Democratic Palestine : 25 (ص 11)
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- Democratic Palestine : 25 (ص 11)
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20 Years After the June 1967 Defeat
Twenty Junes ago, the Zionist army occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai,
defeating the Arab regimes’ armies and dispossessing thousands of Palestinians and Arabs. The less than
six-day war of 1967 marked a sharp defeat for the Arab rightist and bourgeois leaders and regimes. It ex-
posed the failure of the policies espoused by the classes and leadership in power. On the other hand, the
1967 defeat demonstrated with irrefutable logic that the aspirations of the Arab masses and the Palesti-
nian people for liberation and social progress could only be realized by a revolutionary alternative to these
classes.
The 1967 defeat was the prelude to a
new stage in the region - a Stage
characterized by official Arab decline
and the emergence of the Palestinian
revolution as a direct, popular response
to the June defeat. Undoubtedly, the
1967 war was a Zionist victory on the
one hand. On the other hand, it was a
political victory for the reactionary
Arab regimes that capitalized on the
setback inflicted on the organizations
and regimes of the Arab national
liberation movement. Under the impact
of the 1967 defeat, the reactionary
regimes were later able to assume the
decisive role in drawing up official
Arab policies. This was particularly
true after the oil boom and its negative
effects on the class structure in the
region.
Twenty years later, the region is still
affected by that defeat. The decline of
the official Arab policies has continued
- a sorrowful fact that could be seen in
one simple example: the silence con-
cerning Peres’ public visit to Morocco
last year. In this article, we will ex-
amine what has become of the official
Arab policies, the Israeli policies and
the Palestinian policies, twenty years
after the June 5, 1967 occupation.
1967-1987:
DECLINE
A look at the official Arab situation
today can only prompt a description
like that of Marcellus in Shakespeare’s
Hamlet: «Something is rotten in the
state of Denmark.»
It is known that since the establish-
ment of the parasitic Zionist state, a
prime goal for imperialism and
Zionism was attaining the Arab
government’s recognition of that state.
The Zionists and imperialists realized
that this goal could only be achieved
through military force, to create facts
in the region to their advantage.
POLICIES IN
The 1967 aggression came during a
historical period that was not conducive
to Arab recognition of ‘Israel’. On the
Israeli level, a socioeconomic crisis
threatened the fragile structure of the
Zionist entity. On the Palestinian level,
armed struggle was escalating, and the
PLO and Palestine Liberation Army
were formed by the Arab League. On
the Arab level, Egypt, the major
front-line state, had enacted a radical
socioeconomic program that would
establish it as a firm, anti-imperialist,
anti-Zionist, anti-reactionary force. In
Syria, several progressive changes were
taking place.
Thus, the 1967 aggression was a
necessity for the Zionist-imperialist
alliance in order to attain hegemony in
the region and establish a base an-
tagonistic to the socialist system and
revolutionary forces around the world.
These aims were obvious in all the
Israeli and US plans for solving the
Middle East crisis since 1967: UN
Security Council resolution 242, the
Johnson plan, Rogers plan, Allon plan,
Jarring mission, the Israeli Labor Par-
ty’s plans, Camp David and, finally,
the Reagan plan issued after the
Palestinian forces’ withdrawal from
Beirut in 1982. The common aim of all
these plans was ending the state of war
between ‘Israel’ and the Arabs in a way
that would consolidate the Zionist state
while subjugating the Arab nationalist
regimes. To this end, all these plans
emphasized recognizing the right of ex-
istence and sovereignty of all states in
the area. What is actually meant by that
is ‘Israel’, since all the Arab states are
recognized.
Although the Zionist-imperialist
goals have not materialized after twenty
years, this alliance cannot be totally
dissatisfied with what has been achiev-
ed over these two decades. In addition
to the ‘peace’ and normal relations
established between the Zionist entity
and the most important Arab country,
Egypt, there is a de facto acceptance of
the Zionist entity by the vast majority
of Arab states. This is witnessed in
several facts: First is the Arab states’
firm, unilateral adherence to. the
ceasefire resolutions, and their accep-
tance of the new Israeli borders after
1967. An exception to this was the 1973
war which proved to be only an attempt
to pave the way for a settlement; in the
case of Egypt, it led to outright sur-
render. Second is the total, forcible
prohibition of Palestinian armed ac-
tivity in the Arab states, particularly in
the front-line states or across their
borders. Third is the establishment of
covert and even overt relations with the
Zionist entity, namely by Morocco,
Jordan and Numeiri’s Sudan. Fourth is
the complete neglect of the Israeli
atrocities against the Palestinian peo-
ple, whether in occupied Palestine or
elsewhere. It took almost three months
of siege of Beirut for the Arab states to
convene a summit, and they did so only
after the Palestinian withdrawal. Ag-
gression against the Arab masses and
territory is treated with the same at-
titude (the Israeli air raid against the
Iraqi nuclear reactor and the bombing
of the PLO’s headquarters in Tunisia).
Fifth is neglect and non-adherence to
the resolutions boycotting the Camp
David regime in Egypt. Sixth is the
establishment of strong ties with the
imperialist states, the strategic allies of
‘Israel’ and the supporters of its ag-
gression, paving the way for the US in
particular to consolidate its influence in
the region. On the other hand, all ef-
forts were exerted to weaken the role of
the Arabs’ friends and allies, par-
ticularly the Soviet Union.
Egypt’s acceptance of UN Security
Council resolution 242 was an initial
indication of the Arab governments’
willingness to recognize ‘Israel’,
without consideration of the Palesti- P
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