Crisis in the Middle East

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Crisis in the Middle East

By Daniel Hugo

Part OneThe Israeli invasion of Lebanon has resulted in a shattering military defeat for

the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Leaving 50,000 dead - mostly

Lebanese civilians - and hundreds of thousands homeless, it has added a savage

new twist to the spiral of crisis, repression and mass upheaval in the Middle

East.

A direct result of the invasion has been the brutal murder of 2,000 men, women andchildren in the Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut on 16-18 September. Nothingcould have brought out more starkly the bitter divisions and sectarian hatred stoked

up among the peoples of the region under the domination of capitalism andimperialism.

The Israeli government has admitted responsibility for sending the right-wingChristian ('Phalangist') butchers into the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila to 'flushout' any remaining PLO guerillas. Under the eyes of the Israeli forces on the edges ofthe camps, the Phalangists set about slaughtering the helpless inhabitants.

After two days the orgy of killing reached a gruesome climax:

"Camp residents were gunned down wherever they were found. Men were chained

together and dragged behind a jeep. Throats were slit, genitals and breasts sliced off.Doctors were killed in hospitals and patients in their beds."

A journalist of the London Times, entering Chatilla the next day, described theaftermath:

"Down every alleyway, there were corpses -women, young men, babies andgrandparents - lying together ... where they had been knifed or machine-gunned todeath (20 September).

As these revelations filtered through the outside world, fury and revulsion spread

among the masses of the Arab countries and working people throughout the world.

On the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Jordan, spontaneous demonstrations bythousands of Palestinians broke out in many areas. In Israel itself, unprecedentedanger erupted among the Jewish population, leading to violent protests against theright-wing government of Menachim Begin and culminating in a rally of 400,000people - one in seven of the total population of Israel, Jews and Arabs combined.


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Abroad, the US and other Western governments arming and propping up Israel wereforced to express "shock" at these atrocities. A 'peace-keeping' force of US, Frenchand Italian troops was sent to Beirut - in reality to back up the newly installedPhalangist regime of the Gemayels.

The Arab regimes have looked on passively, denouncing Israel from the sidelines.The Syrian forces in the east of Lebanon made no serious attempt to halt the Israeliinvasion.

In Morocco, the Arab League (of Arab states) held a special meeting on 22September - but could agree on no action except a protest by Arab ambassadors inWashington.

The Palestinian refugees in Lebanon now find themselves in an even more desperateposition than before. Disarmed and helpless, they are at the mercy of their

bloodthirsty enemies.

Terrible though the setbacks of the past month have been, however, the nationalstruggle of the Palestinian people will continue. Workers in South Africa and theworld over will support their Palestinian brothers and sisters as they seek a way outof their impasse.

How can the problems of the Palestinians and all the oppressed people of the MiddleEast be resolved? This question can only be answered by carefully examining thedevelopments which gave rise to the present situation.

Armed with a scientific understanding of events, the workers of the Middle East willbe able to develop policies for achieving national and social liberation: and workersinternationally, learning the lessons of the struggle, will be able to give themeffective support.

Zionism

During this century the Middle East has become increasingly vital to the imperialistpowers on account of its strategic position but above all its enormous oil reserves.

Up to 1918 most of the area formed part of the Turkish empire, which sided withGermany in the First World War and was defeated by British and Arab armies. In a

secret agreement in 1916, the region was carved up between Britain, France andTsarist Russia.

During the 1920s, British and French imperialism further split up the Middle East byhanding over pieces of the land to puppet rulers. In the French zone, Lebanon wasset up as a separate state dominated by the Christian bourgeoisie on the basis ofcompromise with the leaders of the Druze and Moslem peasantry.


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The British zone was split into three parts - Palestine, Jordan (originally calledTransjordan) and Iraq (Mesopotamia) - with Arab princes tied to Britain beinginstalled in Jordan and Iraq.

As in the rest of the colonial world mass poverty was perpetuated and worsenedunder imperialist domination.

In Palestine (the present-day Israel) as in other Arab countries, a small Jewishminority - about 11% of the population in 1920 - lived side by side with the Arabmajority. However, the class struggle internationally was to produce direconsequences for the territory.

In Europe - and Eastern Europe in particular, where the majority of the world'sJewish population were living at the time - anti-Semitism had been cultivated by theruling classes as a means of splitting the working masses and fighting against the

social revolution. In reaction to this persecution the Zionist movement developed,led by the Jewish bourgeoisie, calling for an independent homeland for the Jews.

Palestine, where the Jews had lived in ancient times, was chosen as the site for thishomeland. The Zionist leaders, with considerable finance available, systematicallybought land there from Arab landowners for the purpose of creating Jewishsettlements.

Initially, Zionism had no echo among Jewish workers even in Tsarist Russia. Whilehundreds of thousands fled to the USA, only a handful went to Palestine.

But in the 1920s British imperialism, practicing its classical policies of divide-and-rule, began to encourage Jewish immigration. Increasingly, Palestinian peasants weresqueezed from the land while Jewish settlers, highly organized, began laying thefoundations for the future Israeli state.

The Arab ruling class connived at this whole process, profiting from the cheap laborof the dispossessed peasants. At the same time, the creeping population of Palestinelaid the basis for explosive national divisions between the Jewish and Arab masses.

Resistance

Stubborn resistance against dispossession, building up amongst the Palestinian

masses, led to violent upheavals in 1920 and 1929. With the general strike of 1936,the Palestinian working class paralyzed the country and confronted the rulers ofSyria, Lebanon and Jordan with the threat of spreading revolt.

Thus, as in other colonial countries, the working class emerges at an early stage as aforce that could spearhead the struggle for national and social liberation.

But the Arab regimes, acting on British instructions, succeeded in pressuring the


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But the Arab armies were crushingly defeated. The war of 1948-9 ended with bigterritorial gains for Israel, while the remnants of the Palestinian sector - the WestBank and the Gaza strip - were occupied by Jordan and Egypt.

Before 1948, 250,000 Palestinians had been pushed from their land by Jewishoccupation. The war of partition was used by the Zionist leadership to expel a further800,000 - the vast majority of the Arab population.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced into 'temporary' camps in theArab countries, where the regimes have confined them ever since. Many found workin the Gulf states as the oil industry developed. A small bourgeois minority wereable to go into comfortable 'exile' in the USA and Europe.

The ruthless dispersal of the Palestinian people has led to acute new contradictionsinflaming the already crisis-ridden Middle East. Among the Arab masses, hatred of

the Israeli regime and its imperialist backers was sharpened. This, above all, forcedthe decrepit Arab rulers into conflict with Israel.

Thus the struggle over Palestine took on the dimensions of a conflict betweennations. War, once begun, develops a momentum of its own. Since 1948, full-scalewars have been fought in 1956, 1967 and 1973, apart from numerous border clashes.

