Palestinian activist linking anti-colonialism and anti-fascism
In Spain in 1936 he addressed Moroccan soldiers serving Franco, confronting the tension between anti-fascist solidarity and colonial rule in North Africa.
Palestinian communist activist, writer, and translator. Raised in Jerusalem and educated in Moscow, he went to Spain in 1936 to support the Republic. His propaganda work among Moroccan soldiers serving Franco linked anti-fascism in Spain with Arab liberation. He later worked in journalism and literary translation. His memoirs provide an Arab participant’s perspective on the Spanish Civil War.
Anti-fascist solidarity and colonialism
Sidqi supported the Spanish Republic without treating the war as an exclusively European conflict. Addressing Moroccan soldiers mobilized for Franco connected opposition to fascism with demands for liberation from colonial rule. Yet support for the Republic did not automatically entail support for Arab or North African independence.
His experience complicates explanations of foreign volunteers based on a single ideology or nationality. Volunteers from Palestine included both Jews and Arabs, but surviving documentation and historical recognition are uneven. Chapter 4 of Untold Stories of the Spanish Civil War uses Sidqi and other Arab Palestinian participants to explore both the possibilities and the limits of international solidarity.