Why has the European Left become so antagonistic towards Israel? To answer this question, Colin Shindler looks at the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and Zionism from the October Revolution to today.

Is such antagonism in opposition to the policies of successive Israeli governments? Or, is it due to a resurgence of anti-Semitism? The answer is far more complex. Shindler argues that the new generation of the European Left was more influenced by the decolonization movement than by wartime experiences, which led it to favor the Palestinian cause in the post 1967 period. Thus the Israeli drive to settle the West Bank after the Six Day war enhanced an already existing attitude, but did not cause it.

Written by a respected scholar, this accessible and balanced work provides a novel account and analytical approach to this important subject. Israel and the European Left will interest students in international politics, Middle Eastern studies, as well as anyone who seeks to understand issues related to today's Left and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Colin Shindler is Emeritus Professor and Pears Senior Research Fellow at SOAS, University of London, UK. He is also the founding chairman of the European Association of Israel Studies. The first professor of Israel Studies in the UK, he has written 7 books on Israeli history and Jewish affairs. His History of Modern Israel was published in 2008 to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel.

Acknowledgements

Foreword



1. The Revolution and the Jewish Question

2. Lenin's Jewish Problem

3. Zionists and Communists in Palestine

4. Cultivating Arab Nationalism

5. The New Dawn

6. British Communism between the Wars

7. True Believers and the Revolutionary Imperative

8. After the Shoah

9. The Icy Streets of Prague

10. The Resurrection of the Outcast

11. Leon, Mandel and Cliff

12. The Non-Aligned

13. The Watershed of 1956

14. The Post-Stalinists and the Anti-Stalinists

15. The Changing Face of the British Left

16. The Campaign Against Normalization