Anarchism in Israel has a history predating theState of Israel, having been observed in the earlyKibbutz movement, among earlyLabor Zionists, as well as an organised movement in response to the establishment of a state following the1948 Palestine war. Over time, the history of Israeli Anarchism has had a mixed and diachronically-shifting relationship withZionism and theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict, with+972 Magazine publishing an article claiming anarchists were"the only group in Israel engaged in serious anti-occupation activism."[1]Animal rights are notably popular among Israeli anarchists, even when compared to anarchist movements in other countries.[2]
Uri Gordon estimated that there were up to 300 politically active anarchists in Israel circa 2007.[3]
Numerous political movements, includingAnarchism,Marxism,Zionism, andBundist Anti-Zionism were popular among many secular European Jewish communities in the early 20th century in response to the heavyantisemitism present inEurope and theHaskalah orJewish Enlightenment of the previous century.[2]
Anarchist ideas circulated during early Jewish immigration to Palestine and were influential in the development of the Kibbutzim. The first 28 Kibbutzim were founded between 1910 and 1914 in a context of strikes and labor disputes. According toUri Gordon, the initial founders of the Kibbutzim aimed to "create a free socialist society of Jews and Arabs in Palestine."Gustav Landauer was influential on some Kibbutzim activists.[4]
TheHapoel Hatzair (English: The Young Worker) party produced papers discussingProudhon andKropotkin. The party's spiritual leader Aharon David Gordon was influenced byHasidic mysticism,Friedrich Nietzsche andTolstoy. He did not advocate for a Jewish state and called for cooperation with local Arab peasants.[4] Many leftist Zionists rejected the idea of establishing a Jewishnation-state and promoted Jewish-Arab cooperation.[5][6]
The Russian-born ZionistJoseph Trumpeldor declared himself ananarcho-communist and Zionist. He helped organise early Jewish self-defence forces and aimed to construct a "General Commune in Palestine". In the late 1920s, anarchist influence among Jewish immigrants began to decrease.[4]
Theestablishment of the State of Israel was received with mixed feelings by many Jewish anarchists. The Holocaust exterminated roughly half of the world's Jewish population and had pushed many into supporting a Jewish state for protection from antisemitism. Many anarchists at the time also hoped Israel could move towards being an anarchist society.[7] The wife ofDavid Ben-Gurion,Paula Ben-Gurion, was an anarchist.[8]
In the early 1950s,Noam Chomsky and his wifeCarol Chomsky backpacked around Israel, briefly living on a Kibbutz.[9]
Abba Gordin immigrated to Israel from the United States in 1958 and established the anarchist group ASHUACH (Agudat Shocharei Chofesh, Freedom-Seekers Association) that had around 150 members. The group published the monthly reviewProblemot in Hebrew and Yiddish and had a library inTel Aviv of anarchist texts inHebrew, Yiddish andPolish.[2] Gordin was in contact with Jewish anarchist groups inNew York City (Freie Arbeiter Shtime) andBuenos Aires.[4] Supposedly during this period, there was some attempt byShin Bet to monitor them. The anarchists of this period have been criticised for being too insular and not connecting with Israeli social struggles.[2]
Following the 1967Six Day War, anarchists were cooperative with the Socialist Organization of Israel who published the anti-ZionistMatzpen, as well as working with theIsraeli Black Panthers. Anarchists protested the1982 Lebanon war andToma Sik helped found the Israeli chapter ofWar Resisters' International.[4]
Anarchism was active in the late 1980s as part of the Israeli punk movement as well as amongconscientious objectors during theFirst Intifada. A small anarchist group was established inHaifa, withJuliano Mer-Khamis being one of 3 members. This has been described as a period of optimism for the Israeli left due to theOslo accords, which lasted until 1995 with theassassination of Yitzhak Rabin by Israeli right-wing extremistYigal Amir.[2]
The short-lived Israeli Anarchist Federation protested againstpolice brutality and Israel's firstMcDonald's. Anarchism grew in the late 1990s as part of environmental protests againstHighway 6. Inspired bythe 1999 Seattle WTO protests, anarchists began organisingFood Not Bombs andReclaim the Streets parties, as well as establishing theSalon Mazal infoshop in Tel Aviv and the IsraeliIndymedia.[4] There was tension between the older generation of anarchists and the younger generation during this period, as the older generation tended to be more supportive of theIDF out of historical trauma.[2]
Anarchists became involved in the Israelianimal rights movement in the 1990s, helping organiseAnonymous for Animal Rights (described as the Israeli equivalent ofPETA) in its early stages.[2] During theSecond Intifada, there was a new wave of organising around Palestinian solidarity. Many international anarchists arrived alongside theInternational Solidarity Movement (ISM) to accompany Palestinian actions against roadblocks and curfews. ISM activistsRachel Corrie andTom Hurndall were killed by the IDF inGaza. With a campaign of political repression featuringpolice raids,deportations and denial of entry to ISM activists.[4]
In 2002, anarchists founded thevegan anarchist affinity group Ma'avak Ehad (One Struggle).[10] In 2003, One Struggle activists working with Palestinians in dismantlaing a barrier inMas’ha in theWest Bank chose the nameAnarchists Against the Wall (AAtW) in a media statement.[2] In December of the same year and again in Mas'ha activist and formerparatrooper Gil Na'amati was shot and wounded in both legs by the IDF during AAtW involved protests against the wall.[11][12] AAtW have since been credited with leading the Israeli opposition to the2006 Lebanon War.[4]
Uri Gordon, Anarchist writer and long time activist, has written in 2007 that anarchists are often accused of beingfifth columns that benefitIran andAl-Qaeda.[13]
Anarchists participated in the2011 Israeli social justice protests, which have been seen as the Israeli wing of theOccupy movement and have been noted for attempting to link the struggle to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[2]
In the 2010s, the anarcho-communist groupAhdut was formed, started by Israeli anarchists of Russian descent. Which later disbanded.[14] In 2019, Israeli anarchistJonathan Pollak was physically assaulted by two men who waited outside of his workplace and slashed him across the face with a knife. Pollak would not report the attack to thepolice.[15]
During theCOVID-19 pandemic, an anarchist collective in Haifa organised mutual aid projects and food distributions during the lockdowns.[16] In 2020 anti-Zionist Jews joined the Palestinian anarchist group Fauda, which co-operates with Israeli anarchists.[17] During the2023 Israeli judicial reform protests,Benjamin Netanyahu called the protesters "traitors" and "anarchists".[18] Israeli anarchist Ilan Shalif has claimed at least 20 anarchists attended the protests.[14] Anarchists have attended anti-war protests inside Israel during theGaza war.[17]
…efforts at Arab-Jewish cooperation within a socialist framework, opposed to the deeply antidemocratic concept of a Jewish state (a position that was considered well within the mainstream of Zionism).:
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