Intro
Historically speaking, anarchists have never had a unified stance on Palestine or Zionism. Even anarchists who shared an opposition to Zionism didn't necessarily oppose it for the same reasons, nor did they necessarily have any concern whatsoever for Palestinians.
On the one hand, there were historical Jewish anarchists such as Emma Goldman and Joseph Cohen, who claimed to be against Zionism but at the same time dismissed or ignored the role of British imperialism and Zionist colonialism in the oppression of Palestinians.
Goldman and Cohen rejected Zionism due to their abstract anti-nationalism. They were concerned solely with the detrimental effect of the Jewish nationalist movement on the Jewish people and the broader international working class, minus any particular regard for Palestinians as Palestinians.
Goldman, in 1906 had already published a comrade’s anti-Zionist article in her periodical, Mother Earth. However, in 1938 she wrote her own article defending the Zionist colonization of Palestine, ignoring the repression of Palestinians by the British, and deploying Zionist mythology and John Locke’s theory of property to justify Zionist land theft. Goldman claimed, in a standard colonial trope, that Jewish settlers had gained rights to Palestinian territory because they had “tilled the soil... reclaimed wastelands and... turned them into fertile fields and blooming gardens.”
Reginald Reynolds, a gentile fellow traveller of anarchists, responded to Goldman most appropriately at the time, criticizing her Lockean/Zionist argument, pointing out that by her "till the soil" logic, "the land in Palestine should have belonged to the Arab peasant," and that “‘finding is keeping’ is a good motto for conquistadores and imperialists, but not, I should have thought, for Anarchists.”
Joseph Cohen, in his 1945 book on the Jewish anarchist movement in America, callously dismissed out of hand the idea that Palestinians might have been resisting British and Zionist imperialism during the disturbances of 1929.(The Jewish Anarchist Movement in America, 2024 English edition, pg.540)
On the other hand, there were historical Jewish anarchists such as Marcus Graham and Albert Meltzer who did just the opposite of Goldman and Cohen, specifically highlighting British imperialism and Zionist colonialism as crucial factors for anarchists to tackle.
This split also applied to historical gentile anarchists. On the one side there was Camillo Berneri and Vernon Richards, calling out British imperialism and Zionist colonialism, and on the other, George Woodcock, reiterating the Zionist/Lockean myth that settlers made the desert bloom and naively describing the kibbutz movement as holding shared principles with anarchists.(Freedom: Anarchist Fortnightly, Oct.18, 1947)
In 1986, the Jewish American anarchists Murray Bookchin and Sam Dolgoff wrote an article and a book chapter, respectively, defending the State of Israel.
Bookchin, in his article, tossed aside any concern for Western imperialism and even spuriously claimed that the problem was just war in the abstract, that the “partition lines that were eventually established after the 1948 invasions were the product of bloody warfare — literally the give-and-take of battle — not of ‘imperialistic’ or ‘land-grabbing Zionists.’”
Dolgoff, in his book chapter, went so far as to support the claim made by his Israeli comrades that against the Arab states, “Israel must be defended.”
Anarchist incoherence around Palestine and Zionism should come as no surprise, however, given that European and Euro-American anarchists don’t exactly have a perfect track record when it comes to Indigenous peoples in general, nor have they been consistent in rejecting collaboration with the State (see Spain in the 1930s or Ukraine today.)
Furthermore, abstract anarchist universalism, however well-intentioned it may be, is no ready-made and automatic solution to particularity, and Palestine perhaps has shown this more clearly than anywhere else. An attention to the specifics of settler colonialism, its imperialist backing, and the dynamics of Palestinian history is necessary, now more than ever.
As the infamous Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin put it way back in 1868, "only by uniting those two faculties, those two apparently contradictory tendencies — abstraction and attentive, scrupulous, and patient analysis of details — can we rise to a true conception of our world."
