Matzpen (Organization)

Matzpen, formally the Israeli Socialist Organization, was a radical left-wing organization active in Israel from 1962 through the 1980s. It never became a mass movement and remained small in membership, yet it occupied a distinctive place in Israel’s intellectual and political history. Matzpen challenged the Israeli Communist Party’s uncritical support for the Soviet Union, demanded open democratic debate within political organizations, and insisted that any serious solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had to recognize the national rights of the Palestinian people.

Matzpen’s importance lies less in electoral success than in the political language it helped introduce into Israeli public life. Its members built an independent organization, published a Hebrew-Arabic periodical, organized demonstrations and public campaigns, and maintained contacts with Jewish, Arab, Palestinian, and international left-wing groups. In doing so, they became one of the earliest and most consistent expressions of an Israeli left that opposed the occupation after the Six-Day War and sought a shared political framework for Jews and Arabs.

Formation and the search for an Israeli path to socialism

Matzpen was founded in 1962 after four members were expelled from the Israeli Communist Party, known as Maki: Moshe Machover, Akiva Orr, Oded Pilavsky, and Yirmiyahu Kaplan. They objected to Maki’s unreserved support for the Soviet Union, called for open and democratic discussion of political and ideological questions, and criticized the party’s failure to develop a coherent program for achieving socialism under Israeli conditions.

The new organization advocated a socialist revolution based on elected workers’ councils. It opposed exploitation and oppression and linked its socialist vision to recognition of the Palestinian people’s national rights. In principles adopted in 1973, Matzpen described itself as a voluntary association of revolutionary socialists acting from a Marxist worldview, against exploitation and oppression and for a global socialist revolution. It envisioned a non-class society in which free people would collectively and consciously manage their social lives and create and share social abundance.

The organization’s formal framework was Israeli. Under its regulations, members were people from Israel who accepted the program, defended it, worked in one of the organization’s bodies, and paid membership dues. Jews and Arabs belonged to Matzpen, although bureaucratic and security restrictions limited Arab members’ ability to move freely between the organization’s areas of activity. Many members had previously belonged to Maki, Rakah, Hashomer Hatzair, the Scouts, or left-wing groups in Israel and abroad. More than 60 percent were students or academics; the remainder included kibbutz members and workers.

Prominent early members included Akiva Orr, Haim Hanegbi, Moshe Machover, Oded Pilavsky, Aryeh Buber, Yirmiyahu Kaplan, and Meir Smorodinsky. In 1964, a Haifa-based Trotskyist faction joined Matzpen; among its members were Nikola Jabara, Dov Shos, and Dawood Turkie. Other people associated with the organization included the artist and polymath Shimon Tzabar, historian Shlomo Sand, attorney Leah Tsemel, and Yigal Arens.

The Matzpen periodical as an instrument of political work

At the organization’s founding meeting, attended by about twelve people, members decided to publish an independent newspaper. Haim Hanegbi proposed the name Matzpen, meaning “compass” in Hebrew, to express the group’s ambition to point toward a new direction in politics. The periodical was intended not merely as an organizational newsletter but as a democratic instrument for circulating ideas and opening political debate.

The first issue appeared in November 1962. Members wrote, translated, edited, typeset, and prepared the publication on a voluntary basis. Some had experience in journalism, printing, and graphic design, which helped make production possible, although distribution remained difficult. After distribution through commercial agents proved too expensive, the organization relied on mail subscriptions, direct sales, and circulation by its own members.

The first issues contained only eight large-format pages. The publication later expanded to an average of sixteen pages, and from 1972 it appeared in both Hebrew and Arabic. Its subjects included Matzpen’s activities, criticism of the government and Zionism, the Israeli-Arab conflict inside and outside Israel, and views expressed by left-wing organizations. The first issue sold only a small number of copies, but circulation grew after the Six-Day War. By the 1970s, approximately 2,000 copies were printed, many of them sold in Arab communities.

Opposition to the occupation and recognition of the Palestinian people

The Six-Day War made Matzpen one of the most outspoken Israeli voices against retaining the territories captured by Israel. On June 8, 1967, three days after the war began, The Times of London published a joint Arab-Israeli statement signed by representatives of the Palestinian Democratic Front and Matzpen. Drafted on the eve of the war, it called for an end to Israel’s Zionist character and proposed a federal, socialist, supranational state in which Jews and Arabs would enjoy civil rights and cultural freedom and participate in the political and economic unification of the Middle East.

On July 5, 1967, Matzpen called on the Israeli government to withdraw from “the occupied territories and the attempt to impose a settlement by force.” Its members distributed leaflets and newspapers on campuses, outside factories, and near public institutions, and took part in carefully organized demonstrations against the occupation. They sought to make recognition of Palestinian rights and the need for a political solution visible Israeli positions at a time when such views were far outside the mainstream.

