THE AFTERMATH of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon president Reagan and from the Arab summit at Fez.
proposes that Isreal accept 'self government', in association with the Jordanians, for the Palestinian people on the West Bank of the Jordan.
the Israelis to the teeth to ensure that they can do just what they like in the region, and then makes an unacceptable proposal to 'expose' them and make the US the moderate' and acceptable ally of the reactionary Arab states.
Israel during the invasion of Lebanon. He failed to do that because Israel remains the best ally of imperialism in the region, and a strong and aggresive Israel remains the best bulwark against revolutionary change in the region.
chips are down Reagan will back the Israelis to the hilt.
goes further then Reagan's. It calls for a withdrawal of Israel to its 1967 borders. It wants a Palestinian state on the West Bank. And it calls for the return of Jerusalem to the PalestiBank during the transitional period. In return the state of Israel is given recognition.
does not mean that it represents the interests of the Palestinian people, or the workers and peasants of the Middle East.
of Saudi Arabia. It was successfully resisted last year by situation it has been forced through, and the PLO have been pressurised into agreeing to it.
'democratic, secular Palestine'. It is thus a betrayal of the national aspirations of the Palestinians.
While the Zionist state exists, effectively an Isreali-dominated Bantustan. It would be open to Israeli intervention at any time, and most probably economically dominated by Israel as well.
The Palestinians would be denied their right to their own homeland, and herded into a nicely controllable little enclave want to make their own accord with this domination, and force the Palestinians to be satisfied with a few negotiated In this arrangement, the workers and peasants of the whole region would continue to be faced with a deadly triangle of enemies - imperialism, the Zionist state, and the reactionary Arab rulers.
Such a proposal comes as no surprise from the pro-imperialist regimes in the region. It is another important cessful struggle against imperialism and the Zionist state without mobilising against Arab reaction.
ple with the rising struggle of the workers and peasants in all its allies.
to conflict with imperialism. But the unanimous acceptance ble.
won through dealing with Arab reaction. It involves a the logic of permanent revolution in the Middle East, which collides head on with the proposals of the Fez peace plan.
Socialist Challenge 18 September 1 has seen the proposal of two 'peace' plans - from US The most hypocritical of plan is that of Reagan. He He knows full well that this plan is totally unacceptable to the Begin-Sharon regime in Israel, which is determined to incorporate the West Bank as part of the 'Biblical land' of Israel.
Reagan's proposal has no sincerity whatsoever. He arms If Reagan had been sincere about this kind of solution he would have made some gesture towards effective restraint of Begin and Reagan may row on the 'phone, but when the Ine pian proposed by the Arab leaders at the Fez summit nians, as well as interim US supervision of Gaza and the West This of course is even more unacceptable to Israel than the Reagan plan. But the fact that it is unacceptable to the Israelis The originators of this plan are the reactionary feudal rulers Syria, Lybia, and South Yemen. But in the post-Lebanese war The plan is a step backwards tromt the PLO position of a La West Bank statelet will be By accepting the continued existence of the Zionist state, the reactionary Arab rulers are making a de facto recognition of continued Israeli-US dominance of the whole region. They verification of the lesson that it is impossible to launch a sucThis means linking up the struggle of the Palestinian peocountries like Eqvot in a unified thrust against imperialism and This of course does not rule out making partial, tactical alliances with the Arab ruling classes when they too come inof the Fez plan shows that such a strategic alliance is impossiThe national struggle of the Palestinian people can only be strategic alliance with the Arab workers and peasants. Such is the Hebrew University.
Can you tell us what you think the aims of the Israeli invasion were? Does it amount to an abandonment of the process?
You have to distinguish between the immediate and long-term aims. The snort term aim is the annexation - a first de facto and then de jure the West Bank and the Gaza strip.
ducted because afraid that the PLO was getting more and world and they with it, especially after the PLO's cease fire which has lasted for almost a year in the north and which the PLO kept to scrupulously.
inside the West Bank and the Gaza strip it is the organisation. as basically a Palestinian government and parliament together.
representative of different political trends as any government you can name. So the Israelis tried to reduce the credibility of the PLO by delivering it a fearful blow. character of the latest Israeli offensive in the Middle East, the rise of the Israeli Peace Movement and the role of the United States. Farioun is professor of mathematics at Leagues.
Camp David organisation.
and West Bank.
• OI The war against the PLO was conthe Israelis WCIC recognition around the felt they had to dea genocidal operation The PLO have very wide support Israelis fighters in only acceptable The PLO is recognised It is as basically democratic and by mass murder aims of the war.
The face of Israel: armed confessionalism Emmanuel Arab Once this is done they hope to install their own quislings — the Village This is the first Palestinian organisation is the armed by the Israelis. They are attempting to make the Village Leagues an administrative This organisation is charged with the full spectrum of civil administration within the Gaza strip Ine second aim is much more sinister in my opinion and can only be understood within the context of an attempt to inflict a genocidal blow on the Palestinians in Lebanon. I think that what Israel has done in Lebanon goes tar beyond what was needed to The level of violence used by Israel the can only be understood only if it is a The objective is very clear. The consider the Palestinian Lebanon dangerous to their normal operation of a quisling government in Lebanon itself.
So their idea was to eliminate the Palestinian community in Lebanon, and CADUISIUL eventually towards Jordan which they consider to be the natural Palesti nain state. So these are the short range The long range aims of the war BILSCIE United Israel. be seen.
This involved control of the entire East meaning Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Jordan. Of course this does not mean in all cases direct control although they would like to have this as well, but lines of control by military threat and direct control for neighbouring countries.
In particular it means turning Lebanon into an ally via a Phalangist dictatorship. They have succeeded in making Lebanon their stooge - what they call "Haddad land', after Major Haddad who controlled the southern strip before the invasion. He was and is a simple stooge of Israel, as is the Phalangist army.
So see that their aim in Lebanon is very clear. But this is only the first step in a much more ambitious pan to urst turn Jordan into an Israeli puppet state. This is a more complicated because Jordan has for many years been a client of the They consider that it will be very magnanimous on their part to allow Palestinians to set up an automonous region on the East Bank of the Jordan- - and in Jordan itself.
This is a much more sinister plan than their Lebanese plan. For them Jordan is the future Palestinain Bantustan for all Palestinians including those Palestinians in Palestine.
So the long range plan is not to allow the existence of a Palestinain community of any substance outside Jordan - which means of course the expulsion of the Palestinians from Lebanon and then from Palestine What is the meaning of America's new proposals?
This is a difficult question. Up unti this proposal American policy seemed a bit irrational. To allow Israel a complete free hand to do whatever it wants in the Arab East was crazy, because if you know the long term objectives of Zionism, you would know that Israel would go as far as it could go. For the United States it has always been important to retain a credible position in the Middle East. America's other allies cannot func tion if Israel is allowed to go on the My own feeling was that the was giving Israel enought rope to hang itself, to allow the logic of Israel's murderous expansionism to play itself out and then to reap the benefits of it without sharing the full blame.
Nobody in the Middle East can be deceived into thinking that Israel went into this thing without total American consent. The United States could have stopped the war within hours if they had really wanted.
With the Reagan letter, American policy seems to be trying to expos Israel as a supposedly wicked forc over which nobody can have any control. The US president will then have a feer hand to presuade the Senate and the public to give him a license to app ly considerable American pressure to Now that the PLO is much weaker they hope to force Israel to return to a more rational and more moderate course. So the United States is also using this 'carrot and stick' policy. But whether it will work or not has yet to Even with huge US pressure established facts cannot be reversed. When you have tens of thousands of Israelis now living in the Occupied •Territories very dense com-