Class Struggle #10

23 Pages·1.266 MB·English

SPARK
EDITED BY
issue no.10
AUGUST 1982
content•=
WAR IN LEBANON: AGAINST ALL THE
OPPRmSED
KENNEDY'S TRICK TO FREEZE OUT THE
MOVEMENT
THE MALVINAS : THE JUNTA'S WAR
B.EC<Jr!ES IMPERIALISM 'S WARNING
CLASS
STRUGGLE
s
1.00
A Trotskyist Quarterly
TABLE OF CONTENTS
WAR IN LEBANON: AGAINST ALL THE OPPRESSED Page 1
KENNEDY'S TRICK TO FREEZE OUT THE MOVEMENT Page 7
THE MAL VINAS: THE JUNTA 1 S WAR BECOMES
IMPERIALISM'S WARNING Page 13
CIASS STROOGI.E
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WAR IN LEBANON:
ALL THE OPPRESSED
AGAtNST
The latest Middle East war, Israel's invasion of Lebanon, is only the latest
installment of a continuing and deteriorating Middle F.ast war, which could become
this century's version of the Hundred Years' War. The Middle F.ast has been
scarred by a process in which neither any war, nor the so-called peace that fol
lowed, resolved the harsh contradictions. It only brought these contradictions
to another level. Now, once more there is warfare in the Middle East.
At the center of the Lebanese war, as in past wars, is the state of Israel.
Israel was founded with the intention of being the haven for the world's Jewish
population, so often the victims of racism in the countries in which they re
sided, and the victims of genocide in Europe during World War II. However, by
setting up Israel as a Zionist state, that is a state which pushed out most of
the Palestinians and Arab people, and denied full political rights to those who
remained, the Zionist leaders pitted the Jewish people of Israel against all the
peoples that surround them. The expulsion of the Palestinians from their home,
in order to set up the Zionist state, began an ever more vicious cycle of wars.
It reinforced the opposition between the Arabs and the Israelis, and a new war
burst out in 1967. The Israeli government held onto the territory it occupied
in 1967, including the West Bank, Golan Heights and Gaza Strip. The Israeli
occupation pushed a part of the Palestinian population to leave the newly oc
cupied territories. This simply exacerbated the problem. Dispersed over several
countries, the Palestinians continued to harbor hopes of returning to their home
land. In the end of the 1960s, a very strong Palestinian movement emerged behind
the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization), a front which had been organized
in 1964.
The population within the occupied territories remained in its big majority
Palestinian. And they opposed the Israeli occupation. They began to protest
and organize against the Israeli government. The government began a vicious
crackdown on the Palestinians. This repression only gave more reason to the
Palestinians to fight against the government. The Israeli government pushed the
conflict up one more notch. It began to create Jewish settlements in the
occupied territories in order to establish military outposts within the Pales
tinian areas. The government countered the Palestinians' renewed protests with
more repression. In turn this rallied the entire population of the occupied
territories behind the PLO.
In November 1981, Israel set up a new and more permanent civil administra
tion for the occupied territories. This met with unanimous opposition from the
Palestinian masses. Israel then mounted a political and police offensive against
the Palestinians. Starting in the spring, the Israeli government dismissed the
Palestinian mayors and municipal councillors in 4 cities and villages on the West
Bank. Widespread strikes by shopkeepers and students and the demonstrations and
protests were answered by the Israeli army which repeatedly fired on the pro
testers, injuring and killing dozens of people. But this repression has resulted
only in more unrest, creating more opposition to the Israeli occupation.
Israel',s solution, the solution of Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Defense
Minister Ariel Sharon, was once more to expand the.fight, this time to attack the
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PLO in its stronghold in Lebanon. The aim of the invasion, as stated by Sharon,
was the end of the Palestinian problem, that is the end of all hopes of the
Palestinians for a homeland once and for all. The invasion was a crushing blow.
An estimated 15,000 people have been killed, hundreds of thousands wounded,
hundreds of thousands of people have been left homeless. The Israeli army did
not differentiate between the PLO and the Palestinian and poor Lebanese popula
tion. So the Israeli army attacked the civilian population indiscriminately.
Will this finally end the Palestinian movement Israeli rule? This
agai~st
is not likely. Perhaps on the short-term the attack will throw the movement
back, whether the Israeli army massacres the Palestinians, or whether the PLO is
removed from Beirut and dispersed. But what is certain is that this war will be
no different from the others since Israel's inception, in that it will not bring
peace. To try to find security surrounded by :i hostile pl'!ople, .Israel's o~y
solution has been to expand become more war-like. Now Israel, in the sup
~..nd
posed search of security, has destroyed half of Lebanon. And its army is still
mired there. Will the army be able to extricate itself? Or will it be forced
in the future, again .in the supposed search of peace, to go to war in northern
Lebanon or Syria or Jordan? For Israel, if the Zionist policy is allowed to
continue, the cycle of war can only continue -- and become more severe. More
and more, Israel has become a garrison, and its people the occupying army of
the Middle East.
