Lebanon
after the PLO withdrawal
The following interview was given to Gerry Foley in Paris in early October by S. Jaber, a leader of the Lebanese section of the Fourth International. The views represent those of the leadership of the Lebanese section. Comrade Jaber did not have the opportunity to check the edited Question: Do you think that the PLO had no alternative but to withdraw from West Beirut, given the Zionist military superiority and evident ruthlessness? Answer: No. The Zionists could not have paid the price necessary to occupy West Beirut militarily or to force the withdrawal of the fighters by bombing and shelling.
The war proved that partisan forces armed with antitank weapons could inflict very heavy losses even on a very powerful army such as the Zionist one.
In particular, in order to occupy West Beirut militarily, the Zionists would have had to send in soldiers for house-to-house fighting. Tanks are not much use in built up areas. That would have meant heavy deaths. Given the nature of the Zionist army, it cannot hold up very long in that sort of warfare.
Moreover, the PLO in West Beirut was in a good position to withstand a siege. Most of the Lebanese population, about four fifths, left the city. That reduced the danger of civilian casualties. It also meant that the large stocks of food had to be shared among many less people. There were large amounts of weapons and ammunition, as well as substantial
The PLO was not defeated militarily; West Beirut was not defeated militarily. The defeat was political, and the responsibility for it rests with the right-wing leadership of the PLO, essentially the right-wing leadership of El Fateh. It acted as the organizer of defeat. Q: What did the PLO leadership gain A: Essentially, nothing. Even if the PLO and the Lebanese patriotic forces in West Beirut had been defeated, the Habib plan would have been unacceptable.
The PLO leadership gave in repeatedly to Zionist and imperialist pressure. It first proposed withdrawal to the camps, and then withdrawal by land from the city. It ended up accepting withdrawal essentially
If the withdrawal had been by land, the PLO would have been in a position to continue the struggle in the Bekaa Valley. But a withdrawal by sea represented surrender, and correspondingly had a demoralizing effect on the Palestinian people.
The PLO leadership agreed to the dispersion of the fighters in a large number of Arab countries far from the arena of struggle.
When they reached their destination, in most cases, they were taken to what amounted to internment camps, located in remote areas and kept under
Secondly, the PLO leadership accepted the intervention of the so-called national interposition forces, which are in fact imperialist forces. They are not even under the aegis of the United Nations, because the imperialists wanted to make sure that the Soviet Union could not raise any questions. What these interposition forces did was remove the defenses of West Beirut and clear the way for the Israeli invasion.
Thirdly, the PLO leadership abandoned its original position of demanding a parallel withdrawal of the Zionist forces to a point ten kilometers from Beirut. The unilateral PLO withdrawal left the and Lebanese masses in the city detenseless, in particular once the "interposition forces" had done their
What is more, the election of Bashir Gemayel as president was linked to the settlement represented by the Habib Everyone knew that.
Bashir Gemayel was the worst kind of fascist, and he would have followed a fascist plan if he had not been assassinated. There was no question that he would have carried out massacres. Q: Why, in your opinion, did the PLO settlement? A: Because the Zionists left them no political room for manoeuvre. The strategy of the PLO leadership in recent years has not been based on an uncompromising fight against Zionism but on trying to negotiate diplomatic and political concessions, to get political recognition for the PLO and some sort of Palestinian state. Thus, the leadership was not prepared politically for an all-out fight. Q: What sort of opposition to the settlement was there in the PLO? A: There was very broad opposition, although it represented a minority. We had very close relations with this current, many discussions and considerable agreement. It was on this basis that we called for a front of resistance. The bulk of the opposition was in El Fateh, the largest component of the PLO. Q: Why was this opposition unable to prevent the settlement?
A: Essentially because these forces were not prepared to form a political alternative to the PLO leadership. They told us that they did not think that they could make their criticisms of the leadership public, because they depended on it for everything - food, money, arms and ammunition.