Shall we finally rise to Bakunin's challenge (while at the same time firmly rejecting his anti-Indigenous and anti-Semitic tendencies) and to the challenge that the Palestinian struggle presents to the world, or shall we continue to wallow in the mire of a merely abstract and aesthetic radicalism that sweeps settler colonialism under the rug?
-Ed., Sep.2026
See also the Iran, Yemen, Empire and Militarism sections of this blog.
Zines
Anarchists (Emma Goldman and others) Debate Palestine (1906-1944)
Anarchists on South West Asia and North Africa (1912-2024)
An Anarchist (Albert Meltzer) on Palestine (1939-1996)
The Class Nature of Israeli Society, by Haim Hanegbi, Moshe Machover & Akiva Orr (1971)
No One’s Illegal on Stolen Land (1988-2026)
The Downward Spiral of Militarism / Clarity Contra Complicity, by K. C. Sinclair (2025)
When Wars Converge, by K. C. Sinclair (2026)
Articles/Excerpts (1899-2026)
“You want to send us to Zion? We do not want to go…”
Some Early Anarchists on Zionism: From Bernard Lazare to Emma Goldman (1899-1939)
“Were the retrogressive ideas of the Jewish Nationalists ever to materialize, the world would witness, after a few years, that one Jew is being persecuted by another.”
National Atavism, from Mother Earth (1906)
“Like a wild cry across the world and like a barely whispering voice in our innermost being, a voice inevitably tells us that the Jew can only be redeemed at the same time as humanity and that it is one and the same: towards the Messiah in exile and dispersion to wait and to be the Messiah of the nations.”
Are These the Words of a Heretic?, by Gustav Landauer (1913)
“Yet, England has in Palestine a base for expansion into Asia Minor and will not give up its policy of protection for Zionism.”
Bloodied Palestine, by Camillo Berneri (1929)
“On the contrary, the greater and stronger the violence grows, the greater our responsibility and duty grows to find the correct cause and determine our diagnosis.”
“It is a mere colony ruled over by British exploiters and rulers.”
The Arab and Jewish Ordeal in Palestine, by Marcus Graham (1936)
“Muslim nationalism tends to emancipate itself from the English yoke. They have ample reasons.”
Blood in Palestine, by Solidaridad Obrera (1936)
“However, apart from once more exposing Mussolini as the opportunist par excellence, the events in Palestine once more shows that all imperialisms, whether they be democratic or totalitarian are ruthless.”
Terrorism In Palestine: “Democracy” at Work, by Vernon Richards (1937)
“The Arab demand for independence is far from vague in its significance… And we further add that Zionism will not solve the Jewish problems.”
Palestine: Idealists and Capitalists, by Vernon Richards (1938)
“In plain words, a pact was formed during the War between British imperialism and Jewish nationalism, of which the Arabs were to be the victims.”
Palestine and Socialist Policy, by Reginald Reynolds (1938)
“In point of fact I have for many years opposed Zionism as the dream of capitalist Jewry the world over for a Jewish State with all its trimmings, such as Government, laws, police, militarism and the rest.”
Emma Goldman’s Views on Palestine and Socialist Policy (1938)
“‘Finding is keeping’ is a good motto for conquistadores and imperialists, but not, I should have thought, for Anarchists.”
Reg. Reynolds Answers Emma Goldman on Palestine (1938)
“The struggle must be against Imperialism first, against Zionism secondly, and lastly against the bourgeois nationalist government when created.”
Anarchist Tactic for Palestine, by Albert Meltzer (1939)
“But it may be asked, can this particular problem wait? No problem can wait.”
Palestine and the Jews, by Albert Meltzer (1942)
“On the other hand, there is no doubt that the majority of Zionists regard the Arabs in the same way as other colonisers have regarded other ‘native inhabitants’…”
Palestine, by Albert Meltzer (1948)
“I am strongly convinced that the libertarian ideal which opposes all rulers and states, makes no exceptions, grants no privileges to a Jewish or Israeli state.”