IMPERIALISM KEEPS A -LEA-SH- O-N -IT-S POLICE -DOG -- -BU-T A- L-ON-G -ON-E
It is Israel which initiated and carries out this war, but on some level,
U.S. imperialism has accepted this war. How far it is willing to have Israel
go is another matter.
Obviously, U.S. imperialism stands behind Israel. Israel has been able,
over the years, to carry out its wars, precisely because of the massive military
aid and economic support that it gets from the U.S. The guns, jets and tanks,
J:he phosphorus shells and cluster bombs are all made in the U.S. Israel re
ceives more mi1itary aid from the U.S. government than any other country, over
2.7 billion dollars in the last year alon9. We can't imagine if the U.S. were
absolutely opposed to a policy taken by Israel, that Israel could long pursue
it. On the other hand, the U.S. c~uld accept to have Israel go further than the
U.S. itself might like.
Up until now it seems that the U.S. has been willing to let Israel proceed
with its war plans. Nonetheless, the U.S. seems to be looking to see if there
could be an.other uutcome. It is probably because the U.S. government inter
vened, that the Israeli army remained poised on the outskirts of West Beirut,
still waiting to attack.
Israel has posed the problem of the Palestinians, and of the PLO, more
simply than has the U.S. For Israel, the armed forces of the PLO appear as a
threat to its very existence, and it seems likely now that the goal of Israel
is to try to destroy the PLO.
U.S. imperialism, on the other hand, has additional problems raised for
it. On the political level, a massacre in Beirut could end up being counter
productive for imperialism. It's not out of moral nicety that U.S. imperialism
holds back, and it's not ~ven that it won't agree to the massacre ultimately.
Nouetbeless this particular massacre holds a certain risk: it could desta
7
bilize the Middle East more than it stabilizes it. It could lead to still
further unrest among the Palestinians throughout the Middle East, and also
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among the poor masses of other countries. And such unrest might force the lead
ers of countries even like Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Egypt, under the pressure of
their own populations, to take a distance from imperialism.
If Israel seems to be hesitating today, it is probably because U.S. im
perialism hopes to find another resolution of the situation, with fewer risks.
Certainly, the Palestinian movement and the PLO are of concern to the U.S.
itself. Like all popular movements, it is a threat to the stability of a region
which is vital for U.S. imperialism. The region's rich oil reserves and its
geographic importance, in terms of both military and trade considerations, make
it especially important that.the PLO and the Palestinians not exacerbate:the
already unstable situation.
Imperialism has wider latitude in trying to settle the question than does
Israel. Maybe, imperialism, once more, is only looking for a little time: by
holding out the future possibility of a homeland for the Palestinians, maybe it
hopes to avoid the worst difficulties for the time being, hoping that time will
take care of the rest. Perhaps a homeland could even be found for the Pales
tinians and the PLO be recognized. The PLO, given its own state, would undoubt
edly thereby take the responsibility controlling the Palestinian
fc~ po~ulation,
just as do all the nationalist Arab regimes today. The first difficulty posed
by that, however, is where could this homeland be: if it were in the West Bank,
which is the only reasonable place, it would directly confront Israel with a
hostile population now established in its own frontiers. Moreover, could the
U.S. find a settlement which would guarantee Israel its security -- that is,
Israel, which has the PLO trapped today, wants a guarantee that the PLO could
not use its military forces against Israel.
U.S. imperialism seems still to be searching to see if it can achieve
through negotiations what Israel probably would prefer to achieve through war,
that is, to get rid of the threat of the Palestinian movement against Israel.
Will imperialism find the formula that will satisfy both the PLO and Israel?
It's not clear it can. But one thing we know, the U.S. decision in no way
will endanger Israel or reduce its strength. The over-riding need for imper
ialism is to have a cop that remains strong in such an explosive part of the ·
world.
- -
-THE- AR-AB STATES: ALLY OR ENEMY -OF -THE- P-LO?
With Pan Arab nationalism as a reference, the PLO has claimed that the
Arab states are the Palestinian people's natural ally. But the fact was that
the Arab states did not support the PLO when Israel went to war against it.
;:.···: Not until 3 long weeks after the start of the war did the Arab governments even
get together to discuss what to do. They came up with no concrete conclusions.
They have put themselves to the side of the fight. They have entered the nego
tiations because they have a stake in the outcome of the war, of where the
Palestinians go and of the relationship of forces that will result from the
war. But they have proven that they are far from a trustworthy partner of the
Palestinian people.
