Exploring Marxism's Role in the Palestinian Resistance

This is a free preview of the episode "Palestine Pt. 14: Decolonial Marxism w/ Patrick Higgins." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast

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The Palestinian resistance movement—when seen as a continuous struggle taking shape in the early 20th century and continuing to this very day—has been one of the most profound and long-lasting resistance movements the world has ever seen. The movement was forged in the struggle against British colonialism, Zionist settler-colonialism, and later, US imperial hegemony, and through its long struggle, was not just inspired and informed by Marxist theory—but it itself developed and expanded Marxist revolutionary theory and tested it in the battlefields of West Asia. The contributions—both materially and theoretically—by the Palestinian left, cannot be overlooked, and we’ve devoted this episode to an exploration of this history and of this development of the global, international, anti-imperialist left. And we’ve brought on a terrific guest for this conversation. 

Patrick Higgins is a researcher and writer with a PhD in Arab History. He is a co-editor of the publication Liberated Texts. He is currently adapting his dissertation into a book on the history of Palestinian resistance against US imperialism.

In this conversation, Patrick walks us through a history of revolutionary Marxist parties and organizations in Palestine, from the Palestine Communist Party in 1919 all the way up to the present resistance coalition of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—among others. We explore the role that pan Arabism and Arab Nationalism played in the development of the Palestinian left’s struggle, the rise of Israel as a US proxy in West Asia, the aims and goals of US imperialism and the United States’ involvement in the region, the contributions of the Palestinian left to anti-imperialist theory, and how the current genocide can be analyzed and contextualized from the perspective of the Palestinian revolutionary left. 

Further resources:

• Resistance News Network
• A Study of Physical Education, Mao Tse-tung
• The Palestine Communist Party 1919-1948: Arab and Jew in the Struggle for Internationalism, Musa Budeiri
• Ghassan Kanafani: The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine
• Red Round Globe Hot Burning: A Tale at the Crossroads of Commons and Closure, of Love and Terror, of Race and Class, and of Kate and Ned Despard, Peter Linebaugh
• al-Hadaf
• “Lessons from the Paris Commune”. Al-Hadaf (Beirut), February 28, 1970
• Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)

Related episodes:

• Our ongoing series on Palestine
• Walter Rodney, Marxism, and Underdevelopment with D. Musa Springer & Charisse Burden-Stelly

Cover art: “The Path of Armed Struggle”  issued by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1970.

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