They made very strong criticisms and even threatened the PLO leadership. But their concept was simply to put pressure on it, to keep it from going too far. In a situation, where there was no manoeuvring room, they had no choice but to go Q: What are the perspectives for the PLO A: That depends on what sort of a political discussion develops within it. The decisive thing is whether some positive alternative arises, an understanding of the need for an internationlist approach and a strategy based on uncompromising strug gle with Zionism. Otherwise, the demoralization that exists now could lead in the direction of terrorism.
As for the leadership, further capitulations are to be feared. For example, Arafat has recently met with King Hussein of Jordan, who has once again raised the idea of a Jordanian-Palestinian federation. What this would mean would be Jordanian control of a Palestinian ministate. The Israelis are opposed to any Palestinian state because they think that they cannot rely on the PLO. But Hussein proved his reliability in 1970 by massacring the Palestinian fighters. A so-called autonomous Jordan could be acceptable to them. It is notable that the Arafat leadership has not rejected the proposal this time. Q: What about the Lebanese left? A: Under the pressure of the war, the Lebanese National Movement, which is a kind of popular front, apart. The Stalinists and the Nasserites, that is essentially the petty-bourgeois nationalists fought. The bourgeois components, mainly Jumblatt's party, did not. Jumblatt's party just sat back in its mountain hideaway and scarcely fired a
We called for a government of national resistance made up of those forces actually fighting the occupation. That would have meant in effect a government without the bourgeoisie, since no bourgeois forces fought situation is the left in now? A: Following the Israeli occupation of "multinational interposition forces," the left has been disarmed. It has not been
politically smashed. That would have Q: Can the Amin regime overcome the involved rounding up large numbers of activists, and the Israelis were not prepared to do that. In any case, they prefer to leave that job to the Lebanese right.
The situation for the mass movement is one of defeat and demoralization. The left is isolated among the population, and laces a very strong bourgeois regime. For the first time in seven years, the entire Lebanese bourgeoisie has united around Amin Gemayel. Q: What is the situation with respect to democratic rights? A: No formal changes in the laws have yet been made. However, respect for the guarantees of bourgeois democratic rights always essentially depends on the relationship of class forces. That is now unfavorable.
In fact, the Lebanese army has been acting in an entirely illegal way. The government has not even bothered to declare a state of siege, but the army is carrying out searches without warrants, and so forth.
there is already a whole body of reactionary laws on the books, the heritage of the Sarkis government, especially with respect to the press. Sarkis was unable to implement Gemayel is in an incomparably stronger Q: What does the government of Amin A: Despite the fact that he is the brother of Bashir Gemayel, he represents a very different faction in the Phalangist move-
Bashir was a fascist and had a fascist project. He would have ruled by means of violence. That was well understood, as was shown by the reactions to his assumption of the presidency.
There was a strong rejection of Bashir among the Muslim population, and not a single Arab state sent congratulations when he was inaugurated.
However, when Amin was inaugurated, every Arab state sent congratulations immediately, even Syria. The Syrian attitude was decisive for bourgeois stability. Lebanon is surrounded by Syria on three sides, and the Syrians can send anything through the border they want, bourgeoisie a mercantile one, which serves as an intermediary between the West and the Arab markets, good relations with the Arab states are essential.
Bashir's faction was concentrated in the Phalangist armed forces. It had its own radio, which was much more radicalwing than the radio of the
On the other hand, the Phalangists party, while fascist in inspiration evolved into a normal right-wing bourgeois party, similar to some of the Christian Democratic parties that exist in
The Amin faction looks essentially to American imperialism, while the Bashir faction was linked to Israel. This corresponds to their projects.
Phalangists, which involved fighting in the A: It is in a position to do so. The conflict between the Christians and the Druzes is not an irreconcilable one. The rightists among the Druzes are calling for the intervention of the Lebanese army, and if it comes in it will stop the conflict. Q: Why do you think that the Lebanese differences now, when it failed to do so A: The Lebanese army is basically a bourgeois army. Like the Lebanese state, it is dominated by Maronite Christians. But the Muslim bourgeoisie objects only when it feels that the Maronites are acting in a way that does not take their point of view into consideration.
