Volume 2, No. 8, August 2001

The struggle of the Palestinian people against the Zionist occupationists continues unabated amid wild attacks by the enemy. Since September 2000 more than 800 Palestinians and Arabs have "kissed the mother earth" while bravely defying the Israeli armed forces and settlers. A good number of them have been killed by the Israeli machine-guns, helicopter gun ships, tanks and, of late, F-16 air bombers. Eight months of continuous fighting has brought home the fact that, even after eight years of signing the Oslo Accord on the Middle east in 1993, the promises have utterly failed to deliver the so-called peace. Neither have the subsequent accords reached between the Israeli authorities and the PLO been able to convince the people of Palestine that they would be really given a place of peace and dignity in the yet to appear but truncated and fragmented "State of Palestine".

The present uprising was triggered by the visit of the Likud Party chief Ariel Sharon to the premises of the Al Aqsa mosque which is considered one of the holiest of ancient shrines of the Arabs. Many peace formulas and agreements have been tried out but neither the resistance of the Palestinians nor attacks by the Israeli military machine have stopped. During these bloodied months Barak lost his hold over the Israelis, lost the elections, and Ariel Sharon wrested the control of the government. His coming to power is associated with his promise that he will never allow the control of Palestinians over Jerusalem.

Arafat’s attempts to control the Palestinian uprising have failed. Forced by the undaunting spirit of the Palestinian masses he was compelled to ‘side’ with them while making fervent appeals to the US and the reactionary Arab leaders to halt the "unwarranted and unprovoked"
Israeli attacks on the Palestinians.

In November 2000 the reactionary Arab states and even the Organisation of Islamic Countries threatened "to break ties with Israel and severe relations with countries that move their embassies to Jerusalem." But, all the Palestinian Authority's demand is some rights within the areas under their existing control and over a part of Jerusalam. They do not demand full freedom of the entire Palestinian homeland. This is, inspite of the fact of the wide spread destruction, siege of towns and villages, assassinations, demolitions, confiscation and occupation of lands (which are now ‘under’ the Palestinian Authority), disrespect for human lives, the trampling of international obligations, and what not, by the Jewish State of Israel.

In April a joint Jordanian-Egypt formula was proposed to both the Israelis and the Palestinians. It called for "a series of confidence-building measures, including the
renewal of Israeli-Palestinian security co-operation and the lifting of the siege in the West Bank and Gaza." But Ariel Sharon dismissed it out of hand and sent in tanks and bulldozers into Gaza to raze to the ground the buildings from where the "Palestinian militants had fired upon the Israeli security forces." Then he sent in F-16 bombers, Apache helicopters, ordered missile and artillery attacks to pound the PA administrated areas and also PA offices to avenge a Palestinian suicide bombing. The Israeli
attack was so devastating that Yassir became desperate because it would lead to more militant resistance and individual acts from the Palestinian people and the militant Muslim organisations creating further problems for him. Of course, the resistance became stiffer and more attacks were carried out inside Zionist controlled areas.

In an earlier OIC meeting that was called on his
request, he made a fervent appeal telling the audience, "the danger is grave…it cannot be stopped by statements of denunciation, condemnation and censure." Accusing the Israelis of using the "depleted uranium weapons,
radioactive material and poison gas" he called on the OIC to take a firm stand "to end aggression and to chain the aggressor". And what did the OIC do? Belled the cat?

The OIC only repeated the threat of May 2001 of "freezing political contacts with Israel" along with a timid "call to the American administration, and on President George Bush personally, to intervene immediately to put an end to this deteriorating situation ... and to pressure Israel to stop its aggression ... and resume negotiations." Although they also called for the "establishment of a war crimes tribunal for Israelis" and demanded that "an international force be deployed to protect the Palestinians" yet they admitted, "we don’t have the force to impose peace." Their appeal to the UN Secretary General to call a meeting of the Security Council too went unheeded. Nothing more shameful could have occurred at the OIC. Only Iraq and Sudan called upon the Muslim world to launch a "holy war" on Israel. All the others cringed  before the US to intervene on their behalf.

And every one of these countries knows that the Helicopters and F-16 warplanes that are raining destruction on the Palestinians are "made in the USA". Everyone knows that the US helps Israel to the tune of 3 billion dollars per annum to serve as an outpost of the US interests in the Middle East and that the Israeli attack dog usually bites at the behest of the US master.

Arafat knew these things and he knows that most of these countries are subservient to the US and no one would dare to "shackle" this attack dog and no one would condemn its master in even a resolution. He himself traveled a long distance in making a place in the queue that pays obeisance to the US imperialists. In spite of him being an obedient follower of the master the dog continues to terrorize him. His fault? He is unable to rein in the Palestinian masses and the militant organisations in accordance with the wishes of the master and the hound. Though the 22 member Arab League too has called for a freeze on political contacts with the State of Israel yet nothing
concrete will come out of it. Only three countries namely Egypt, Jordan and Mauritania have diplomatic relations with Israel, others deal with it through unofficial channels, and almost all of them will continue to maintain secret contacts with it. Arafat is caught in the web of his own creation where there is no further way than to fall more humiliatingly at the feet of US imperialists and get more prepared to do the police work for the Israeli authorities.