For several decades now, all the Arab regimes, whether the so-called ·
radical or the moderate ones, have pretended to support the cause of the
Palestinians. In fact, the Arab regimes took up the Palestinian cause primarily
for domestic consumption. All of these regimes are harsh dictatorships in
· countries that, despite the oil income, are extremely poor. All of these re-
·: gimes have to fear social unrest. The Syrian, Egyptian and e'ven Saudi Arabian
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regimes have in recent years been faced with revolts against their rule. These
assorted reactionary, repressive and in some' cases medieval regimes found it
convenient to have Israel as an external enemy in order to divert attention of
their own populations from domestic problems.
But for those regimes, as well, the Palestinian movement posed a real
threat at certain times. We saw this, after the 1967 war, when Jordan received
the bulk of the Palestinian refugees. The Palestinians were a threat to.the
Hussein regime first, because the very presence-of the Palestinian refugees
served as a denouncement of Hussein. Hussein, supposedly opposed to the Israeli
regime, did nothing to aid his fellow Arabs, the Palestinians to return to their
homeland. And given the vision of a Pan-Arab nation, Hussein had no more
legitimacy to be the head of the Jordanian state than did the PLO. Not only
that, but the Palestinians organized into the PLO were an armed force inside the
country who did seem ready to take action. Despite the assurances of the PLO to
the Jordanian government that it would respect the government, its mere presence
was an example to other layers of the poor within Jordan to do as the Palestinians,
that is, to arm and to fight for their goals. So King Hussein's army moved
against the Palestinians and massacred many of them and ejected :the PLO from
Jordan.
The PLO moved its headquarters to Lebanon. Five years later in Lebanon,
the presence of the Palestinians led the Phalangists and the right•wing also to
attack them. But this time, the Palestinians were joined by the left-wing of
the country, who were also fighting the Phalangists. But· the victories by the
Palestinians and the poor masses in Lebanon did not bring Arab support. It
brought the so-called Arab Peacekeeping Force, paid for by Saudi Arabia and made
up of the Syrian Army. The Syrian Army in the name of most of the Arab regimes
and under the guise of a neutral force entered Lebanon and did what the Phalan
gis ts could not do alone, they stoppeo the advance of the Palestinian-leftist
alliance. The Syrian regime of Assad feared a popular victory in Lebanon could
spark similar revolts in Syria. Today's Israeli invasion in Lebanon· is merely
the conclusion of what the Syrians and Phalangists·began in Lebanon. The
Syrians weakened the Palestinians in Lebanon, making it easier for Israel to
defeat them today.
Given the interests of the Arab regimes, the nationalist policy of the·
PLO could not have been more disaBtrous. The PLO took the political stance to
respect all of the Arab regimes, in order to gain their support to help them
fight against Israel. It did not call on the poor masses of the different
countries to fight for their own order against these regimes. In not doing so,
the PLO renounced the alliance of the poor and oppressed of all the Arab coun
tries, those who could have been their most trusted and strongest allies, those
whose interests really. corresponded with those of the Palestinians. Arid this
put them in the worst position because, on the hand, masses of poor and
~ne
oppressed Palestinians were mobilized and armed, a threat to those r·egimes, but
the PLO had not reinforced their positions through allying with the other:poor
masses of the Middle East.
-THE INTERESTS -OF -TH-E PALESTINIAN PEOPLE -ARE LINKED -TO -TH-E INTERESTS
-OF -ALL -THE- PO-OR -IN THE MIDDLE EAST
The PLO has always limited itself to a nationalist perspective. But in·
so doing they have turned their backs on what the history of the Middle: ·E&s't
has shown time and again: that the interests of the Palestinian· people"::a.~e ·
linked to the interests of all the oppressed and the-poor, over one hundTed
million of in the Middle East. The Palestinian people who are 'mobilized
~hem
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and armed and ready to fight have the possibility to have an internationalist .
policy: that is, to call on all the other poor and oppressed to join them both
in their fight against the Israeli state and imperialism, but also in a fight
against their own oppressive states. In making a revolution, the poor masses
could organize their own order and redo the Middle East, which under the imper
ialist order has been condemned to war after war.
The proof that such an alliance was possible could be seen during the
1975-76 Lebanese civil war. The Palestinians were attacked by the Phalangists,
and in a purely defensive way they joined with the left-wing forces in Lebanon
who also had been under attack.
