The conventional narrative about the Nakba (Catastrophe) of the Palestinians in 1948 and the establishment of the State of Israel rests on the widespread perception of total Palestinian rejection of the 1947 UN partition plan of Palestine. In fact, not all Palestinians rejected partition. One political group accepted partition as a solution to the national problem in Palestine, and opposed the bloodshed between Jews and Arabs. This group, the National Liberation League (Usbat al-Taharur al-Watani) was an organization founded by Arab communists who broke away from the Palestinian Communist Party (PCP) in 1943. It existed as a separate Arab movement until 1948, when most of its members joined Jewish communists to form the Israeli Communist Party (MAKI) in 1948. The National Liberation League (NLL) is the focus of this proposed paper. The short-lived history of this organization, and the dilemmas, internal contradictions and ambivalences that characterized its work, can shed light on set of larger questions that are central to the history of Jews and Arabs in mandatory Palestine. In this paper I will focus on one issue, namely the ongoing tension and debates within the NLL regarding the question of national liberation and anti colonial, i.e. anti-British and anti-Zionist, struggles. The acceptance of the partition plan positions the NLL in a very unique place in the context of Palestinian Arab society and the enhanced national struggle of the 1940’s. Throughout its existence it offered a different socio-political discourse and program than the one offered by the Palestinian nationalist leadership, and also criticized the leadership for its political conduct, factionalism and policies. Viewing itself as an avant-garde movement, it sought to carry out an anti-imperialist (anti-British and anti-Zionist) struggle, as well as an anti-capitalist one, and called for the establishment of a democratic state in Palestine. This all changed dramatically in 1947, with the acceptance of the partition plan, and the NLL's recognition of the idea of a Jewish national state and the recognition of Jewish national rights. In the proposed paper I will track this change in policy, while also examining it in light of the changing Soviet policies towards the conflict in Palestine and nationalist struggles in general.