Govan, Tottenham, Winchester or Gibralter. Trish self-determination and the fight to get Britain out of Ireland has to become a central plank of the socialist agenda - or the British working class will be paying a bigger and bigger price in the ycars to come.
Piers Mostyn AFTER three mouths of discussions and consultations, and a further eight weeks of vacillations, the 19th Palestine National Council finally took place in Algiers.
The undateral declaration of an independent Palestinian state, and the finul political declaration explicitly recognising the state of Is rac were widely known even beforc the inaugural session
However differences belween the main factions of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) still prevailed until the last minute
Palestine 'parliament' adopts
Moscow line
over how and whether to include recognition of Israel without com promising the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.
Unlike the old sterile debale in the 1970s over the concept of 'goverment in exile versus "provisional government', the PLO leaders could not afford the time to bicker for ever against the background of the intifadah, the historic uprising in the occupied terrilones which has entered its
The mass struggle, having. resisted the mighty iron fist of the zionist state, has developed a powerful and united leadership-a
+ m Home Secretary Douglas Hurd: using gag and thumbscrews leadership grounded in new forms of resistance: civil disobedicnee, a self-help network, and strikes. This the PLO factions could not ig-
Apart from internal Palestinian considerations, there was also a wider, even global dimension to the debates, as the Soviet Union played a leading role in giving sup port to the pragmatism of PLO leader Yassir Arafat. Moscow pressure pulled into line its direct allies - the Democratic Front and the Palestine Communist Party -and neutralised the only pole of opposition - the Popular Front.
With an eye on the new regime in Washington, Gorbachev is planning an initiative on the Middle East, and desperately needs formulations that are acceptable to the USA. Despite some cliffhangers in the most difficult sessions, Soviet diplomats worked tirelessly in the corridors and finally achieved the flexibility they needed from the PLO before they begin to unfold their new gameplan.
For the intifadah, the declaration of independence was a major boost in as much as it strengthens the authority of the united leadership of the uprising. However. the recognition of the state of Israel can only be a serious sctback.
In fact, far from 'electrifying the world', as the US media sug gested, the declaration is not an un precedented gesture. Aralal has. for many years now, jumped at every opportunity to meet whatever conditions US imperialism has impored before "talking' to the PLO. In spooch after speech he has proposed direct, explicit, de facto recognition of the zionist statc. But to impose this position, as he did in Algiers, on all the other PLO factions, was no mean fcat.
It is here that Soviet diplomacy filted the balance. George Habash's Popular Front and some sections of Fatah battled throughout, but in vain. They could not walk out for fear of jeop ardising the unity of the intifadah Nor did they offer a credible irategic altemative.
Arafat's victory at the Palestine National Council is an important step for Gorbachev's plans for peace in the Middle East. But while questions on the Arab side are moving towards some resolution, the Israeli election quagmire remains still to be settled.
The worst possible scenario for Gorbachev would be the formation of a rightist coalition who will look Lo extreme solutions - expelling the Palestinains en masse from the
This would increase the likelihnod of a fourth Arab-Isracli war, and throw Soviet plans into
Jack Goldberg
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