In mid April the Israeli army had taken control of the Gaza Strip and sealed it off from other areas. It was just to remind the Palestinian Authority and Yassir Arafat that Israel could retake any part under the so-called Palestinian control if the Authority failed in checking Palestinian attacks on the areas controlled by Israel. Even the pretext for this blitzkrieg-like operation was so tenuous that Collin Powel, the US secretary of state, had to pull up the chain saying that that was too much for so small a thing. A few mortar shells fired by the Palestinian militants had landed inside the Israeli controlled area. Though no damage was done yet the trigger-happy General, Prime Minister Sharon, ordered his forces to "re-occupy" the Gaza Strip and pound West Bank and the Strip from the ground, the air and the sea. Israel had pulled back the next day in response to Powell’s criticism. But Powell had criticized the Palestinian Authority more severely for "provoking and precipitating the crisis". He had termed the Israeli action "excessive and disproportionate". All this indicated that in
future no "Palestinian administration" should allow its subjects to disturb, leave alone take back, the Jewish controlled territory in order that a crises does not get "precipitated" inviting a ‘(dis) proportionate’ attack. Not only the bourgeois press throughout the western world and the world in general praised the simultaneous criticism of Israel and the PA by the US as "even-handedness" rather it also advised the Arabs and the Palestinians to repose faith in the US to make Israel ‘listen’. The imperialist-
liberal press stressed that the US should "get more involved in the conflict with a greater sense of impartiality". The US is given the certificate of ‘impartiality’. Yet the US leaders say that whatever the US does anywhere in the world is to advance its own interests and benefits. They themselves rule out impartiality but the sold out pens try to paint the US as benevolent and humane.

In April the Hezbollah from inside Lebanon had launched a similar attack and Israel responded with heavy air bombing over southeastern Lebanon where Syrian forces are stationed nearby. Then the US did not rebuke the biting dog for its ‘excessive and disproportionate’ action. The reason was quite understandable. Syria has not yet struck a deal with Israel and as such it deserves more punishment. Moreover, it supports the Hezbollah. The dog will continue to attack till Syria yields completely. Then the master will pull the chain and scold the misbehaving canine for its ‘disproportionate’ actions.

Israel is the primary US outpost in the oil rich Middle East while other reactionary regimes make a secondary line-up. The populations of these Arab regimes are highly sensitive to the Palestinian question thereby the leaders of these regimes are compelled to take a seemingly pro-Palestinian stand. Even an arch reactionary and pro US president like Hosni Mubarak dare not go against the Arab sentiments on Jerusalem and the continuous incursions of the Israelis into Palestinian ‘held’ areas. On Jerusalem he says, "Any compromise over Jerusalem will cause the region to explode in a way that cannot be put under control and terrorism will rise again." People like him also fear the potential dangers for the whole of Middle East if an unsatisfactory compromise on Jerusalem is arrived at. They are afraid of the resistance of the people and term it as "terrorism". They want the ‘peace process’ to deliver results without giving the Israelis more license to dictate terms to the present "praiseworthy" Palestinian leadership lest the ‘highhandedness’ of Israel should wreck the ‘historical chance’ to contain the Middle east ignition box called Palestine. They want the US to leash in the pet. The US too tries to give the impression that, at times, Israel behaves as if it is out of control and only the US can tame it. But whenever the ‘peace process’ gets stuck up, the US forces Yassir and the Arab leaders to yield more and remains soft on Israel. Yassir has committed himself many times to do his best to contain the discontent of the Palestinian people and restrain the militants from attacking Israeli occupied areas. He even arrested many militants of the Hamas and Islamic Jehad organisations.

In the initial months of the present Intifada the Israeli government accused Arafat of allowing those who had been released from the Israeli jails and releasing those militants who were arrested by the PA to fight against the Israelis. They charged him of directly involving the Al Fatah forces in the fight against Israel. Of course these ‘allegations’ are real. With the initiation of Intifada, the popular revolt of the masses, Arafat found himself caught in a predicament. Either he should come heavily down upon on the Palestinian people or ‘side’ with them against the "Israeli outrageousness". He was compelled to choose the latter course to salvage his authority. And more recently, when Israeli tanks and helicopters continued to directly hit at his office and the head quarters of the Fatah and the Palestine Authority’s intelligence services he has "openly" called upon his forces to fight back the Israeli onslaught. If he had not, he would have lost his credibility among his own forces and followers. In between he tried many times to restrain and arrest the guerrilla forces but was forced to release them when heavy assaults from Israeli security forces continued under the pretext of the[slightest ] ‘provocation’.