Each new trial of strength has confirmed again Israel's overwhelming military

superiority. This superiority has stemmed not so much from technical factors as

from the makeup of Israeli society compared with the Arab states.

From the beginning, the Israeli state was geared to sustain the maximum productiveand military effort. A Zionist militia had been formed as early as 1920, together withan administrative network and a trade union apparatus, to consolidate the Jewishsettlement of Palestine.

Today every Israeli citizen is regarded as a soldier with eleven months annual leave.

Immigration from the West brought the most advanced skills and technicalknowledge to Israel. Though economically bankrupt, the new state was kept afloatby massive doses of foreign aid (mainly from the US) totaling $31,500 millionbetween 1948 and 1977. The dispossession of the peasantry gave scope for the

development of advanced agriculture.

These factors enabled the Israeli economy to be developed far more quickly than theArab states.

The essence of Israeli military power, however has been the political force of Jewishnationalism tying the working people to the ruling class and the state.


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The message of 'national' unity' plus 'military preparedness' has been preached by thelabor leaders as well as religious and capitalist leaders. For as long as an expandingeconomy made possible improvements in living standards, militant nationalismseemed the only way forward in the face of the bankrupt Arab regimes.

The result has been the most highly motivated conscript army in the world.

The Arab Revolution

The Arab states, not enjoying the special conditions on which Israel's growth andstrength have been based, have remained sunk in the poverty and backwardnesswhich capitalism has imposed on the colonial world in general. Even their oil wealth,during this period, was largely siphoned off by the western oil companies. Whatremained has been hoarded or squandered by the sheikhs and reactionary rulingclasses.

Presiding over mass destitution and centuries-old repression, the Arab rulers havebeen much less successful than their Israeli counterparts at papering over divisionsbetween the classes. In contrast to Israel, the Arab countries have constantly seethedwith revolutionary tensions.

In Egypt the rotten monarchy was overthrown in 1952 by an officers coup which setout (in the words of its leader, Colonel Nasser) to "establish a clean, fair governmentwhich would work sincerely for the good of the people". The utter bankruptcy ofEgyptian capitalism, however, combined with the stranglehold of foreignimperialism, made it impossible to carry through the reforms so desperately neededby the masses.

Some land was divided among the peasantry; but Nasser's regime had no programfor abolishing capitalism and landlordism. Thus it was trapped between theconflicting pressures of the capitalists, landowners, workers and peasants - none ofwhich it was able to satisfy.

Its reaction, like every regime in crisis, was to concentrate power more and more intoits own hands, in an effort to impose stability on society from above. But thelimitations of Nasser's Bonapartist regime only gradually made themselves felt in theconsciousness of the masses. For a period, Nasser's message of social reform andPan-Arab nationalism seemed to offer a new way forward to the downtrodden people

of the Arab world.

Following the revolutionary tremors in Egypt, social unrest convulsed Jordan, Syria,Lebanon and Iraq in turn. In Syria, these struggles resulted in the overthrow ofcapitalism and landlordism.

Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Syria was in a state of intense instability.


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One pro-capitalist regime was toppled by another, only to be toppled in turn.

With every possible method of capitalist rule exhausted, the Ba'ath Socialist regimethat took power in 1963 resorted to radical measures against the monopolies. The

capitalists, landlords and merchants resisted. Following a further coup in 1966 bymore left-wing junior officers, a full-scale revolutionary confrontation developed.

Faced with an imperialist-backed military counter-revolution, the regime appealed tothe masses for support. In their hundreds of thousands, peasants and workers werearmed. Capitalism and landlordism were crushed, with 85% of the land and 95% ofindustry being nationalized by the Ba'ath regime.

But power remained with the military leadership; the workers and peasants weredisarmed again. The regime transformed the economic basis of the country into thatof a workers' state, resting on state ownership and central planning. But the regime

itself was Bonapartist - in Marxist terms, "proletarian Bonapartist" as opposed to the"bourgeois Bonapartist" regimes in the capitalist states like Egypt - with a narrow,nationalist perspective, becoming increasingly privileged and remote from thepeople.

Freed from capitalist fetters, the Syrian economy could take some strides ahead. Athird of the landless peasants were given land, and industry expanded. But within theconfines of a backward country, under the rule of a military-bureaucratic elite, thedevelopment of society was inevitably limited and distorted.

Inequality, the oppression of national minorities and women, and all the other

problems of poverty and dictatorship can only be eliminated in Syria through afurther, political revolution.

Power must be conquered by the working people in the context of a revolutionleading to the overthrow of capitalism in Israel, Turkey and internationally. Thisalone can create the conditions for workers' democracy and harmonious socialdevelopment in a backward country like Syria.

Compared with a capitalist country like Egypt, therefore, the immediate results of theSyrian revolution could not be measured in terms of spectacular economic advance.The fundamental difference is rather that in Syria, with capitalism and landlordism

defeated, the reforms could no longer be turned back without a full-scale counter-revolution.

In Egypt, on the other hand, Nasser moved to the brink of overthrowing capitalism -but then turned back. The power of the ruling class, based on private property,remained essentially intact. As would be seen in the 1970s, a shift in policy by theregime could restore them to their former position, while destroying the gains of the


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peasants and workers.

These examples show that the Arab states have remained shot through with nationalcontradictions and bitter social conflict. The revolutionary pressure of the working

people, lacking a socialist leadership, has failed to resolve the fundamental crisis inany of those countries.

Class rule and class divisions have inevitably spilled over into the armed forces.Even in Syria, as in the capitalist states, the downtrodden workers and peasants inuniform have remained under the command of an officer elite drawn from the upperstrata of society.

War against Israel, for the Arab soldiers, is not a struggle for survival. Hatred of theenemy is offset by hostility towards the oppressor in the rear. Victory over Israel,without social revolution, promises no improvement of their conditions - indeed it

would consolidate the power of their present rulers.

Poorly trained, badly led and politically unmotivated in comparison with the Israeliforces, the Arab soldiers could not fight with the lan of a revolutionary army ofliberation. This has been the fundamental reason for their impotence in the face ofthe Israelis.

'Black September'

The expulsion of the Palestinians from their country was followed by reprisalsagainst Jewish communities that had lived for centuries in the Arab states. Hundredsof thousands fled to Israel, filled with fear and hatred of Arab rule.

The Jewish population of Israel swelled to 1,300,000 between 1948 and 1951.Overnight, the former Palestinian majority had become an oppressed minority inIsrael. Formally they were allowed democratic rights; in reality they were impotentand discriminated against.

