The Hebrew Republic of Labour and the Status of Palestinian Arabs

[Sir_Paulord]

Recently played the HRL for the first time and I have to say I find the concept of a communist Israel rather interesting. However, it does create a series of questions about the status of Palestinian Arabs and how this different alignment affects the wider world.

1. Is the situation of Palestinian Arabs under the HRL more or less comparable to OTL Israel, or does the Communist regime try to adopt a somewhat more inclusive attitude? I know from playing that the HRL certainly upholds Zionism and Jewish settlement, and that they do not support a Palestinian right to return to their homes (from which I infer that the Nakba still happened more or less as in OTL). Still, OTL the Maki has (afaik, which I'll admit isn't a lot) anti-Zionist or non-Zionist so I'm wondering if these attitudes have a greater impact under the HRL

2. If (as I suspect) the situation of Palestinian Arabs is similar to OTL, how does this affect Soviet diplomatic relations? OTL the USSR made a big point of positing themselves as supporters of anti-colonial movements against the capitalist, racist, imperialist West ("and you are lynching negroes"). Is their influence on this respect damaged by their alliance with the HRL (on top of the more successful (de)colonial policies pursued by Britain and France)?

3. How does this affect Palestinian/Arab anti-Zionist resistance movements ideologically? I was surprised to find that the PLO (which supports 'Arab socialism') is still hanging about as the most influential resistance organisation despite the HRL being communist; I'd expect a more religious or "traditionalist" resistance to be more common.

4. On the other hand, how easily does the HRL find allies in Arab (or, more widely, Middle Eastern) socialists, like they do in Lebanon (and possibly with the Kurds)? What is their relationship with anti-colonial movements not directly concerned with Zionism?

5. How does this affect Global socialist opinion? Does support for anti-Zionist resistance as an anti-imperialist project pick up as much support among Western and Third-World socialists as it did OTL, or are most socialists generally supportive of the HRL?

6. To what extent does Jewish immigration from the US and Western Europe take place before the 2ACW? Did the US restrict immigration to the HRL on the basis of its communist alignment?

[Semitic Crafting]