The organization also campaigned for freedom of expression for Arabs in Israel and the territories. After Matzpen activist Khalil Tawama was arrested on January 8, 1968, the organization published a statement in issue 40 of its periodical. Its members described the arrest as part of a broader pattern of intimidation and repression directed at Arabs who opposed the occupation and expressed their views publicly.

International contacts and internal debate

Matzpen’s work extended beyond Israel. Its members appeared on public platforms abroad, developed relationships with European left-wing organizations and groups associated with Bertrand Russell, and sought to present an Israeli critique of the occupation and the conflict to international audiences. On May 15, 1967, representatives took part in a “Palestine Day” gathering in Paris. After the war, contacts with Arab and Palestinian left-wing organizations expanded.

At one stage Matzpen established contacts with Fatah, and on another occasion members appeared publicly with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. These initiatives produced intense internal debate. Some members opposed what they regarded as an increasingly extreme direction, while others made cooperation conditional on recognition of the right of the Israeli people to self-determination. Articles from Matzpen’s periodical were translated into Arabic and published in the Lebanese newspaper Al-Hurriya, extending the organization’s reach beyond Israel.

In December 1972, a spy and sabotage network operating in northern and central Israel on behalf of Syria was uncovered. The Shin Bet investigated approximately sixty people and arrested about forty. Among those most prominently associated with the case were Udi Adiv and Dawud Turki, who received seventeen-year prison sentences, as well as Dan Vered and Rami Livneh, who received a four-year sentence. The affair deeply disturbed Israeli public opinion and became associated in public and media discussion with circles connected to Matzpen. It also intensified debate within the organization about the limits of political activity and relations with hostile organizations and states.

Splits, successor frameworks, and the organization’s final years

Matzpen was a small ideological organization, and disagreements over revolutionary strategy, political work, and international relationships repeatedly produced splits. In 1965, most of the organization joined the World–New Force movement led by Uri Avnery and Shalom Cohen, publishers of the magazine HaOlam HaZeh. No Matzpen member, however, became a Knesset candidate on the movement’s list.

In 1970, people who had left the organization established two revolutionary groups: the Workers’ Alliance, also known as Avant-Garde, and the Revolutionary Communist Alliance, known as Ma’avak. Another split followed in 1972, when former members created the Revolutionary Communist League, or “Marxist Matzpen.” For a time, it regarded itself as Matzpen’s authentic continuation and published a periodical under that name. It later identified itself as the Israeli branch of the Trotskyist Fourth International.

In 1970, some members of the divided organization established the Red Front. In 1973, its Jewish and Arab members were accused of belonging to an armed underground organization, infiltrating Syria, maintaining contacts with hostile organizations and states, and failing to report underground meetings to the police. In the 1973 elections, the Revolutionary Communist League and the Workers’ Alliance continued the electoral strategy associated with Matzpen by supporting Rakah, the Communist Party.

In November 1977, the organization changed its name from the “Israeli Socialist Organization—Matzpen” to the “Socialist Organization in Israel—Matzpen.” In 1982, Matzpen members participated in establishing the Progressive List for Peace. Its Jewish-Israeli and Arab-Palestinian components made it the first non-Zionist political framework to challenge the Communist Party’s monopoly on representing Arab citizens of Israel in the Knesset.

After the election, several Matzpen members sought to unite the two components into a single movement and to create a socialist framework open to everyone regardless of race, religion, or sex. Both proposals were rejected. Most Matzpen members subsequently left the party, further weakening the organization. A year later, issue 90, the final issue of the Matzpen periodical, was published.

Why this legacy belongs in Moreshet

Matzpen merits inclusion in Moreshet because it documents an important chapter in the history of political thought in Israel: the emergence of a Jewish-Arab organization that sought to connect socialism, civil equality, and recognition of Palestinian national rights. Its members did not limit themselves to declarations. They built an organization, published an independent periodical in Hebrew and Arabic, organized public protest, developed international contacts, and tried to create political structures shared by Jews and Arabs.

Matzpen remained on the margins and never gained broad public support, but its activity anticipated debates that later became permanent features of Israeli public life: the future of the territories, Jewish-Arab relations, freedom of expression, and political approaches to the conflict. Its history shows how a small group can influence a society’s political vocabulary without holding governmental power—through ideological consistency, independent publishing, and sustained public engagement.

For Moreshet and Moreshet.com, Matzpen also preserves the complexity and diversity that existed within Israeli society and within the Jewish and Arab left. Remembering the organization makes it possible to understand how ideas once regarded as marginal entered Israel’s intellectual and political history, and how a small organization left a lasting mark on public debate, Jewish-Arab relations, and the country’s memory of its formative decades.