A FEW YEARS AGO if you'd asked an Israeli who and where the Palestinians The Israeli state had said so, rewritten pre-1948 history, changed Arab place names to Hebrew and destroyed the tell-tale signs of history and existence in what was now Israel and what Palestine. Over 350 towns and villages were razed to the ground. Arab 'Jaffa' became 'Yaffo' - being turned into a trendy ethnic district for artists, cafés and night clubs...
Yet the Palestinians remain cleaning streets, working as garage attendants, on building sites, in restaurants, canning fruit in factories, cleanhospitals and as seasonal workers in kibbutzim fields.
The state calls them 'minorities' euphemism for Arab.
According to the state there are no Arabs only Muslims, Christians, Druze and Bedouins.
They are the Palestinians who managed to escape expulsion by the Israelis after the '48 war - the fate of 800,000 of :heir people 170,000 see ned and for Years were forgotten. were concentrated the villages In the Galilee, Triangle area and the Negev desert.
Today these al cas are still predominantly Arab despite state plans :0 'Judaize the Galilee' and move the Bedouins off the land; the population has risen dramatically to 500,000.
the PLO and against Zionism.
fices in London's Regent Street.
ference will be in the autumn.
The LCP can be Mansions, Holmleigh Rd., London N16.
Socialist Challenge 23 July 1982 page 4 1948-65 the Palestinians in the new state were subject to the Emergency Regulations of 1945 (a legacy from colonial rule once used against the Palestinian Jewish community) - in effect meant military rule which held them as prisoners in their Villages no travel without military mits, imprisonment without trial, political organisations banned, and for a farming people worse still their ands confiscated.
This policy in part reflected the colonial aims Unlike South Africa, when was built on the oppression and exploitation OI the black people, sought to expel the indigenous population, isolate the ones wno re mained and replace Arab • Will exclusively Jewish labour.
The Histadrut General Federation of Hebrew workers in Eretz Israel was set up in the 1920s to specifically keep out Arabs from the labour market.
The Regulaemergency tions restricted the A LABOUR Committee on Palestine, comprising Labour Party activists, has been formed to campaign, inside and outside the party. in solidarity with the Palestinian people and The committee opposes the Zionist Israeli state as a racist, exclusivist and expansionist state. Its first public activity has been to picket the El Al ofA public meeting is being organised in London's County Hall this Friday evening, July 23. The committee is to hold a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference and its founding concontacted c/o 28 Carlton County Hall, London Friday 23 July 7pm Speakers: Ken Livingstone, Stuart Holland MP, Palestinian and anti-Zionist Israeli speakers Wall spells out the message movements of Palestinians LO WINS Today there are only 6 mixed (Jewish/Arab) the whole state.
Between 1948 and the sixties a struggle in the israell Zionist establishment raged over whether Isolate or exploit the growing. pool of Arab labour. The 'exploit them" camp won. Employers and the state cast a greedy look this potentially few any rights, that would out of necessity than LaKe lower Wakes Jewish workers and who could be laid off first in a recession which would jobs and DIULCCi material privileges andprovide profits for the ruling class. In the sixties the Histadrut took in its first Arab members a ne even changed its name to the General Federation of Labour!
marked phase TOI They occupied the remainder slate. pre-48 The Occupation of East Jerusalem is an outrage to the Arab world Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza Strip) and a part hts. The Heights. occupation meant not only more land but an added 1 million Palestinians direct military rule (note, in 1967 they said they were only going to stay a few days 15 years later they are still there and are now saying the same about Lebanon!) The military and administrative apparatus needed to maintain a col ony and the elevation of perialist Israel LU ally junior im- an escalation of US arms and soon orehe israeli work force was needed to run this. It left the Arabs as a economy The porential potential Cullully.
Arab workforce is ПОИ third that of the Jewish even though they are sixth the population.
The Palestinians inside borders) АТЕН SNAC come from the Occupied Territories. They are the Bantustan. estimated 80,000 workers travel into Israel every day - they are not permitted to stay overnight The massive land ex* Ernest Mandel on 'Socialist Democracy' * John Harrison on 'Economic Crisis' so on. villages inside Israel have Decorat workers' dorNOV LOWS SU the territories change for Israel.
The depends very heavily on the Arab workforce. They are crucial to _the economy. The official numbers of workers is prolower unan really They mask the numbers who registered. work seasonally in agriculture or factories like the • year old girls from Gaza who pack fruit in Tel Aviv and the Arab women who work in sweat shops in the villages for the The 1960s saw another significant development that of the Liberation movement. In Led. It became the political expression severa million Palestinians living mostly in the Arab worl as exiles to fight to return Palestine. tion movement and the oc Cuballul the of Palestine ended the isolaof the Arabs Israel. The desertion of the Arab countries. the attack and expulsion of Palestinians by King Hussein in Jordan (Black September 1970) showed the Palestinian in the fight against were on then own Lebanon The seventies Israel saw the founding of the Arab Nationalist movement amongst the Palestinian students Universities Abn al Balad (Sons of the village), nationalist movement in the Villages leaders of both have been in and out of prison and some under house arrest for two years Occupied ritories have waged a long and hard struggle against military rule demonstrat through and 'Debating Socialism' Weekend October 23/24 Central London venue * Bea Campbell & Val Coultas debate'Sweet Freedom' * Ken Livingstone, Frances Morrell & Alan Freeman debate 'The New Labour Left' * Mike Davis on 'Exterminism & the Cold War' * John Ross on 'Break-Up of British Politics' * Bernadette McAliskey & Perry Anderson atso invited Tickets: Just f4 for whole weekend, £2.50 per day. Creche provided. Write to: International 'Debating Socialism', PO Box 50, London N1 2XP Mark the date in your diary now - 23/24 October! tions, and the latest and most militant uprisings in the last seven months have been met the most violent Israeli retaliation since the battles in Gaza in the early seventies.
of Lebanon has arisen out of the Israeli policies toward the Palestinians such demand the destruction of the PLO. In 15 years the Israelis have been unable their will on the Occupied Territories. Milson civilian administration is no better than the previous military rule, the Israeli collaborators the Village Leagues are hated, population is solidly the the resistance, and the Arabs in Israel are identifying more and more with, and supporting the rebellion in the territories and the in the Golan.
Many Israelis the potentia threat from Arab workers if in the tuture thev organise other workers against the state. More immediately, Sharon and believed that Begir defeat of the PLO Lebanon would mean an end the struggle Palestinians their rule. They give no credit to local initiative and The PLO ir ordanusallol the last year did not break the ceasetire they succeeded in imposing it on all tactions within the movement and was succeeding in its aims to be taken as a political force in the on the future of the West Bank and Gaza.
The Israelis didn't want this - - and therefore attacked. plans for the territories promoted then 1102 genocide although true that there are other long standing on redsulls terand the establishment alla O1 d Christian Maronite (Phalangist state in Lebanon to be a accomplice future Israel in patrolling the Middle East.
Even the defeat of the PLO in Lebanon will not ind the resis aralesinithe million Palestinians rule Although it will be a big setback, can recover the building of a world-wide solidarity movement that supports their fight against Israel occupation.
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are, you'd have been met by derision and a denial that such a people existed.
Public Meeting Solidarity with the Palestinian people! Israel out of Lebanon! Recognise the PLO!