In recent years observers have considered the parallels between South Africa's former Apartheid regime and Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967. Seemingly forgotten in this discussion is the fact that Palestinians have long theorized and tried to cultivate international support on the basis of their shared ties with colonized and other disenfranchised peoples around the world. My paper sheds light on one aspect of this history by focusing on the Palestinian citizens of Israel, who lived under a military regime from 1948 to 1967 that segregated them from Jewish citizens, dispossessed them of much of their land, restricted their political activity, and deprived them of meaningful education and work. Drawn largely from the Arabic press, I trace two themes: a) the connections that Arab (and sympathetic Jewish) intellectuals and activists made between their status in Israel and that of Algerians under French rule, Africans under white minority rule, and blacks in the American South; and b) the lessons they drew from decolonization, UN resolutions against colonialism and racism, and the twin struggles against Apartheid and Jim Crow. Israel's political establishment and media responded even to the suggestion of the colonial analogy as evidence of disloyalty and subversion. But other problems, stemming partly from the UN's respect for state sovereignty and its focus on individual rights, would also plague Palestinian activists who hoped to bring international attention to their plight. In analytical terms, how could they convince the world that they were colonized if they were also voting citizens of the state? On a practical level, how would international leaders reconcile the principle of decolonization with their tacit approval of Israel's 1949 armistice lines and its non-return policy toward the 750,000 Palestinian refugees? Arab leaders, for their part, were unwilling to allow such questions to threaten their budding alliances within the emerging Afro-Asian bloc. Global inaction, alongside Israeli authorities' growing harassment of anyone who expressed solidarity with the Algerian Revolution, led many Palestinians to embrace the US civil rights movement as an alternative model for resistance to military rule. While the struggle for civil equality inside Israel was a safer political strategy, and to a limited extent it succeeded, it also rendered activists unable to address the broader (and still unresolved) questions of land, sovereignty, and the refugees. Overall, I highlight the promise and peril that the politics of internationalism offered Palestinians in the postwar era.