The Palestinian nationalist leadership, however, remained wedded to the seemingly'practical' policy of relying on the Arab regimes for support. The PalestinianLiberation Organization (PLO), formed in 1964 as an umbrella body of variouspolitical and military groups, was accepted by the Arab heads of state in 1974 as"sole legal representative of the Palestinian people".

This "legal" status, while providing the PLO leadership with diplomatic credentials,at the same time shackled them to all the contradictions, bankruptcy and impotenceof the most reactionary Arab rulers.

Caught in this impasse of leadership, the Palestinian struggle has been agonized andprolonged.


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From the 1950s Palestinian militancy, denied the avenue of revolutionary massstruggle, has spilled over into sporadic guerilla attacks on Israeli settlements alongthe borders of Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. The Israeli regime, systematicallydeveloping its military machine, has hit with increasing viciousness.

The Arab 'front-line' states, while compelled to give refuge to the Palestinians, couldnot afford protracted border wars against a vastly superior enemy. Unable to beatback Israel, they attempted to curb the Palestinian guerillas.

The greatest menace to the Arab rulers, however, was the possibility of arevolutionary alliance between the Palestinian refugees and the workers and peasantsin the Arab countries. Highly politicized and with access to arms, the Palestiniansfaced much the same intolerable conditions as the masses in the Arab statesthemselves.

Nothing but the policy of the PLO leadership headed them off from taking theirplace immediately in the vanguard of the Arab revolution.

In Lebanon and Jordan, however, even these policies could not prevent revolutionarycrises from throwing the armed Palestinians into conflict with the Arab regimes.

In Jordan, the reactionary Bonapartist regime of King Hussein was despised andisolated. The Palestinians, with close ties to the Arab population, actually formed amajority of the people in Jordan.

By 1969, a state of dual power had developed between the Palestinian forces and the

forces of the King. Even the Jordanian army was divided between the regime and thepull of the mass movement.

Objectively, all the conditions existed for the overthrow of Hussein and the taking ofpower by the working people, which could have paved the way for revolutionthroughout the Middle East.

But the PLO leaders had no intention of following this road. In January 1970Hussein attempted to clamp down on the guerillas. In the struggles that followed, theguerillas won control of half the capital, Amman - but Hussein was allowed toremain in control of the state.

By September Hussein, encouraged by the weakness of the PLO leadership, wasready for a showdown. Demonstrations and uprisings in most Jordanian townsshowed the depth of revolutionary ferment. In the north, the Palestinians took overtowns and territory; the town of Irbid was declared the "First Arab Soviet".

Yet no program was put forward by the PLO leadership, and no country-wide leadwas given, to draw the Jordanian soldiers and guide the working class towards the


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capture of power. On 17 September Hussein (with Israeli and US troops ready tosupport him) threw his elite Beduin troops against the guerillas. PLO leader Arafatsigned a ceasefire agreement on 23 September - and publicly reconciled himself withHussein.

But sporadic fighting continued until July 1971, when the Jordanian army couldfinally be sent in to crush Palestinian resistance. Over 10,000 were killed, includingmany refugees; thousands of guerillas were captured or fled to Lebanon - their lastbase for across-the-border raids on Israel.

The Jordanian regime, an Israeli officer summed up, had "killed more guerillas inone year than we did in ten".

The Dead End of Terrorism

The PLO's policy of guerilla attacks on Israel has proved equally futile and

disastrous.

Militarily these raids were mere pinpricks; but they served the Israeli regime as apretext for massive retaliation against Palestinians in exile, and for tightening thescrews on those in Israel. Politically, guerilla struggle could neither mobilize norshow a way forward to the masses in the West Bank, Gaza, the refugees, or thePalestinian workers in the Arab states.

Nor could it lead to the political isolation and defeat of the Israeli regime. The PLOleadership failed to understand that the victories of the guerilla armies in some third-world countries - notably in China and Cuba - had only been possible under radically

different social conditions.

With capitalism very feeble, with power held by the weak, unstable regimes ofcapitalists and landlords, and with imperialism on the defensive, peasant armies wereable to defeat these regimes. Later, in Vietnam, even the support of the big US forcescould not save the Thieu regime.

The result in each case was the collapse of capitalism and landlordism, and thetransfer of power to the guerilla leadership. This gave rise to deformed workers'states modeled on that in the Soviet Union, on which the guerilla leaders dependedfor support.

Fighting to overthrow a developed capitalist state, however, there was no prospect ofvictory for the PLO's guerilla strategy. Substituting for the social struggle a series ofarmed clashes between Palestinian guerillas and the Israeli military, it ensured thepolarization of Israeli society along national lines - thus swinging the Jewishmajority overwhelmingly behind the regime.

The only road out of this program, strategy and tactics that could link the Palestinian


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struggle to the one force capable of defeating the Israeli regime and carrying throughthe revolutionary transformation of the Middle East - the working class inside andoutside Israel, mobilized and armed.

In the absence of a socialist leadership, however, the ideas and traditions ofguerillaism tended to push Palestinian activists further down the same dead-endstreet. Driven to despair by the ineffectiveness of the leadership, some resorted towhat they saw as 'more revolutionary' tactics - known, in the language of Marxism,as individual terrorism.

A series of aeroplane hijackings were launched by the 'Marxist' Popular Front for theLiberation of Palestine (one of the groups in the PLO) during the late 1960s. Thisprovoked merciless Israeli retaliation, and sparked off a new spiral of terror.

A climax was reached with the massacre of civilians at the Lod airport (near Tel

Aviv) by pro-Palestinian Japanese terrorists in 1972, and the murder of Israeliathletes at the Olympic games by Palestinian terrorists during the same year. Thesewere followed by savage Israeli raids into Syria and Lebanon, sowing death anddestruction among the refugees.

In these and later events, the impotence of the terrorist groups was exposed. Randomand bloody attacks on civilians could never take the place of an armed, revolutionarymass movement. The PLO leadership has itself admitted that terrorism has beencounter-productive.

While reducing the Palestinian workers to mere onlookers at the 'armed struggle', it

has pushed Jewish workers more solidly than ever behind the regime. It is theterrorist atrocities of the early 1970s, and not the 'fine print' in the PLO constitutionabout a democratic state of Palestine, that has left a lasting impression in the mindsof Jewish workers as to what the PLO leadership stand for.

The bitter climate prepared the way for the coming to power of the reactionary Begingovernment in 1977.

Crisis of Leadership

The spiral of terror, once begun, can be cut across only by great events. Bombingsand assassinations by Palestinians, met with Israeli counter-terror, have continued.

Political or military setbacks for the Palestinian struggle have been followed by futileacts of 'revenge' - and even more savage Israeli reaction.

This reflects the crisis of the Palestinian leadership. The bankrupt policies of thePLO have left a seething hotbed of anger and frustration in the refugee camps. In theabsence of a clear revolutionary lead, linking the national liberation of thePalestinian people to the socialist transformation of the Middle East, a basis will


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remain for the new waves of terrorism.

