Michael Fischbach, "The Movement and the Middle East: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Divided the American Left" (Stanford UP, 2019)

One of the most divisive international issues in American politics today is over Israel and Palestine. The close ties between Israel and the United States are very strong and see considerable cooperation between the two countries. However, that cooperation is also challenged because of the status of the Palestinian people and growing concern over their human rights. This has led to increasingly bitter criticisms of Israel, on the one hand, and denunciations of Israel’s critics in the United States for perceived and real anti-Semitism on the other. It threatens to split apart certain groups in the Democratic Party, for example.

Michael Fischbach’s Black Power and Palestine told one part of this history by examining how the issue of Palestine created fissures among black power and civil rights activists from the 1960s onward. Fischbach has now written an additional book examining the effects of the Israel-Palestine issue on domestic American politics with The Movement and the Middle East: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Divided the American Left (Stanford University Press, 2019). Fischbach examines the way that a host of groups on the American found themselves divided over which country they ought to support and how to fit that support into campaigns against imperialism or U.S. foreign policy. While most of the left ultimately shifted over to supporting Israel, today those same discussions are playing out in mainstream political parties.

Zeb Larson is a recent graduate of The Ohio State University with a PhD in History. His research deals with the anti-apartheid movement in the United States. To suggest a recent title or to contact him, please send an e-mail to zeb.larson@gmail.com.

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