State Versus Commune in Israel, by Nathan Chofshi (1950)
"It is a lie that our attack on Egypt has been caused by Arab provocations. It is we that have provoked the terrible hatred which surrounds us."
A Time For Shame and Atonement, by Third Force (1956)
“My relative did make use of her experience years later, when she chose to be a rooter for the State of Israel, at which time she did not renounce her contempt toward the Quechuas…”
Anti-Semitism and the Beirut Pogrom, by Fredy Perlman (1982)
“...Israel is now the third largest supplier of arms to Latin American regimes, behind the U.S. and West Germany.”
Latin-American Terror: The Israeli Connection, by David Watson (1982)
“What is so disquieting about many persistent attacks on Israel is that they help to completely obfuscate what is really a ‘core problem' of the Palestinian people.”
Attacks on Israel Ignore the Long History of Arab Conflict, by Murray Bookchin (1986)
“Far from curtailing the concentrated power of the state, the necessity for defense of Israel — freely acknowledged by our comrades — depends upon putting into effect the indispensable military, economic, legislative and social measures needed to keep Israel in a permanent state of war preparation.”
Anarchists in Israel, by Sam Dolgoff (1986)
“As far as the Palestinian struggle is concerned, we must underline the importance of an insurrectional struggle that has been going on for over nine months, and which is putting one of the strongest armies in the world in great difficulty.”
The Palestinian Struggle Continues, from Insurrection (1988)
"Israeli assistance began in 1971, but it took on increased importance after 1977, when the Guatemalan generals rejected US military aid in response to Carter administration pressures to remedy their gross human rights violations."
Israel and Guatemala: Arms, Advice and Counterinsurgency, by Cheryl Rubenberg (1986)
"Menachem Begin sent arms to Argentina's military junta - who actually had Jewish blood on their hands."
Israel’s Long History of Cooperation With Ruthless, Anti-Semitic Dictators, by Azriel Bermant (2018)
"WeWork sold Wall Street a fantasy of Israeli communal living with an entrepreneurial twist—until it collapsed."
The Capitalist’s Kibbutz, by Sam Adler-Bell (2020)
“Why are settler colonial geographies like the agricultural kibbutzim in the canon but the anti-colonial fugitive agricultural communes established in the Great Dismal Swamp ignored?”
A Colonizing Anarchism, by JJ (2020)
“…in the face of the latest barbarity unleashed by Israel upon the Palestinian population, two anarchist-communist organisations in Europe have taken stances that amount to either passivity or tacit endorsement of genocide.”
Palestine, Platitudes and Silence, by Tommy Lawson (2023)
"...the president of Namibia, Hage Geingob (who died on 4 February [2024]), rebuked Germany, arguing that it ‘cannot morally express commitment to the UN Convention on Genocide ... while supporting the equivalent of a holocaust and genocide in Gaza’."
Three Genocides, by Eyal Weizman (2024)
“He [Aaron Bushnell] had not been passive in the first place, so he was not breaking from his passivity, he was breaking from his complicity, as he himself told us.”
Clarity Contra Complicity, by K. C. Sinclair (2025)
"In order to live by miyo-wîcêhtowin and wîtaskêwin, we need to live in good relations to Indigenous Peoples locally and globally."
Treaty responsibilities to Palestine, by Jessica Johns (2025)
"We write as Indigenous women, Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer people grounded in our responsibilities to our Peoples and lands, to raise our voices in solidarity with the people of Palestine. What is unfolding in Gaza is genocide."
Indigenous Women: Letter of Solidarity with Humanitarian Flotilla (2025)
"Israel is facing weeks of water shortages after an exceptional algae bloom crippled much of its desalination capacity, in a crisis scientists say was triggered when Israeli attacks destroyed much of Gaza’s wastewater infrastructure, causing a massive discharge of untreated sewage."
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Video from May 7, 2026