This danger is especially great in the present situation, following the humiliatingdefeat of the PLO in Lebanon.

What is the alternative to a dismal future of continued oppression, slaughter andcounter-slaughter? How can the Palestinian workers, and all the working people ofthe Middle East - including the Israeli workers - achieve a genuine solution to theirproblems?

In the Next issue ofInqaba these questions will be discussed.

Crisis in the Middle EastBy Daniel Hugo

Part Two

What lies at the root of the conflict between Israel and the Arab states, which has

led to the war in Lebanon and the massacre of Palestinian refugees in Beirut?

The first part of this article described the historical development of the crisis in theMiddle East - how the region and its peoples were fragmented by imperialism, and howJewish immigration into Palestine laid the basis for the emergence of Israel as the mainbastion of imperialist power in the region after World War II.

The struggle of the Palestinian people expelled from Israel remains the central issue inthe Middle East. Scattered throughout the Arab world, with hundreds of thousands stilltrapped in refugee camps, the Palestinian workers and peasants cannot solve theirproblems except through the revolutionary overthrow of the reactionary Arab regimes aswell as the Israeli regime.

But how can this be done? The policies of the Palestinian Liberation Organization haveproved completely bankrupt. They have relied on the support of the rotten Arab regimesin waging war against Israel.

But the backward Arab states, wracked by national class oppression, have not been ableto match the military power of the modern state of Israel, based on the cohesion of theJewish population in the face of external attack.

Palestinian guerilla attacks have been mere pinpricks, enraging the Israelis and leading tosavage reprisals. This, in turn, has sparked off terrorist counter-attacks by embitteredPalestinian youth.


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The result has been a horrifying spiral of violence, which has swung the Jewish workerseven more solidly behind the Israeli regime.

The second part of the article examines the way forward for the Palestinian workers andpeasants, and the working people of the whole Middle East, on the basis of Marxist

policies.

Against the purely military challenge of the Arab states, the PLO leadership and theterrorist groups alike, the Israeli regime has proved invincible. But, under the pressure of35 years of continuous crisis, all the factors that led to Israel's military preponderancehave increasingly turned into factors of social instability.

The policies of massive immigration, so vital to the military effort, threw together inIsrael a Jewish population deeply divided within itself, united only in war against theArab regimes.

The 'Western' Jews (from the USA, Europe etc.) have formed the upper, most privilegedlayer. The 'Eastern' Jews who fled from the Arab stated found themselves second-classcitizens in Israel, serving as cheap labor next to the Arab 'third-class' citizens.

Because of their experience at the hands of the Arab regimes, the Eastern Jews havebacked the right-wing Zionist parties. The more liberal parties, including the Labor Party,which ruled Israel from 1948 to 1977, have found their support mainly among theWesternized middle class and the upper layers of workers.

The 1977 election victory of the right-wing Likud coalition, led by the former terroristBegin, reflected this split.

Thirty years of Labor-led governments had failed utterly to solve any of the problemsfacing Israel. With policies only marginally different from those of other Zionist parties,Labor had led the country into a state of permanent war.

The economy, hit by world recession and strained by its military burden, had sunk into amire. Total growth for 1976-77 was a mere 2.6%, while inflation had been more than30% for five consecutive years.

These conditions weighed most heavily on the workers. The number of workdays lost instrikes nearly doubled from 1975 to 1976. In 1976, three-quarters of the strikes officially

recorded were due to wage demands.

Tainted with corruption and offering no perspective of improvement, Labor massivelylost votes to Likud.

The most potent factor in rallying support behind Begin, however, were the activities ofthe Palestinian terrorist groups. Begin, in the eyes of the Jewish voters, stood for a hard-


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line policy and seemed more capable of commanding the armed fortress Israel hadbecome.

But Begin's policies for shoring up the capitalist economy, no less hard-line that hisforeign policy, have weighed most heavily on precisely the poorer, 'Eastern' workers who

have given him their vote. The result has been deepening class tensions and a climate ofchronic political unrest.

These problems, however, have been overshadowed and compounded by the ruling classto solve the national question. Their policies of armed repression, far from crushing thePalestinian struggle, have in fact laid the basis for new and greater revolutionaryupheavals in the future.

Through military victories the Israeli regime has made considerable territorial gains. The1967 war, ending the occupation of the Sinai, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and theGaza Strip, brought the whole of the former Palestine under Israeli control.

From the military point of view this expansion has been essential to the Israeli rulers.Their pre-1967 borders were difficult to secure. The West Bank, in particular, formed anArab enclave thrust into the center of Israel, placing Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem withinrange of Arab guns and rockets.

Settlers

But having conquered the West Bank, the regime needed to hold it. The initial pretencethat the occupation was only temporary has been dropped. Thousands of Jewish settlers

are being moved onto the West Bank, forcing Arabs off the land. Begin has made it clearthat his government will never allow the West Bank to be returned to Arab rule.

By driving the Arab forces off the Golan Heights and across the River Jordan, the workof the Israeli generals has been simplified. Socially, however, it has confronted theregime with new contradictions.

1,300,000 Palestinians inhabiting the West Bank and Gaza have been brought underIsrael's rule, greatly diluting the preponderance of the more than three million strongJewish population on which the power of the ruling class depends. The people of theoccupied territories have been denied democratic rights, first being placed under military

rule and later under a no less repressive civilian administration.

These measures, far from breaking the spirit of the Arab population, could only hardentheir resentment. In effect, the regime has incorporated into Israel, for the first time since1948, a basis for a mass struggle against its rule.

On the West Bank and in Israel itself, the 'Arab' Communist Party, Rakah (a separateorganization from the 'Jewish' Communist Party) became the focus of Arab opposition.


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Rakah mayors and town councils (subject to the arbitrary power of the Israeliadministration) were elected in many West Bank towns. In Israel, Rakah's share of theArab vote rose from 11% in 1970 to 50% in 1977.

In the 1977 elections, Rakah formed an electoral alliance with a section of the radical

'Black Panther' movement among the Eastern Jews, and increased its members inparliament from four to five. This reflected the potential for uniting the struggles of thePalestinian masses with that of the oppressed Jews.

The Rakah leadership, however, instead of putting forward a socialist program for thetransformation of Israel and the liberation of the occupied territories, have declared theirsupport for the bankrupt nationalism of the PLO leadership.

While offering no perspective for the Arab masses, this policy could only alienate thevast majority of Jewish workers and deepen national divisions.

On the West Bank, militancy among the Arab population has erupted again into strikes,demonstrations and riots. Inevitably, however, Rakah's failure to lead this movement anddevelop its enormous revolutionary potential has doomed it to setbacks and stagnation.