It is equally true that the Palestinians might have found allies within
Israel itself. For what stake do the workers and poor in Israel have, except
to be used as the cannon fodder in war after war? To be the army that is used
against all the workers and poor in the Middle East? It is the only prospect
the Israeli regime can give the Israeli t:iasses. The Palestinians have interests
in common with the workers in Israel. The Palestinians could have addressed the
Israeli masses and insisted that it is r.ot they who endanger the Jewish masses,
it is the Israeli regime. The Palestinians could call on the poor Jews and
Arabs to unite and build a free and democratic society, democratic for all.
Although the PLO has formally made promises of a democratic regime for
all, it has not insisted on addressing the Israeli poor, despite the fact
that if it did, it could weaken their enemy. Beyond this, anything the PLO
has addressed to Israeli masses against the Israeli regime, can easily be dis
missed as wartime propaganda without any meaning, since the call to oppose
their own regime is addressed only to them, and not to the poor and oppressed
of the Arab countries as well.
We know that today there is an opposition in Israel to the Israeli re
gime's war plans. A recent poll shows that 65 per cent of the population
opposes storming Beirut. And on July 3 nearly 100,000 people demonstrated
against the war, an enormous number in relation to the total population of
3 1/2 million. This number is more remarkable given that the demonstration
and the opposition comes at a time when the government is in the middle of
conducting a war. This switch among a substantial section of the population,
while still limited, shows the potential even in Israel, the stronghold of the
Palestinians' enemies, for the poor and workers to oppose their own rulers.
The war in Lebanon is not, as of this writing, yet over. Whether it is
the U.S. or Israel which made the decision to stop outside of Beirut, one .thing
is clear: what prevented the Israelis so far from going in and wiping out the
PLO and killing tens of thousands of Palestinians and poor Lebanese has been
the Palestinians' courageous fight. The Palestinians are willing to fight, no
matter what the odds. This means, for the Israeli army if it does go ~n, it
will be very costly. It could be another Warsaw ghetto. Moreover, the sheer
brutality of the war could provoke struggles elsewhere, of other Palestinians
and of the poor and the oppressed in other Arab countries as well. It has
been their determination to fight which has given the Palestinian movement its
strength, but determination in itself is not enough. In the absence of an
internationalist policy, their determination and strength finds itself in a
dead end.
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KENNED.Y'S TRICK TO FREEZE
OUT THE MOVEMENT
Over the last year, there has been a sizable growth in the movement in the
United States against the threat of nuclear war. That was made apparent in the
massive June 12 demonstration in New York, the largest single political demon
stration in U.S. history. The opposition is apparently widespread through the
population. A recent Gallup poll showed that 72 per cent of the U.S. popula
tion currently supports a mutual freeze of the nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and
USSR. Even the usually conservative populations in some western states have
mobilized against the threat posed by the basing of MX missiles in their areas.
THE POLITICIANS MAKE A SUDDEN DISCOVERY -
- NUCLEAR WAR CAN BE DANGEROUS!
An ironic indication of the strength of the movement has been the sudden
response of politicians who never before raised the issue. For example, at
least 8 state legislatures and hundreds of local government bodies have taken
a stand on an international policy issue. Those who pretend to be taking steps
to eliminate the threat of nuclear war range from F.dward Kennedy to President
Reagan himself. And more than 190 members of Congress rushed to co-sponsor a
resolution drafted by Senators and .Hatfield calling for .a mutual nuclear
Kenn~y
weapons freeze by the U.S. and USSR.
Isn't it amazing! Reagan's military budget, including all his nuclear
weapons proposals, was passed by these same politicians by a vote of 93-4 in
the Senate and by 334-84 in the House. The great majority of the freeze
advocates in Congress, including Kennedy, had approved all the appropriations
in Reagan's last budget for nuclear projects like the MX missile and Bl bomber.
After living with, and helping to create, the threat of nuclear · war for nearly
40 years, all these politicians suddenly and simultaneously decided that it is
a serious problem. Of course, this doesn't mean that any of them have renounced
their past support for the U.S. nuclear arms build-up or U.S. military adven
tures around the world.
In fact, the real issue is that the politicians, from the senators like
Kennedy to the local town council members, see a sentiment in the population
which can mean for them. That many people in the streets and those fig
~otes
ures on the Gallup poll translate into votes in the calculations of the
politicians.
Politicians, such as Kennedy, have another purpose beyond simply gaining
votes for themselves. They would like to give the anti-nuclear war campaign
a particular direction, to define its goals for it. The Kennedy-Hatfield
resolution sets that direction:
"Whereas the greatest challenge facing the earth is to prevent
the ·.of nuclear var by accident or design;.
o~currence
Whereas the nuclear arms race is dangerously increasing the risk
of a holocaust that would be humanity's final war; and
Whereas a freeze followed by reductions in ·.nuclear warheads,
missiles, and other delivery systems is needed to halt the nuclear
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