challenge their rule. This, furthermore, is even truer when the oppression takes place not in a far-away country, but 'at home', and when national oppression and expropriation form the very conditions for the emergence and existence of the oppressing society. Revolutionary organizations have operated within the Jewish community in Palestine since the 1920's and have accumulated considerable experience from such practical activity; this experience provides clear proof of the dictum that 'a people oppressing another cannot itself be free'. In the context of Israeli society it means that as long as Zionism is politically and ideologically dominant within that society, and forms the accepted framework of politics, there is no chance whatsoever of the Israeli working class becoming a revolutionary class. The experience of 50 years does not contain a single example of Israeli workers being mobilized on material or trade-union issues to challenge the Israeli rgime itself; it is impossible to mobilize even a minority of the proletariat in this way. On the contrary, Israeli workers nearly always put their national loyalties before their class loyalties. Although this may change in the future, this does not remove the need for us to analyse why it has been so for the last fifty years. Ethnic Diversity A third crucial factor is the ethnic character of the Israeli proletariat. The majority of the most exploited strata within the Israeli working class are immigrants from Asia and Africa. [3] At first sight it might appear as if the reduplication of class divisions