After the skyjacking ... Palestinians? IT IS A MEASURE of US imperialism's low level ~ Egypt's Preisdent Mubarak, deeply depenof self-esteem that such a puny victory as Reagan's October skyjacking can be hailed from the rooftops by the American media. It took the mobilisation of the entire US Seventh Fleet, of the world's fastest fighter plane, AWACS surveillance aircraft and aeriel tankers, not to mention the co-operation of several governments for the US to capture four fighters of the Palestine Liberation Front — or rather to capture them for Italy.
The mechanics of the military operation are less interesting than the effect it will have on, it. and what it shows about, the situation in the Middle East. First, it shows that the United States is prepared to stamp all over its allies whenever it feels it necessary.
Coma the banks and monopolies is under tremendous ideological attack. The Campaign Group pamphlet by Andrew Glyn, reviewed in this issue, is an excellent initiative in this regard. Equally, we need to build a gigantic campaign against NATO to confront the backsliders on unilateralism in both the Party leadership and CND. Above all, the campaign for amnesty for the sacked and imprisoned miners must be redoubled The bills introduced into parliament on such things as amnesty and NATO by the Campaign Group are excellent initiatives which the whole left should support. Being clearer and more determined on policy questions goes hand in hand with strengthening the organisation of the left. International supporters give full support to Labour Briefing and to initiatives like the Labour Left Co-ordination. Without organisation the left is going to be chopped to pieces in the next period. This means building co-operation between left currents, black sections and the Women's Action Committee - a policy which goes hand in hand with organising the left in the unions. Above all, we have to remember that if we do get a Labour government under Kinnock, it will in all probability turn out to be a repeat of the right wing policies of the Wilson era. But there will be two differences. First, the economic crisis is much deeper, and the attacks on the working class would be that much harsher. Second, the left in the party, despite all the setbacks, is infinitely stronger. Whether or not it could exert itself in such a situation would make a tremendous difference. The future of British politics depends on whether the Labour left (what the Campaign Group MPs were privately calling the 'real' left) can strengthen itself politically and organisationally. That is the challenge that we face. DAVY JONES & THERESA CONWAY dent on the US for military and economic aid was in a very embarrassing position once Egypt had custody of the four Palestinians who had hijacked the Italian cruise liner. To hand over the PLF fighters would have brought him condemnation throughout the Arab world, so he granted them safe passage to Tunisia in PLO custody. It seems certain that Reagan told him in advance that the United States was going to seize the four, and make him look an idiot in Arab opinion - but he was powerless to stop
withdrawal from Beirut in 1982, the main force of PLO fighters has been scattered throughout
The whole business has struck a fearful blow the Arab world, with no significant presence on at the already faltering 'peace process' launch- Israel's borders. Arafat is now relying almost ed by King Hussein of Jordan and the Arafat totally on diplomatic moves to gain Palestinian wing of the PLO. Ever since the PLO advance.
International, No. I, November/December 1985
The Jordan Arafat peace plan for the Middle East is for a West Bank Palestinian statelet under Jordanian control. The traditional demands of the PLO - for a democratic, secular Palestine' - have been in effect abandoned. Most of the Western European powers have been prepared to discuss this proposal -including Italy which was forced in to complicity with the Reagan skyjack. But the whole strategy has run into the insuperable problem of total opposition by Israel to ceding an inch of West Bank territory, and total refusal to have any dealings with the PLO or Arafat.
While the Hussein-Arafat plan has many similarities to the 1982 Reagan plan, in reality the United States invariably goes back on the more subtle ideas of its foreign affairs establishment, and capitulates to Israel.
The United States feels itself under pressure from revolutionary and nationalist movements world wide, and has suffered bitter defeats at their hands in the last ten years. So strong and reliable allies are at a premium, none more so than in the Middle East. Thus the United States closely collaborated with Israel in the recent air raid on the PLO headquarters in Tunis, despite the fact that Tunisia is another 'moderate' ally of the US. The need to give strong backing to thuggish allies has caught the US apparently facing both ways at once. Formally in favour of the Middle East peace process, it is nonetheless quite prepared to kick its Arab allies in the face if backing up Israel proves necessary.
A similar process can be seen in relation to South Africa. Ostensibly the US deplores apartheid, but in practice South Africa is a stalwart ally against 'communism'. The golden rule in all these situations is that the operative US policy is always announced by Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger, and not the wet "liberals" at the State Department.
In a conscious attempt to overcome the "post-Vietnam syndrome', the use of American firepower ha become more and more frequent. The most obvious examples are the huge build up of US military forces in Central America, with considerable US aerial logistic support to the counter-revolutionary war in El Salvador and aid for the Nicaraguan contras. Other examples include the US invasion of Grenada, the ill-fated intervention in Lebanon to back the Gemayel Phalangist regime, and the shooting down of the Libyan fighters over the Mediterranean.