In one town after another, the Israeli authorities have deposed the elected municipalleadership and installed puppet 'Village Leagues' in their place. Village League leadershave had to be armed to protect them against the anger of 'their' people.

Despite the heroism and personal martyrdom of many local leaders, despite massivesupport among the working population, Rakah has stood by helplessly and allowed theIsraeli regime to clamp down.

The policies of the PLO itself, far from giving a lead or defending the mass struggles,have taken fresh layers of youth into the dead-end of exile guerilla camps.

Yet the possibility remains on the West Bank for new, mass-based struggles taking

on a revolutionary momentum, throwing up new leadership and carrying across to

the Arab workers in Israel and the Arab states. Their perspective, a nightmare to

the Israeli rulers, far overshadows any military threat to their power.

Increasingly, Israel's military blows against the PLO in exile have been aimed not only atthe PLO itself but also at the morale of the West Bank population.

This was clearly the case with the invasion of Lebanon last June. "From the outset of thefighting", reported the LondonTimes (5 August 1982), "Ariel Sharon, the Israeli DefenseMinister, has made no secret that the aims of the invasion extend not only to Israel's mostnortherly region but also to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.


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"'The Bigger the blow and the more we damage the PLO infrastructure, the more theArabs in Judea and Samaria (The West Bank - Editor) will be ready to negotiate with usand establish coexistence', Mr. Sharon predicted..."

In the longer term, however, the shock created among the Palestinian masses by Israel's

ruthless action will wear off. To the dispossessed workers and peasants there is noalternative but struggle; and each temporary setback will harden and educate themfurther.

While fanning the fires of national hatred, Israel's invasion of Lebanon has at the sametime sharpened the social contradictions in Israel itself.

At the beginning of the war there was overwhelming support in Israel for Begin's statedaim of removing the PLO rockets and artillery from within range of the northern Israelivillages. Even when it became clear that Sharon intended to go all the way to Beirut todrive out the PLO forces altogether, there remained a groundswell of support.

But the destruction of Tyre and Sidon, and the ruthless bombing of Beirut, broughthorrifying numbers of casualties as well as a growing number of Israeli dead. Alarm andrevulsion began to spread among the Israeli population, at first on the universitycampuses, later among sections of the working class.

Massive anti-war demonstrations took place. Even the Israeli military was affected, withreservists on active duty protesting against the war. Anti-war leaflets and newspaperscirculated among the troops. The army's best young commander resigned over hisdisagreement with the aims of the conduct of the war.

An Israeli soldier describes the mood within the army: "You clean out one apartmentblock and before going on to the next one, while you are resting, an argument breaks out:yes PLO, no PLO; yes just a war, no just a war. During the actual fighting we werehaving these political discussions."

Such opposition is unprecedented in Israel, especially in wartime. Then followed theSabra and Chatilla massacre, throwing the country into political turmoil never beforeexperienced.

This was reflected, for instance, in the amazing vote of senior army officersoverwhelmingly calling for Sharon's resignation.

Even when the immediate tensions wear off, the war will have sown the classes andlayers of Israeli society.

What the Lebanese and Palestinians have paid in blood, the Israeli workers will have topay in money, falling living standards and lengthened military service. The total financialcost of the war has been put at $1,600 million, or 5% of Israel's Gross National Product.


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This is a crippling burden to an economy already in hopeless crisis, propped up by USaid.

Inflation is now running at a staggering 130%. Israel's foreign debt totals $18,000million, i.e. approaching that of Poland, but with a population and an economy only a

fraction of the size. Interest and repayments came to $2,200 million in 1981 - equivalentto total US aid.

To pay the war bill, the government is cutting $200 million from non-military spending.Value-added tax has been put up from 12% to 15% and there will be a compulsory 'warloan', equaling about 6% of take-home pay, deducted from workers' wages.

But Israeli workers will not be prepared to make endless sacrifices. New struggles willblow up as the ruling class tries to unload the burdens of the crisis onto their shoulders.

El Al Strike

These tensions have been reflected in the struggles by workers of the national airline, ElAl, towards the end of 1982 when, after a five-week strike, the government attempted toshut it down. In one incident, workers stormed the building where management wasmeeting and prevented them from taking the decision to close.

In another protest, workers closed down Lod airport, driving back the riot police andforcing the government to retreat - events remarkable even by the militant traditions of

Israeli industrial struggles.

The airline was later 'saved' when the trade union leadership agreed to wage cuts, joblosses and loss of fringe benefits - a recipe for continuing bitterness and future strugglesby the workers.

On a capitalist basis, being used to defend imperialist interests, Israeli workers have nobetter prospect before them than continuing wars and permanent siege. More and moreamong them will become receptive to socialist ideas, showing them a way to peace,security and democratic rights for the Palestinians as well as the Jews - if such analternative were to be put.

But thus far the only program advanced by any section of the Israeli labor leadership hasbeen based on virulent nationalism while, on the other hand, Jewish workers have beenconfronted with the political dictatorship and economic backwardness represented by theArab regimes and their clients in the PLO leadership.


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It is the crisis of leadership among the Palestinian as well as the Israeli masses that hascontinued to trap the Israeli workers in the camp of the imperialist bourgeoisie. Only theideas of Marxism can show them a way out.

A Society Ripe for Revolution

In every Arab country conditions are ripening for revolution. Mass poverty, illiteracy,disease, starvation and homelessness, side by side with spectacular wealth in the hands ofoil-rich rulers, sum up the hopeless incapacity of capitalism and landlordism to take theArab countries forward.

Even in imperialism's showcase, Israel, capitalism can provide no security for therelatively privileged Jewish workers, let alone the Arabs.

Because of the national, religious and communal divisions created in the Middle East by

centuries of feudal and capitalist rule, the seething discontent among all sections of themasses will tend to find expression in struggles on national, religious or sectional lines.Every mass struggle, however, will reflect aspirations that cannot be realized on acapitalist basis, and will come into conflict with the capitalist order.

Nowhere is the revolutionary potential greater than among the Palestinian people,especially the Palestinian working class on the West Bank, in Israel and in the differentArab states.

A revolutionary movement of the Palestinian workers, drawing behind them thePalestinian masses as a whole, would usher in a period of decisive struggle for the

socialist transformation of the Middle East. The greatest obstacle to such a developmenthas been the existing PLO leadership and their policy of collaboration with the Arabregimes.

The Arab ruling classes have never been remotely concerned about the interests of thePalestinian people, any more than they have been concerned about the interests of theworkers and peasants in their own countries. During 1949 to 1967, when they controlledthe West Bank and Gaza, the rulers of Jordan and Egypt cynically confined thePalestinian refugees to camps, maintaining them as open sores to divert the anger of themasses onto the external enemy, Israel.

