportionately well-represented in the Movement, and their personal and communal lives could deeply affect their stances vis-à-vis the Middle East. The Movement and the Middle East offers the first assessment of the controversial and ultimately debilitating role of the Arab-Israeli conflict among left-wing activists during a turbulent period of American history. Michael R. Fischbach draws on a deep well of original sources--from personal interviews to declassified FBI and CIA documents--to present a story of the left-wing responses to the question of Palestine and Israel. He shows how, as the 1970s wore on, the cleavages emerging within the American Left widened, weakening the Movement and leaving a lasting impact that still affects progressive American politics today.

How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Divided the American Left

The Movement and the Middle East

Publisher Fact Sheet Discusses the social reaction to these policies, the different conceptualizations of land held by state & society, & notes these policies' ultimate political significance.

State, Society, and Land in Jordan

Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Records of Dispossession

The Arab-Israeli conflict constituted a serious problem for the American Left in the 1960s: pro-Palestinian activists hailed the Palestinian struggle against Israel as part of a fundamental restructuring of the global imperialist order, while pro-Israeli leftists held a less revolutionary worldview that understood Israel as a paragon of democratic socialist virtue. This intra-left debate was in part doctrinal, in part generational. But further woven into this split were sometimes agonizing questions of identity. Jews were disproportionately well-represented in the Movement, and their personal and communal lives could deeply affect their stances vis-à-vis the Middle East. The Movement and the Middle East offers the first assessment of the controversial and ultimately debilitating role of the Arab-Israeli conflict among left-wing activists during a turbulent period of American history. Michael R. Fischbach draws on a deep well of original sources—from personal interviews to declassified FBI and CIA documents—to present a story of the left-wing responses to the question of Palestine and Israel. He shows how, as the 1970s wore on, the cleavages emerging within the American Left widened, weakening the Movement and leaving a lasting impact that still affects progressive American politics today.

Michael R. Fischbach

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