Hello!
I have to wonder which path did you play in the HRL? Some of them answer different questions of yours through events and descriptions and the such, but it's understandable if you hadn't read them all. Anyways, as to your questions:
1. The situation of Palestinians in the HRL in Tota could be described as similar to or slightly better than that of Israeli Arabs in real life, but not at all similar to the situation Palestinians experience in the west bank. All who live in what you see as the HRL at game start are citizens with full and equal rights. While they do face quite a bit of systemic discrimination and so on, the government is trying to posit itself as a lot more inclusive to them then irl. It should be of note that Arab citizens of the HRL do enjoy some sort of autonomy - all localities with a large Arab majority are collectively represented in a supposed autonomous administration, however this organ of government lacks any real autonomy relevance or power beyond the basic management of local matters and some minor cultural policy it can decide.
About the post and anti Zionists in Maki - while the HRL is not founded by the people in Maki but rather Mapam and more specifically Labour Unity as the initial ruling clique, with Maki as a junior Moscow loyal Partner that soon merges into Mapam after the founding of the state, post Zionism is a more profound phenomenon in the HRL, as is seen both with the post Zionist Canaanite path, and another path that wasnt released with this update and may be added in the future, most representative of the socialist post Zionism which characterized Mapam and Maki for different periods irl. The right of return the Hebrew government does reject is that of Palestinian refugees and their descendants in Lebanon, Gaza, Jordan, Syria, etc (ie not those living under the authority of the HRL). Moreover, Refugees from 48 that were reunited with the country upon annexation of the west bank were not given their homes back in a majority of cases, but do have freedom of movement to go and live where they please ever since being granted citizenship.
2. As I mentioned in the previous answer, the situation isn't comparable to irl as there is no military occupation and all Arabs are infact full legal citizens in the HRL. The USSR doesn't need to stop supporting their anti colonial ideology, with the struggle of the Hebrew resistance against the British mandate being framed as anti imperialist and anti colonialist instead. Their influence in that respect is mostly damaged in the Arab world, where they lost almost all of their influence outside of minorities, at least until the 21st century, when they could expand their influence back into the Arab world without the facade of anti colonial ideology, do to assuming a greater role as a global leader.
3. The PLO in Tota is not the PLO irl. The PLO itself is an organization younger than Israel by quite a few years, so it's entire founding ideology is obviously different. The "Arab socialism" espoused by the PLO was even irl not as central to their policy and propaganda as it was to other Arab Socialists - in Tota the PLO is not pro Soviet or Socialist at all. Also, as is presented in the HRL politics chart in the server, the PLO isn't just Fatah and co in Tota and does include a strong islamist current that didn't split from it. Palestinian resistance in Tota is composed mostly from Fatah, which is in Tota simply a secular nationalist organization which is more traditional and with little to no socialist leanings (and which contains within it young democratic and even libertarian influenced factions), Hamas, the most dominant islamist resistance organization, which is still allied to Fatah in the PLO (no Oslo, etc), and the only truly socialist component, the PFLP, which in Tota is from the get go a maoist organization - since the sino Soviet split, china espoused an anti Hebrew and pro Arab/Palestinian line, so while small in number, the communists among the Palestinian resistance are almost entirely maoist.
4. The "allies" the HRL finds in the middle east and Arab world could be divided into two main groups;
A. "Old allies", from the 20th century and the days of the cold war - these allies are mostly non Arabs (Iran, Kurds), with the notable exception of South Yemen and it's allied Shofar separatists in Oman. Ever since Iran became allied to the HRL, it also enabled the swaying of Shia minorities towards a friendly opinion of the HRL - this can be seen for example in Lebanon, where the Shias mostly allied themselves with the HRL (also relating to their conflict with the PLO in the Lebanese civil war), or even in the Persian gulf or Iraq, where the Shia opposition to Saddam might not be openly pro HRL, but is a lot less hostile to it.
B. As is seen, the HRL struggled to find major Arab allies in the 20th century. However, with the ascension of the Soviet Union to global dominance, some ""liberal"" and ""reformist"" Arab governments, who wanted to befriend the new now dominant global power, became friendlier to the HRL. Good examples are Egypt and Algeria. There is actually some more lore to HRL-arab relations but it's more related to the Canaanites and I won't get into it unless you really are interested in that.
5. The left is still split on the HRL and Zionism - the old pro Soviet left is largely supportive of Zionism, while maoists and aligned third worldist movements are typically anti Zionists. Among the new left there is a variety of positions, mostly coalescing around critical support of Zionism but encouragement of more peaceful and pro reconciliation factions in the HRL, so they recognize Palestinian rights.
6. US and western European immigration to the HRL wasn't prohibited, but occured in a less large amount. Some leftist Jews and those persecuted by anti communism did leave to the HRL, but most stayed (although they might move after the start of the 2acw).
Hope that helps! If you have any more questions feel free to ask!

[Sir_Paulord]

I have to wonder which path did you play in the HRL? Some of them answer different questions of yours through events and descriptions and the such, but it's understandable if you hadn't read them all.

I went in blind and played the Ashkenazi route, which I assume is the least eventful route. I was hoping that choosing the most pro-establishment and anti-reform option every time would result in some sort of government collapse, but alas. I think I read most events but I might've missed something. Defo will play the other paths too.

Also, I did not know the discord server had an HRL politics chart! Sounds interesting; where in the server could I find it exactly? In any case it makes a lot of sense for the PLO to be ideologically different to OTL.

Anyway, very helpful responses all around, thank you for taking the time to reply to me in such detail.

[Semitic Crafting]

Oh, actually a shame you took the Ashkenazi path, it's not really supposed to be picked by the player as we haven't added full content to it yet. Maybe we should've made it more clear in the game. Any sort of "collapse" into more radical paths would happen if you reform too hard, rather than not reform at all. About the politics chart, it was posted by someone who left so it's currently missing, I'll post it again in #small teasers on the server when I get home on Thursday.

[Sir_Paulord]

Oh, actually a shame you took the Ashkenazi path, it's not really supposed to be picked by the player as we haven't added full content to it yet. Maybe we should've made it more clear in the game.

I see, I just kinda looked at the route's small focus tree with an unusually long focus at the end and thought "this looks exactly like the type of tree that you're not actually supposed to complete because something stops you before that". The more straight-forward assumption would've been that it is indeed not fully developed lol. Gonna play the Canaanites now to get the Full Experience™.