By building up the Sadats, King Husseins, etc. as the 'friends' of the Palestinian people,the PLO leaders have for years disarmed and disorientated the movement.

In Jordan, in 'Black September' 1970 (dealt with in Part I), the Palestinian masses paid inblood for the refusal of their leaders to wade the struggle on a class basis.

Again in Lebanon in 1975, a revolutionary crisis opened up, placing the tasks ofoverthrowing capitalism and landlordism on the immediate agenda. The simmering class


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tensions erupted into civil war between the militias of the predominantly Christian rightand the predominantly Moslem left.

Radical Palestinian guerilla forces were drawn in on the side of the left. The PLOleadership, however, tried not to be involved.

Only in January 1976, when right-wing militias attacked the Palestinian refugee camps,were the PLO leaders forced into the struggle.

The right-wing offensive was beaten back. The Lebanese army fell apart. Outright victoryover the forces of the ruling class was within reach of the Palestinians and the Lebaneseleft.

This prospect alarmed the Israeli regime and the capitalist class internationally; but Israelior Western intervention at this stage would have inflamed the struggle even further. Itwas left to the Syrian regime to deal with the situation.

Nominally supporting the Palestinian cause, the Syrian ruling elite is in reality committedeven more to maintaining the uneasy status quo in the region. The overthrow ofcapitalism in Lebanon would have opened a volcano on its very borders, involvingcertain conflict with Israel and heightening revolutionary tensions throughout the region.

For these reasons, the Syrian regime was concerned no less than the capitalists to halt thedeveloping revolution in Lebanon. In January 1976, with the connivance of the US andIsrael, Syrian-controlled Palestinian forces were sent into Lebanon to prevent victory forthe left.

The revolution now entered its decisive phase. So powerful was the attraction of therevolutionary movement that the Syrian-controlled Palestinian forces disintegrated andcrossed en masse to their brothers and sisters.

The PLO leaders, commanding the bulk of the left forces, carried the main responsibilityfor achieving victory. No other option remained now except to mobilize and arm theLebanese workers and peasants for the expropriation of the ruling class and the crushingof the right-wing militias - and, at the same time, to launch an all-out campaign for thesupport of the working masses in Syria and throughout the Arab world.

Such a policy, however, was alien to the PLO leadership. Not only had they failed to

involve themselves with the day-to-day struggles of the Lebanese population; theirmilitias were isolated from the local workers and regarded virtually as an army ofoccupation.

Thus, when the Syrian army invaded four months later, the outcome was a foregoneconclusion. By September it had broken Palestinian and left resistance, and reinstated thebourgeois regime in office. The Arab heads of state - the 'allies' of the PLO leadership -


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gave their blessing to the Syrian invasion, renaming the Syrian army in Lebanon the"Arab Deterrent Force".

An opportunity for the revolutionary seizure of power, once lost, cannot easily beregained. The ruling class, permitted to recover control, will want to stamp out the

remaining opposition. The workers and peasants, disoriented and shaken, will be facedwith worsening odds as the forces of reaction gather momentum.

The manner and form of counter-revolution, like that of revolution, will depend on thenature and the leadership of the class forces opposed to each other. In Lebanon, thebourgeois regime remained suspended in mid-air. Syrian forces occupied half thecountry. Israel watched the southern border. The rest was effectively split between theChristian militias and the remaining pockets of Palestinian control, mainly in the cities.

The forces of counter-revolution were therefore divided and in a precarious position. Thiswas compensated for, however, by the even greater weakness of the PLO leadership,

which had learned nothing from past defeats.

In the absence of a serious struggle to regroup the movement and prepare a new massoffensive, it could only be a question of time before the forces of reaction would be ableto finish their work.

Israel invaded the south of Lebanon in 1978 to attack Palestinian positions, creating a'buffer zone' under the control of a right-wing Lebanese private army. A UN 'peace-keeping' force was deployed along the southern border. In June 1982 this force looked onpassively as Israeli tanks rolled by.

Under the guns of the Israelis, the counter-revolution in Lebanon was carried to a bloodyclimax with the expulsion of the last Palestinian forces from Beirut, the disarming ofMoslem militias, and the naked terror in Sabra and Chatilla.

As in Lebanon, so in the other countries of the region revolution - the overthrow ofcapitalism and landlordism - or counter-revolution are the stark alternatives facing theworkers and peasants in the struggles that lie ahead.

The PLO Leadership Turns Right

Events in Egypt in 1977-79 spelled out even more clearly the bankruptcy of the PLOleadership's policies. Egypt, the most powerful of the Arab states, had always formed thekey in any military alliance against Israel. Now, as a result of internal class struggle, thepower of the Egyptian regime to threaten Israel's southern border collapsed.

Nasser had weakened Egyptian capitalism without breaking its parasitical grip on thecountry. The economy, while more industrialized than that of other Arab states, remained


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completely inadequate to meet the basic needs of the people. In the big cities millions ofslum-dwellers lived in horrifying want and squalor.

In foreign policy, Nasser had balanced between the Stalinist powers and imperialism,leaning mainly on the Soviet Union for support. In the late 1960s, however, the regime

swung increasingly towards the West.

Following Nasser's death in 1970, Sadat swept aside the last of Nasser's reforms. Egyptwas thrown wide open to imperialist plunder, the power of the capitalists and landlordswas restored, and political opposition crushed.

But this zigzag exposed Egypt all the more to the ravages of capitalist world recession.Foreign debt, and a crippling deficit on the balance of trade, mounted up. Foreigninvestment created new wealth for only a small elite, while the mass of the people sankdeeper into nightmarish poverty.

The cost of permanent military preparedness against Israel had always been the biggestdrain on the economy. But repeated military defeats had dealt shattering blows to theauthority of the regime.

Following the debacle of 1973, Sadat clearly calculated that the social consequences ofrenewed fighting would be too dangerous. Just as the regime had previously neededhostilities with Israel to divert the masses from internal struggle, it now needed peacewith Israel for much the same reason.

In January 1977 mass discontent broke to the surface with the biggest anti-governmentstrikes and riots since the overthrow of King Farouk in 1952. The movement was sparked

off by the removal of state subsidies on essential foods. Sadat quickly retreated. Eventhen it took days before the army was able to regain control.

At the same time the US, increasingly dependent on Arab oil, was concerned about thedeepening revolutionary ferment in the region and anxious to prop up pro-capitalist Arabregimes. By signing a peace agreement with Begin, Sadat calculated that he could getincreased American patronage and use this to squeeze concessions out of Israel.

On this basis, following the Camp David agreement of 1978, the Sinai peninsula wasreturned to Egypt.