Arafat is finding himself under intense public pressure. At the same time he wants the US and the Arab world to restrain Israel and some times asks even Russia to come to his help whenever he sees that the US is not doing much. But the Arab leaders are spineless and
Russia is out of the Middle East and can do little in this "strong" bastion of the US. Russia only states that it supports the US efforts there. Arafat proceeds from one evil choice to the other and finally ends up cringing before the US imperialists. The betrayal done at Oslo, continues to take his toll. The lion has turned into a goose egg.

Intifada, in fact, is the mass uprising of the Palestinians against the Zionist occupiers. They want their ancient land and home back from the usurpers. Whatever the immediate causes of the upsurge the Palestinian people never forget the "Nakbah"—the "catastrophe,"—of May 1947 when the Palestinian people were dispossessed of their land with the founding of Israel. The root of the
Palestinian rage and revolt lies in their dream to regain their lost homeland. But people like Arafat are trying to control the revolt and make the Palestinians understand that they should be satisfied if only the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are made their homeland. They try to pose the problem as if the question is one of stopping only the confiscation of Palestinian territories under PA control; or that of halting the construction of Israeli settlements or of evacuating the settlers to the Israeli territories; or it is to get exclusive control of the Eastern part of Jerusalem; or for the withdrawal of Israelis from the territories now under the ‘control’ of the Palestinian Authority. And all this is to make the Palestinians conform to the ‘new realities’. He recognizes the legitimacy of the Zionist State of Israel and wants the Palestinians to forget about the great catastrophe, to relinquish their right to their own land, only to have more elaborate security arrangements vis-a-vis the state of Israel, to do the bidding of the imperialists, and to curb, restrain and incarcerate those who will continue their fight to regain their country.

These renegades say that if Intifada is to end, Israeli military occupation, exemplified by Israel’s continuing confiscation of the PA controlled Palestinian territory and destruction of Palestinian property in this territory, and the "building and expanding of illegal settlements" must end.

They say, for Palestinians, the primary goal is the return of only a part of the land for the establishment of a viable, contiguous state [on a portion] of the historic Palestine.

They want to hide the fact that not only the settlements but the whole of Palestine is in the "illegal occupation" of the Zionists, that not a corridor from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip is required in Palestinian hands, but the whole land, which has historically been known as Palestine. The gross distortion of the objectives of the Palestinian revolution under the name of the’new reality’ which has been imposed by the force of guns and is built upon the mass extermination and forced exodus of a whole people, is the logical outcome of the politics of surrender that had started in Madrid and was completed in the 1993 Oslo Accord. It is an outcome of that surrender which is crying for the undoing of the historical betrayal of the PLO. And this undoing is reflected in the Intifada. The resistance and revolt gives the new reality to the present day Palestine.

And the question, as of now, is not to ‘how to end the Intifada’ but is to how to make it an actual war for liberation from the Zionists butchers and their imperialist backers, raising it from the level of militant protests and resistance to that of a peoples war. But Arafat seeks an end to the uprising. He ‘allied’ with the people to bring them to his viewpoint, to make them accept the US mediation and domination, to make peace with a vicious and savage enemy. He welcomed the Mitchell report which seeks that "Israel freezes all settlement construction activity", so that the Palestinian Authority is able to "take all measures to prevent terrorist operations and to punish perpetrators."

To punish the resisting masses in the name of perpetrators and preventing the revolt in the name of terrorist operations is the real gist of the Mitchell report. It indicts the Palestinians as the real culprits for the violence. And the Palestinian Authority welcomes it. The US administration has sent Mr. Burns to the Middle East to "convince" Israel to accept the proposals of the Mitchell report. Arafat is bracing himself to adopt strict measures against the Palestinian people if they continue to struggle against the occupation of their land once Israel softens up at US bidding. The US is desperately trying to salvage its diplomatic credibility in the Middle East as the deals brokered by it have faced rough weather time and again.

The conflict in the Middle East is bound to erupt time and again until the Zionists are defeated and a democratic, secular and progressive Palestine of all the communities living in it is established. The Naqbah will always remain engraved on their minds encouraging them to fight again and again for the realisation of ultimate victory. Twenty thousands marched in the streets of Gaza on May 23 to commemorate its anniversary. There is a long way to go given the present state of the Palestinian leadership. Sooner or later the Jewish people too are to realize the necessity of overthrowing the oppressive regime they are under. A State which oppresses other peoples cannot remain democratic and tolerant of its own subjects. The Jewish State is also beset with irreconcilable internal contradictions as Hitler’s Germany was. How and when these contradictions will explode is difficult to predict. Nevertheless, the struggle of the Palestinian and Arab masses under Israeli Authority and the Palestinian Authority is likely to pass through many phases of setbacks and advances till a point is reached when the Palestinians would throw up a really revolutionary vanguard based on the proletarian ideology to take them to their long cherished destination of national liberation. Except for a proletarian vanguard no other leadership, however strong and militant, can lead them to a victorious end. The glorious struggle and the great sacrifices of the Palestinian and Arab peoples call for reevaluating the role of the PLO leadership and learn lessons from the past so that more betrayals are avoided and triumph is achieved over the Zionists and their imperialist backers.

June 8, 2001

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