Democratic Palestine : 1 (ص 23)
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- Democratic Palestine : 1 (ص 23)
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fighters managed to ambush a Zionist
patrol in the middle of Nabatiyeh
market, killing one and injuring four
enemy soldiers. This was a few days
after squadrons of Israeli jets had
attempted to terrorize the southerners
by staging a 30-minute air exercise,
dropping smoke bombs in repeated
mock assaults on the Nabatiyeh area.
Economic disruption is practiced in
other ways than closing the bridges.
On a mid-December morning, Israeli
soldiers raided Nabatiyeh’s market,
firing over the heads of the crowd.
They just happened to choose a
Monday, the day when people come
from all over the South to buy and sell.
More permanently damaging has been
the prohibition against fishing beyond
4km offshore. On Dec. 11th, 300
Lebanese fishermen demonstrated
against this in Saida; a group of them
seized a truckload of fish brought in
from ‘Israel’. The occupation forces
tried to absorb the popular rage by
pledging to lift the restrictions. The
next. day, when the fishermen went
out, their boats were rammed by
Israeli gunboats, and they were forced
back to shore after their nets were
destroyed.
New arrests and terror
Arrests continue to be a source of
friction between the occupied and the
occupiers. No sooner were the Zionists
forced to empty Ansar in order to
reclaim their captured soldiers, than
they began to collect new political
detainees. Between November 24th,
when Ansar was emptied, and Dec.
Ist, at least 70 residents of the South
were arrested; about seven were those
just released. In the week following
the release, the Phalangists kidnapped
about 70 Palestinians and Lebanese,
also including former Ansar detainees,
in different parts of the South. Though
some were later released, others have
joined the ranks of the ‘disappeared’.
The vast majority of the released have
been called in and warned by the IDF.
The enemy was not happy about
releasing the heros of Ansar, and even
less so when over 3,000 chose to
remain in their homes or camps in
South Lebanon. Renewed Zionist-
fascist terror aims to intimidate them
into leaving the South.
' Arrests in the Saida area in mid-
December led to clashes with local
villagers, notably in Kfar Melki, where
the people held a strike and sit-in in
their mosque. This followed an anti-
occupation sit-in in Saida’s main
mosque the week before. On Dec.
29th, Saida went on strike to protest
the arrest of religious leaders and the
killing of three Lebanese civilians by
One of Saida’s 500 under
the IDF in the course of their arrest
campaign. The next day sit-ins were
held in Sunni and Shiite mosques
throughout Lebanon, with religious
leaders calling for all forms of
resistance to the occupation. Again,
the Israelis closed the Awali crossings.
twas
employe
Zionist dilemma widens as
collaborators dwindle
With continuing occupation of the
South, the Zionists have locked
themselves in a dilemma. While
reaping great benefits in terms of
trade and new water resources, they
pay heavy economic and social costs
for maintaining the occupation troops.
The loss of Israeli lives contributes
constantly to the simmering social
crisis in the Zionist entity. Yet every
repressive measure, aimed at reducing
these losses, elicits broader mass
resentment in Lebanon, in turn
improving conditions for more attacks
on the IDF.
The Zionists had hoped to escape
this vicious circle by handing over
more and more of the tasks of
controlling the population to local
collaborators. Since Saad Haddad’s
fascist militias are rightfully known as
no more than an extension of the IDF,
the Israelis set up and armed the so-
called national guards in southern
villages and camps. However, these
units have generally remained small
and isolated, especially as mass
resentment of the occupation has
grown. The Amal movement’s boycott
d fishermen.
of all forms of collaboration played a
significant role in crystallizing mass
sentiment against the ‘national guards’.
Also the LNRF has played an active
role in limiting collaboration; at least
half a dozen ‘national guard’ figures
have been liquidated, which served as
a warning to others.
The crisis of the Zionist policy for
creating surrogate security forces
became public on Nov. 30th. Abu
Sateh, commander of the nucleus of an
Israeli-planned ‘Shiite army’ in the
South, announced in West Beirut that
he had disbanded his 120 man unit,
most of whom then fled the South; he
pledged allegiance to Amal. Abu Sateh
explained how he had been drawn into
cooperation with the Israelis to “save
us from sectarian militias” (Saad
Haddad and the Phalangists), but later
realized that “This army would not be
under our command, but under orders
from the Israeli army to ensure
sectarian fighting in the south similar
to what happened in the mountains.”
He revealed that the Israelis had told
him that the ‘Shiite army’ would
eventually number 14,000 and provide
security as called for in the Lebanese-
Israeli accord. Abu Sateh’s changed
position not only brings to an end one
of the largest groups organized by the
Israelis. It also signifies that fewer
Lebanese are susceptible to the
Zionist’s divide and rule policy of
arming collaborators under the pretext
of providing defense from the fascists
when, in fact, the real intention is to
use them to suppress their own people.
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