Democratic Palestine : 16 (ص 10)
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- Democratic Palestine : 16 (ص 10)
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US Search for Peace
Imperialist efforts continue to
enforce a capitulationist settlement in
the Middle East, based on negation of
the Palestinian people's rights of return,
self-determination and establishing an
independent Palestinian state. In addi-
tion to imperialism and Zionism, the set-
tlement efforts have gained the support
of Arab and Palestinian reactionaries.
The settlement includes different con-
cepts for resolving the Palestinian issue.
These range from ‘autonomy’ in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, with con-
tinued Zionist control, as specified in the
Camp David accords and advocated by
the Likud; to a Jordanian-Palestinian
confederation under the control of king
Hussein (the position of the Jordanian
regime and the Arafat leadership).
Reaching an imperialist settlement
is a comerstone in the US's foreign pol-
icy, in order to consolidate the Zionist
entity and its own domination of the Mid-
die East. The US drive for imposing such
a settlement is two-pronged. One prong
is attacking and_ intimidating the
nationalist forces as manifest in the US
aggression on Libya and the US-Zionist
threats against Syria. The Zionists’ iron
fist policy in occupied Palestine is
another component of this policy. Since
August 1985, 33 Palestinians have been
deported and 125 remain under indefi-
nite administrative detention. To this is
added the Jordanian-Zionist attempts to
find alternatives to the PLO - the sole,
legitimate representative of the Palesti-
nian people. These attempts include the
efforts to appoint the municipal councils
in the West Bank and the new Jordanian
election law.
The other prong is reorganizing the
Middle East in preparation for a settle-
ment that would liquidate the Palestinian
cause. To this end, US Vice-President
George Bush and Undersecretary of
State Richard Murphy visited the Middle
East in the second week of April.
Although Bush's statement, that the US
was beginning a new ‘peace’ initiative,
was denied by the State Department,
another of his statements was more to
the point. Bush said that one of the main
reasons for the trip was «to survey the
possibilities of moving the peace pro-
cess forward.» It is well to remember
that, to the US, the ‘peace’ process
8
means reaching at a settlement without
the PLO, or with a non-effective PLO
that has surrendered totally to the
imperialist-Zionist conditions. This was
the reason for the magnitude of the US-
financed Zionist invasion of Lebanon,
and the timing of the Reagan plan which
was forwarded in September 1982, right
after the withdrawal of the Palestinian
revolution’s forces from Beirut.
The settlement process gained
momentum on the Arab level after the
deviating PLO leadership broke the iso-
lation of the Camp David regime in
Egypt, and then signed the Amman
accord with King Hussein. The Amman
accord states that Jordan and the PLO
will work jointly for ‘peace’ with a view
towards a confederated Jordanian-
Palestinian state. The process faced
obstacles when King Hussein failed to
get Arafat to give up his last card by rec-
ognizing Security Council resolutions
242 and 338 in accordance with US
demands, without any assurance that
the US would recognize the Palesti-
nians’ right to self-determination. Those
tactical differences between Hussein
and Arafat caused Hussein to announce
the freezing of their coordination. This in
turn caused alarm in the Arab reactio-
nary camp. Egypt, Saudi Arabia,
Morocco and Iraq all offered their ser-
vices to mediate between Arafat and
Hussein. At the same time, King Hus-
sein and the Zionist state failed in their
efforts to find acceptable figures to act
as an alternative leadership for the PLO,
especially after the execution of the col-
laborator, Zafer al Masri. Afterwards,
Hussein cooled down his overt attack on
the PLO, while US State Department
spokesman Charles Redman said, «It is
obvious that we have embarked on a
period of reflection on the part of all par-
ties.»
Hussein opens a new front vs.
the PLO
King Hussein changed his tactics in
keeping with the essence of his strategy
for absorbing the Palestinian cause. He
worked to weaken the PLO through new
methods. The new election law in Jor-
dan is one of these efforts. This law is in
contradiction with the Rabat summit
decisions that the PLO is the sole legiti-
mate representative of the Palestinian
people. The election law divides the
seats in the Jordanian parliament into
two equal categories: those for the West
Bank and the Palestinian refugee camps
in Jordan on the one hand, and those for
the East Bank, i.e., Jordan, on the other.
This is an attempt to give legitimacy to
Jordanian claims to represent the Pales-
tinians.
Hussein's other effort was sponsor-
ing a mutiny among Arafat's military
forces in Jordan. The leader of this split
is Atallah Atallah (Abu al Zaim), well-
known as a puppet of the Jordanian
regime. One of the issues raised by the
mutineere was blaming Arafat for the
deteriorations of relations with Jordan, in
a direct echo of King Hussein's February
speech. Hussein is coupling these steps
with an ongoing campaign of repression
against democratic and even liberal
forces. (See update on Jordan's iron
fist.)
Arafat, however, has disregarded
these facts, just as he disregards the
hopes of the Palestinian people for the
cancellation of the Amman accord.
Meanwhile, the reactionary Arab
forces continue preparations for a settle-
ment. The godfather of Camp David,
King Hassan of Morocco, has re-
peatedly called for a meeting between
an Arab leader selected by an Arab sum-
mit, and the Zionist prime minister
Peres. This is part of the efforts to condi-
tion the Arab people into accepting the
existence of the Zionist entity, as a pre-
condition for enforcement of the
capitulationist settlement.
Zionism’s preparations
Preparations for a settlement also
continue on the Israeli side. Polarization
has become more apparent on the
Israeli political scene. On the one hand,
there are the extremist, vocally racist
Zionists that refuse any possibility of giv-
ing even token concessions. This
includes the majority of the Likud and
small ultraconservative parties like Kach
and Tehiya, who remind us of the Ku
Klux Klan. On the other hand, there are
the so-called moderate, but essentially
no less racist Zionists who are more in
tune with imperialist policy. This camp is
mainly represented by the Labor Party - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 16
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