Democratic Palestine : 18 (ص 4)
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- Democratic Palestine : 18 (ص 4)
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Editorial
The US imperialist schemes for the Middle East have
advanced in the recent period. The most dangerous of the steps
in this direction have been: the meeting in Morocco between
King Hassan and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres; the
measures taken by King Hussein against the PLO in Jordan
and the occupied West Bank; and the Israeli plans to appoint
Palestinian puppet mayors in the 1967 occupied territories.
What do the US imperialist plans aim at, and how were they
promoted by these steps? These plans aim at imposing total
imperialist control over this politically, economically and geo-
graphically strategic area, capitalizing on the results of almost
four dacades of Zionist aggression and occupation of Arab
land. Due to the inflow of petrodollar wealth to the region in
the seventies, the ruling class in the reactionary Arab states
grew more ready to enter into alliance with the Zionist state.
Arab reaction holds the illusion that alliance with the enemy
would restrain ‘Israel’ from swallowing Arab wealth, as it had
swallowed Arab land. This was the background for Sadat’s
visit to ‘Israel’ and the signing of the Camp David accords with
Menahem Begin, under the auspices of former US President
Carter.
The advent of the Reagan Administration, and its determi-
nation to escalate world tension to a degree unparalleled since
World War II, gave further impetus to the US drive to domi-
nate the Middle East and oversee a new alliance between its
allies, the Zionist state and the reactionary Arab regimes. Such
a new class alliance would pave the way for unprecedented
exploitation of the resources and manpower of the region. It
would moreover turn the entire area into a reactionary bastion,
and a base for the US military forces, not far from the sou-
thern borders of the Soviet Union. In the context of these rea-
lities, Shimon Peres’ visit to Morocco can be understood, as
can King Hussein’s measures against the PLO and the Palesti-
nian revolution (see article in this issue) and the Israeli moves
in occupied Palestine.
THE HASSAN—PERES MEETING
In terms of the situation on the Arab level, the meeting in
Morocco serves the following aims: (1) It serves to establish as
an accepted fact the idea of face-to-face meetings and direct
negotiations between Arab and Israeli officials. This means
reviving the spirit of Camp David after the many obstacles it
has faced on the official and popular levels in the Arab world.
(2) It gives momentum to the Egyptian-Israeli relations, and
boosts the Egyptian regime after the isolation it has suffered in
the eyes of the Egyptian masses and patriotic forces. (3) It
facilitates the efforts of King Hussein to enter into direct
negotiations with the Zionist government, aimed at joint rule
over Palestinians and their land.
Though the crucial issue at this stage is direct Jordanian-
Israeli negotiations, King Hassan stepped forward at this
point, aiming to boost his standing with the US by achieving a
breakthrough for the ‘peace’ process. In this he relied on the
political weight he carries in official Arab circles. At the time
of Peres’ visit, Hassan was chairman of the Arab summit. He
heads the Arab League’s committee for «Jerusalem’s salva-
tion.» He is head of the 7-man committee selected by the most
recent Fez Summit to visit the five permanent member states of
the UN Security Council, to explain the summit’s resolutions.
These factors explain the general silence about the Peres-
Hassan meeting on the nart of the Arab reactionary regimes. In
their language, silence often means consent.
From the Israeli viewpoint, the meeting between the
Moroccan monarch and the Zionist prime minister serves the
following aims: (1) It bolsters the Labor Party’s position,
reflecting that it enjoys more harmonious cooperation with the
US, than does the Likud. It indicates that the Labor Party has
the capacity to reach a settlement with the Arab reactionary
regimes. (2) It gives Peres added reasons for dissolving the
Zionist coalition government if Shamir of the Likud tries to
4
object to any agreement that Peres might make. If this should
happen, it would be easier for Peres to form a new government
with a Labor majority, and make a gain comparable to that
made by Begin with Camp David. (3) It strengthens the Israeli
position of calling for direct, bilateral negotiations with the
Arab governments - a procedure which makes it easier for US
imperialism and ‘Israel’ to impose their conditions on each
separately, as was the case with Sadat.
CONFRONTING THE DANGER
Confronting the present difficult situation requires the
creation of the following conditions: (1) achieving at least a
minimal official Arab position against King Hassan’s meeting
with Peres, a step to be initiated by the states of the Steadfast-
ness and Confrontation Front: Syria, Algeria, Libya and
Democratic Yemen; (2) practical measures against King
Hassan and all his supporters, to be undertaken by the forces
of the Arab national liberation movement; (3) reuniting the
PLO on a correct political and organization basis, so that it can
play its rightful role in resisting the current enemy moves.
THE PLO’S UNITY
The unity of the PLO is the most important factor in con-
fronting the imperialist plans. Such unity can only be achieved
by arriving at the correct political and organizational basis,
through democratic dialogue between the various organiza-
tions in the PLO. To succeed in rectifying the PLO’s current
situation, this dialogue must be on the basis of the Palestinian
national platform. By signing the Amman accord with King
Hussein, Fatah’s Central Committee deviated from this plat-
form. Thus, return to the national platform requires the
immediate cancellation of the Amman accord by those who
signed it, namely, Fatah’s Central Committee headed by Yasir
Arafat, and the present PLO Executive Committee selected at
the illegitimate Amman PNC.
Those who argue that a coming PNC will discuss the issue of
cancellation will not convince even the naive, because the PNC
did not sign the accord, or even discuss it. Cancelling it is the
duty of those who signed it, and if it is going to be cancelled,
why not cancell it now? Moreover, who can guarantee that the
illegitimate PNC that convened in Amman, only representing
the right wing, will cancell the accord? (If a PNC is convened,
it might be with the composition of the illegitimate one, unless
‘there is a preceding process of dialogue and rectification.)
Efforts to convene a new PNC or reunite the PLO without the
preceding rectification process will also run into the dilemma
that the rightist leadership is now saying that the Amman
accord is already dead, due to King Hussein’s measures against
the PLO. Yet this leadership still refused to bury the dead, by
cancelling the accord outright. What is to prevent them from
waiting for its resurrection?
It is the responsibility of the right wing of the PLO, then, to
Open a serious patriotic dialogue among the different Palesti-
nian resistance organizations. Such a dialogue must lead to
agreement on basic political lines. Primary among these is clo-
sing the door on US imperialist schemes which could be mate-
rialized through the Egyptian, Moroccan and Jordanian
regimes. To this end, the right wing must sever all relations
with these regimes, for they are promoting US imperialism’s
plans to liquidate the just Palestinian cause.
The essential corollary of the above is precisely defining the
PLO’s alliances on the Arab and international levels. On the
official Arab level, the allies of the PLO and the Palestinian
people are the nationalist regimes, namely, Syria, Libya,
Democratic Yemen and Algeria. The PLO cannot equate the
reactionary regimes with the patriotic ones, must less favor the
reactionaries, as the right wing has so clearly done since 1982.
Arafat and his group might argue that Syria blocked the rela-
tions, but the response to that should not be alliance with the
Arab reactionary forces. Rather, there must be continued - هو جزء من
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