Futility

These developments further undermined the policies of the PLO leadership. The Israeliregime was now free to concentrate on the west and the north. The invasion of Lebanon,and the further consolidation of Israel's overwhelming military supremacy, demonstratedthe complete futility of relying on either a guerilla struggle, or on the Arab regimes, tocarry the Palestinian struggle to victory.


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The Arab leaders clearly have no intention of risking another confrontation with Israel.Even the 'revolutionary' Colonel Gaddafi of Libya, during the height of the battle forBeirut, could suggest no better solution to the PLO leaders than committing suicide ratherthan surrendering to Israel!

The imperialist powers hope to exploit the present situation and impose a Middle East'solution' in their own interests. Their intentions are, firstly, to restore the stability of theLebanese regime and arrange the withdrawal of the Syrian and Israeli forces. Moreimportantly, they propose to 'settle' the Palestinian struggle by designating the West Bankand Gaza as a 'homeland' for the Palestinian people.

As Reagan has made clear, however, there is no question of such a 'homeland' becomingindependent. It would only get powers of local self-government - i.e., less independencethan a Bantustan - and remain under military control of Israel in association with Jordan.

Unstable

These bankrupt plans have little chance of getting off the ground. The situation inLebanon will remain volatile and the regime there will remain unstable. The workers andpeasants will recover from their wounds, while the ruling class will be incapable in aperiod of world recession of rebuilding the economy and establishing its authority oversociety.

Reagan's proposals for a Palestinian 'homeland', which are completely unacceptable tothe Palestinian people, have also been flatly rejected by Begin.

Under cover of the war in Lebanon, the Israeli authorities have embarked on their biggestland-grab yet on the West Bank, precisely to prevent its return to Arab hands. 40% of thearea, including five Arab towns, has been earmarked for Jewish settlement, and 50% foragriculture (with strict controls on Arab building). Only 10% will remain for Arab townsand villages.

Between Reagan's offer and Begin's refusal there is no way forward for the Palestinianpeople. The PLO leaders, however, have learned nothing from these events. Out of thedisasters produced by their policies of class compromise, they have embarked on a policyof - more class compromise.

Arafat's negotiations with King Hussein of Jordan (the butcher of the 'Black September'days) over a 'federation' or a 'confederation' of a Palestinian West Bank with Jordan canoffer no solution. Hussein's only concern is to save his own skin a little bit longer fromthe ever-present threat of revolution.

"I have never seen King Hussein of Jordan so despairing", commented the West Germanforeign minister during the fighting in Lebanon. An alliance with Arafat, Hussein hopes,will buy him credibility in the eyes of his people.


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Concessions

Bu Hussein's and Arafat's plans are only the counsel of despair, and can lead to nothingbut a worse fiasco. Far from basing themselves on the struggle of the Palestinian masses,

they are looking to US imperialism to squeeze concessions out of Israel.

Even if US pressure forced Israel to retreat, the only 'Palestinian state' that would betolerated by imperialism, Israel and the Arab rulers would be a puppet state. The talksbetween Arafat and Hussein hold out the prospect of some Jordanian involvement inrunning such a puppet state - nothing more.

Yet, on the basis of class compromise with the Arab rulers, a rotten deal of this nature isthe most that the PLO leadership can hope to achieve at present.

No solution to the Palestinian struggle is possible for as long as capitalism and

landlordism, embodied by Israeli militarism and the corrupt deadweight of the Arabregimes, dominate the region. The Arab rulers, the Israeli regime and imperialism alikeare terrified of the impetus which a Palestinian victory would give to the struggles of themasses in all the Arab countries and in Israel.

An independent Palestinian state would be caught up in revolutionary turmoil from thestart. On a capitalist basis it could not satisfy the demands of the working people, nor isthere a Palestinian bourgeoisie capable of ruling it on any stable basis.

Such a state could only exist as a focal point of struggle against both Zionism and Arabreaction, carrying the movements of 1970 and 1975 to their logical conclusion. For these

reasons the Arab regimes pay mainly lip service to the idea of an independent Palestinianstate.

Tasks of the Revolution in the Middle East

Israel is the main bastion of capitalist reaction in the Middle East, the ultimate defenderof imperialist interests and the most powerful obstacle to the national and socialliberation of the Palestinian people. The defeat of the Israeli regime is the key to thevictory of the Palestinian struggle; which in turn is the most burning issue in the MiddleEast.

Yet how can the Israeli regime be defeated? Military victory by the weak Arab states isruled out.

To the Arab rulers, the present balance of forces is the cornerstone of their politicalsurvival. The threat of Israeli attack is the main factor that can justify their own existenceto the masses and postpone revolutionary struggles (while 'peace initiatives' can beunfolded when the people become weary of war).


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More importantly, neither of the great superpowers would support any major escalationof military struggle in the region.

US imperialism will use all its resources to cling to its oil and strategic interests in theMiddle East, and continue to back Israel. At the same time it will try to curb the worst

excesses of Israel's militarist regime, which threaten to store up incalculable explosionsfor the future. (In much the same way Western governments, frightened of theapproaching revolution in South Africa, try to 'moderate' the policies of the apartheidregime.)

The Soviet bureaucracy, while not dependent on Middle East oil, needs to maintain somecheck on the expansion of US power along their southern borders, and prevent anyserious weakening of their international position. This is the basic reason for the limitedsupport which Russia has given to the PLO and the Arab regimes.

At the same time, the Russian leadership has no interest in a struggle for Arab victory

against all-out imperialist resistance. Like the Arab rulers, they fear any shift in thepresent situation of armed truce in the Middle East.

With the war in Lebanon, their lack of commitment to Palestinian victory was glaringlyexposed. Even the leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine - a pro-Soviet group in the PLO - declared in a public statement: "The Soviet Union cannotsecure its solidarity with us and with the people of Lebanon by confining its support topolitical and diplomatic pressures."

The defeat of the Israeli ruling class can only come about as a result of a class movementinvolving the Jewish majority of the Israeli working class. The fact is central to the

struggle of the Palestinian workers and peasants. Only on the basis of a Marxistperspective and program, however, is it possible to mobilize such a movement.

No fundamental shift in the social support for the ruling class by the Israeli workers ispossible, despite all the growing economic and political strains, as long as the Palestinianstruggle is fought on a nationalist basis. Faced with the choice - as they see it - betweenthe Zionist state and terrorist violence, the mass of Israeli workers will continue tosupport the capitalist class.

The policies of the PLO leadership, tying their struggle to the Arab regimes andconfining it to nationalist perspectives, thus guarantee a bedrock of Jewish support for the

Israeli ruling class, and render the Zionist state indestructible except at the cost of anunimaginable bloodbath.

Socialist Transformation


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Only a Marxist program, linking the national struggle of the Palestinian people to thesocialist transformation of the whole Middle East, could show a way out of this viciouscircle.

