Difference between revisions of "Peter Buch"

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'''[[Peter Buch]]''' is an American Trotskyist activist and writer best known for his outspoken defense of the Palestinian revolution and his critique of Zionism as a colonial-settler project. A former member of the socialist-Zionist youth organisation [[Hashomer Hatzair]], Buch spent six months in Israel in 1951 working on a kibbutz before breaking with Zionism and joining the [[Young Socialist Alliance]] and the [[Socialist Workers Party (United States)|Socialist Workers Party]] (SWP).
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'''[[Peter Buch]]''' is an American Trotskyist activist and writer best known for his outspoken defense of the Palestinian revolution and his critique of Zionism as a colonial-settler project. A former member of the socialist-Zionist youth organisation [[Hashomer Hatzair]], Buch spent six months in Israel in 1951 working on a kibbutz before breaking with Zionism and joining the [[Young Socialist Alliance]] and the [[Socialist Workers Party (United States)|Socialist Workers Party]] (SWP) in the US.
  
 
Buch’s political evolution from committed Zionist to anti-Zionist Marxist is documented in his writings and public interventions of the 1960s and 1970s. He argued that Israel was not a progressive or socialist state but an artificially sustained capitalist outpost allied with imperialism, whose creation required the displacement of the Palestinian Arab population.
 
Buch’s political evolution from committed Zionist to anti-Zionist Marxist is documented in his writings and public interventions of the 1960s and 1970s. He argued that Israel was not a progressive or socialist state but an artificially sustained capitalist outpost allied with imperialism, whose creation required the displacement of the Palestinian Arab population.
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== Early life and Zionist period ==
 
== Early life and Zionist period ==
  
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Born in Brooklyn, New York, Buch joined [[Hashomer Hatzair]], a left-Zionist youth group, as a young man. In 1951 he spent six months in Israel, working on a kibbutz and attending a leadership training school. He later described this period as his “original sin”:
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Born in Brooklyn, New York, Buch joined [[Hashomer Hatzair]], a left-Zionist youth group, as a young man. In 1951 he spent six months in 'Israel', working on a kibbutz and attending a leadership training school. He later described this period as his “original sin”:
  
 
:Everyone has an original sin: I used to be a Zionist.<ref>Peter Buch, [https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isr/vol30/no02/buch.html PALESTINE DEFENSE PANEL 1971 SWP Convention] ''International Socialist Review'', 1971.</ref>
 
:Everyone has an original sin: I used to be a Zionist.<ref>Peter Buch, [https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isr/vol30/no02/buch.html PALESTINE DEFENSE PANEL 1971 SWP Convention] ''International Socialist Review'', 1971.</ref>

Revision as of 11:53, 17 May 2026

American Trotskyist activist and writer, former Zionist turned leading defender of the Palestinian revolution


Peter Buch
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Born Brooklyn, New York
Died
Nationality
Residence
Occupation Political activist, writer
Known for Critique of Zionism; defense of the Palestinian revolution
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Children
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Education
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Website

Peter Buch is an American Trotskyist activist and writer best known for his outspoken defense of the Palestinian revolution and his critique of Zionism as a colonial-settler project. A former member of the socialist-Zionist youth organisation Hashomer Hatzair, Buch spent six months in Israel in 1951 working on a kibbutz before breaking with Zionism and joining the Young Socialist Alliance and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the US.

Buch’s political evolution from committed Zionist to anti-Zionist Marxist is documented in his writings and public interventions of the 1960s and 1970s. He argued that Israel was not a progressive or socialist state but an artificially sustained capitalist outpost allied with imperialism, whose creation required the displacement of the Palestinian Arab population.

Early life and Zionist period

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Buch joined Hashomer Hatzair, a left-Zionist youth group, as a young man. In 1951 he spent six months in 'Israel', working on a kibbutz and attending a leadership training school. He later described this period as his “original sin”:

Everyone has an original sin: I used to be a Zionist.[1]

Break with Zionism and turn to Trotskyism

By the mid-1960s Buch had rejected Zionism and embraced Marxism. In his 1967 pamphlet Zionism and the Arab Revolution: The Myth of Progressive Israel, he systematically dismantled the claim that Israel represented a progressive or socialist society. He wrote:

The myth pictures Israel as a land of Kibbutzim or communal farms, with workers’ parties dominating the government and steering Israel in a socialist direction. … If Israel really is moving in a progressive direction, why is its foreign policy so reactionary, and why does its policy in the Middle East meet with such approval from Washington, Chiang Kai-shek, Nguyen Cao Ky, etc.?[2]

Buch detailed Israel’s dependence on imperialist aid, its capitalist economy, discrimination against Arab citizens and Oriental Jews, and its repeated alignment with Western powers against Arab national liberation movements.

Palestine defense activism

Following the 1970 Jordanian civil war, Buch undertook an extensive speaking tour across the United States and Canada in October 1970, addressing approximately 75–100 campuses in defence of the Palestinian revolution. He reported a marked shift in American student opinion:

There was a great deal more sympathy for the Palestinians, or at least greater open-mindedness than on previous tours. There was a greater willingness on the part of people to actually hear the facts and not shout you down. They were critical-minded regarding Zionism and its claims to represent Jewish liberation and democracy in the Middle East.[3]

Buch emphasised the united-front tactic, defence of Arab student rights on campus, and opposition to U.S. military intervention in the Middle East. He stressed the importance of supporting the entire Palestinian liberation movement without becoming entangled in factional disputes.

Introduction to Rodinson’s Israel: A Colonial-Settler State?

In 1973 Buch wrote the introduction to the English edition of Maxime Rodinson's seminal work Israel: A Colonial-Settler State?. He summarised the core thesis:

Israel was established as the result of a colonial conquest, justified by an ethnocentric and racially exclusive ideology … The Zionist project required the reciprocal collaboration of the Zionist agencies in upholding British rule against Arab strivings for independence, that it demanded the continued expansion of the bounds of Jewish settlement, the implantation of a modern economy and technology from which Arabs were excluded, and the ultimate displacement of the majority of the native Arab population from their own homeland.[4]

Legacy

Buch’s writings and speaking tours played a significant role in winning sections of the American radical left — particularly among Arab students and Jewish youth — to an anti-Zionist position grounded in Trotskyist internationalism. His work remains influential in discussions of the Palestinian question within the Marxist tradition.


Selected publications

External links

Notes

  1. ↑ Peter Buch, PALESTINE DEFENSE PANEL 1971 SWP Convention International Socialist Review, 1971.
  2. ↑ Peter Buch, Zionism and the Arab Revolution - The Myth of Progressive Israel Young Socialist Pamphlet, August 1967.
  3. ↑ Peter Buch, PALESTINE DEFENSE PANEL 1971 SWP Convention International Socialist Review, 1971.
  4. ↑ Peter Buch, Introduction to Maxime Rodinson, Israel: A Colonial-Settler State? Monad Press, 1973.
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