The plight of the Palestinians is now a desperate one. in Lebanon, war against the Palestinian community has been declared by both the Phalangists and the Shi'ite Amal militia, which occupies the destitute camps at Sabra and Chatila, scene of the Israeli Phalangist massacre in 1982, and the more re. cent butchery by Amal itself. Syrian President Assad has been only too happy to give Amal support in their muderous onslaught against the Palestinians (he gave them 50 Russian tanks as a reward for their 'heroic' exploits at Sabra and Chatila) in order to destroy any force in Lebanon not under his control, or dependent on his patronage. International, No. I, November/December 1985
A US F-14A Tomcat
In Israel itself the Palestinians are increasingly victims of the utmost brutality on the West Bank, as Arab lands are seized and Arab homes blown up to make way for Israeli "settlers' There is no sign whatever of Israel ceding a single inch of the occupied territories where many Palestinians live.
If Arafat's peace process is running up against head-on opposition from the Israelis and in practice the Americans, it suffers from another fatal flaw - the fact that it simply ignores the claims of Syrian President Assad Assad controls Lebanon, and is thus in the front line against Israel. He has it in his power to disrupt any peace process which does not cut him in, and he is a deadly enemy of Jordan's Hussein. Yasser Arafat, a lot to think about
The PLO is now at an impasse. With the abandonment of Beirut, and the subsequent split in the PLO, the use of the PLO fighters as an effective military force collapsed as a realistic option. Now that the Arafat PLO is allied with Hussein and the Abu Musa wing totally allied to Syria's Assad, Arafat's diplomatic game is getting nowhere, and the Palestinian people themselves are suffering terrible blows at the hands of the Israelis and Arab reaction. There is no group in the PLO with any sizeable forces which has a credible strategy for the Palestinian national liberation struggle.
The working out of such a strategy has to start witha serious assessment of the history of the PLO, and the whole course that it has adopted since its formation. In reality. the 'armed struggle' as practised by the Palestinian Fedayeen was never going to be victorious, even before the Israeli invasion of Lebanon which struck it such a feaful blow. It faced massive military odds, with the Israelis armed
to the hilt by the US. But that was not the central reason for the failure of the armed struggle strategy. For any kind of success the PLO fighters needed to build an alliance with much broader Arab forces. Each attempt to build an alliance with reactionary Arab governments ended in disaster. Indeed, until 1982, the main military blows against the PLO had been struck by Arab reaction, most notably by Hussein's army in Jordan in 1970.
This revealed that any attempt to win the national and democratic demands of the Palestinian people cannot but be part of a wider social and political upheaval in the Middle East and aimed at the reactionary bourgeois nationalist regimes in the region as well as Israel. The allies of the Palestinians in such a project could only be the Arab workers and peasants, and not reactionary politicians like Assad or Hussein.
The irony of the situation is that while the PLO has suffered defeat after defeat, Israel is in a deeper crisis than at any time since its foundation. Decades of huge military spending have undermined its economy so much that inflation and austerity dominate the economic scene. Only massive subventions from the United States prevent complete catastrophe.
But nowhere is there a revolutionary force of any strength among the Palestinians and the Arab masses as a whole capable of taking advantage of the crisis both of Israel and of the reactionary Arab regimes. Arab nationalism itself is in a crisis, having neither successfully confronted Israel, nor eased the burden of the working masses! It is being challenged on a wide front by Islamic fudamentalism of various kinds and nowhere is this ideological confection in the least bit progressive. The labour movement in the region is weak, and the local Communist parties have a long history of utter capitulation to bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalism.
The left-wing forces in the PLO - and they exist not in the form of a single organisation but scattered throughout the different groups and organisation — can only advance by beginning a critical balance sheet of the history of thir movement, and by hammering out a new strategy based on combining the Palestine national struggle with the struggle of the workers and peasants of the whole Middle East.
For socialists in Britain, total support for the Palestinian people and soldiarity with their fighters, whatever our disagreements with their tactics and methods, is obligatory. Reagan can capture four individual fighters, and Israel and Arab reaction can carry out murderous deeds against the Palestinians, but the Palestinian people will not go away or give up the struggle. New generations of fighters will find the path to victory. 5
Nelcome to Brixton
Brixton Recreation Centre ST KITTENS THE ATLANTIC Community policing in Brixton, September 1985. Broadwater Farm Estate, Tottenham
POLIC
----- pull-quotes on this page ----- WELCONE TO BRGADNATES TT A o with its fameus mar and arcad PO Piers Cavendish/Reflex Philo Gordon/Reflex International. No. 1, November/December 1985