Calling for the overthrow of the regimes of the capitalists and landlords, and for the

establishment of democratic workers' rule in every country of the region, a determinedcampaign for Marxist policies would open up entirely new perspectives to Israelis as wellas Arab workers.

Under workers' rule, all the problems created by capitalism and landlordism could beginto be eliminated. Poverty could be alleviated, and privilege abolished, by placingproduction on a planned basis under the control of the working people.

Land could be given to the peasantry. Together with the working class internationally, thestruggle could be waged to break the grip of imperialism over the region.

This is the only basis on which the long and bitter struggles for self-determination by theoppressed nations of the Middle East can be resolved, and the interests of Arab andIsraeli workers reconciled with each other.

In 1948, Marxists opposed the creation of a separate Israeli state because it was clearfrom the outset that this artificial state would be a source of conflict and division amongworkers. But does that mean that Marxists should now stand for the destruction of thestate of Israel?

The majority of Israeli Jews today were either born in Israel or in Palestine before 1948and under no circumstances can socialists be in favor of their 'repatriation', i.e. expulsion.

Unlike the position in 1948, the more than three million Israelis now represent a sizeableand distinct nation in the Middle East.

Subject to certain conditions - e.g. guarantees of the rights of minorities and of returningPalestinians - the need for an Israeli state to exist within agreed borders must be acceptedtoday. Indeed, that is virtually the position of the PLO now.

But restoring the rights of the Palestinian Arabs expelled in 1948, and those dispossessedon the West Bank since 1967, unavoidably raises the question of the socialisttransformation of society. Capitalism cannot provide homes, jobs and secure livingstandards even for the Jewish population of Israel, let alone the Arab masses.

Spearhead

While the Israeli working class will play a decisive role in the unfolding revolution in theMiddle East, the Palestinian workers, scattered across the region, are in a key position tospearhead the struggle and link together the workers and peasants in the differentcountries.


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Organized as a class, the Palestinian workers can join forces with their brothers andsisters in the countries where they live and work, and explain to every section of theoppressed Arab masses the future that could be theirs under workers' rule. With correctdemands and tactics, a Marxist leadership of the Palestinian workers could stand at thehead of a vast revolutionary movement spanning the whole Middle East.

The Arab rulers would fight desperately to crush the danger from below. The struggleagainst these regimes would be no less vital than the struggle to defeat Zionism. But withclear socialist policies, the workers and peasants would be in an immeasurably strongerposition than in 1970 or 1975.

Offering land and freedom to the peasant soldiers, they would win the bulk of the Arabarmies to the side of the revolution. The flimsy ties of tradition and fear, which are allthat hold the Arab states together, would disintegrate under the first stirrings of massrevolution - as has already been foreshadowed in Lebanon and Jordan.

Under these conditions the Israeli regime would be paralyzed. With the specter of Arabreaction removed, it would be possible to win over Israeli workers, even in arevolutionary war against the Israeli capitalist state. The Israeli rulers would be leftisolated and unable to resist the social revolution.

Revolutionary states of the working people would come under furious attack fromimperialism as well as the Stalinist regimes, which would correctly see the rise ofworkers' revolution as a deadly threat to their privileged existence. But with a boldinternationalist policy, appealing to workers across national frontiers and organizingcommon struggles, the fires lit in the Middle East could spread around the world.

Capitalism and landlordism would be destroyed throughout the region, and threatened ingrowing parts of Asia, Africa and Europe as workers are impelled into action by theimpact of the Middle Eastern revolution. The bureaucratic regime in Syria would collapseand be replaced by democratic workers' rule.

On the basis of workers' democracy, the national divisions fragmenting the region couldbegin to be resolved. The Palestinians and other oppressed peoples - such as the Kurds -could exercise their full democratic rights as nations, either in common states or, wherethe majority desires it, in states of their own.

The working class has no vested interest that would be threatened by the self-

determination of nations. Revolutionary workers' governments, with a common interestin peace and economic development, would be able to accommodate the demands ofnational minorities and agree to territorial divisions, where necessary, in order to lay afoundation for economic and political cooperation.

Marxists would explain the need for the closest possible integration in developing theresources of the region on a planned basis, and argue for a socialist federation as a means


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of linking independent workers' states together. This could pave the way to unity of allpeoples in the future.

Scattering the Seeds of Revolution

In the aftermath of the Lebanon war, there is the danger of a renewed swing to terroristviolence among embittered sections of Palestinian youth. In January, for instance,grenades were thrown into a bus in Tel Aviv, injuring eleven people. 86 Arabs werearrested in retaliation.

Also the PLO leadership, in an effort to repair their prestige, have uttered hollow threatsof renewed guerilla war against Israel.

At the same time, however, with the horror and futility of the Lebanon war still fresh intheir minds, many Palestinian and Israeli workers could be won to Marxist policies

showing an alternative to the vicious cycle of suffering and bloodshed.

The sorry conduct of the Arab rulers has severely undermined the PLO leadership'straditional position. Among the PLO fighters evacuated from Beirut there was no moodfor continuing to put their faith in these regimes.

"Save your tears", said one fighter to a group of women weeping to see them go. "Saveyour tears for the Arab leaders."

Another said: "We are going to push Israel aside for five years, and clean up the Arabworld. All our rulers are traitors."

Even the Syrian regime was viewed with deep mistrust. "We might get a heroes welcomein Damascus - although I doubt it", commented a Palestinian journalist. "But then weshall be marched off to barracks. As good as prison."

Arafat's renewed wheeling and dealing with King Hussein has therefore aroused deepanger among Palestinian activists. His second-in-command was even compelled to fleefrom Syria and seek political asylum in the reactionary kingdom of Jordan!

Crown Prince Hassam of Jordan (Hussein's brother) put the fears of the Arab rulers intowords: "If the present PLO leadership are eliminated they will be succeeded by others,

perhaps more extreme, more radical, more desperate, simply because the need will still bethere."

More and more Palestinian activists will be determined to change the PLO's policies ofclass compromise, to remove the leaders committed to these policies, and put forwardnew leaders who are willing and able to lead the national struggle to its revolutionaryconclusions.


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Dispersing the PLO fighters across the Arab world - the only option available toimperialism, Israel and the Arab states - will at the same time have far-reachingconsequences. It will scatter the seeds of revolution throughout the Middle East. Betrayedby the leaders and repressed by their 'hosts', PLO activists will seek ways of linking theirstruggle to that of the workers and peasants locally.

In Israel itself, class struggles will deepen. Armed with a clear Marxist perspective,working-class activists in Israel as well as the Arab countries can lay the basis for arevolutionary leadership that can mobilize the masses of the region, eliminate nationaloppression, capitalism and landlordism, and usher in a new period of peace and socialprogress under working-class rule.

Crisis in the Middle East

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