When the Maronite dominated state institutions, including the army, are clearly acting in the interests of the bourgeoisie as a whole, the Muslim bourgeoisie does not object. That has been true history of Lebanon. Q: What about the possibility of continued conflict between the Bashir and Amin factions, since you say that different forces? A: That is both an advantage and a disadvantage for the Lebanese bourgeoisie. If Bashir had survived, he would have integrated his Phalangist armed forces into the Lebanese army, or, more correctly, established direct control of the army through them.
Amin Gemayel's project is a Bonapartist one. He claims to stand above parties and above communities. regime is a very typical military dictatorship with a civilian head. But to maintain his Bonapartist pretences, he has to try to appear to use the army in an even handed way to assure order in both the Christian and Muslim community.
That means sending the Lebanese army into the Christian part of Beirut as well as the Muslim part to carry out arms searches, and so forth. And in the Christian east, there have been some conflicts the Phalangists and the army. Q: What role have the Shite organization Amal and the Khomeini regime played in the situation in Lebanon? A: Amal does not represent the entire Shiite community. In fact, that community is the strongest base of the left. It represents simply an attempt to create a confessional organization, which was promoted by the Lebanese secret
The objective was to exploit the antagonism to the PLO that existed among the Shite people, who live mainly in the south of Lebanon. They were the ones who suffered the brunt of Israeli reprisals for PLO raids. The PLO also developed rather poor relations with the Lebanese population, coming to be seen as a kind of state authority over them.
What the secret police hoped to do was to use Amal to organize the Shiite population against the left and the PLO and to contribute to the creation of a Lebanese strong state. Amal's recruitment themes were antileft, anticommunist, and anti-"foreigner." They corresponded to those of the Phalanagists, and in fact, the Phalangist organs always spoke sympathy of Amal.
On the other hand, when the Zionists invaded, Amal fought. It would have lost all credibility among the Muslim population if it had not.
It was not Khomeinite, although it utilized the prestige of the Iranian revoluradical for it, and it is not an Islamic fundamentalist organization. There is little or no base for Islamic fundamentalism in Lebanon. There was a tiny Khomeinite faction in Amal, which has now been expelled. Q: What about the role of Iran in the conA: At the beginning, there were illusions about the Iranian regime. Khomeini's statements of support were received gratefully by the fighters. There were even some groups that put their hopes on Iran to save the situation. They hoped that Khomeini would send planes, and
Very quickly, disillusion set in, when the people saw that the Khomeini government sent only a few fighters who were not very useful in the struggle. The disillusion deepened when government rejected Iraq's appeal for a ceasefire and for concentrating on the fight against the Zionists. Q: How would you summarize the main lessons of the Lebanon war? A: There were three main lessons. The first is that the Soviet Union cannot be relied upon as an ally of the colonial revolution. This was driven home forcefully by the passivity of the Kremlin in an area where there were very great illusions in the Soviet Union. It was expected that at least the Soviets would blockade the coast, as they have a right to do in accordance with their defense treaty with
The second lesson was a reconfirmation of the unreliability of the Arab bourgeois nationalist regimes, radical ones as Syria. The Syrian forces fought only self-defensive battles.
The third lesson is the reconfirmation of the validity of the theory of permanent revolution. This involved first of all a demonstration of the tendency of such conflicts with imperialism international, to spread region. And most importantly, it showed the unreliability of all bourgeois leaderships in the fight against imperialism. Q: How much resistance is there to the occupation? A: Armed actions against the occupiers continue, many more than are heard of abroad. There are even a number of military units that remain hidden in the
The resistance will continue and grow as long as the occupation lasts, and so we are continuing to call for a united front of resistance. •
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