Halt Israeli aggression!
fell. In such a context, there was a grow- as they were hypocritical. The USSR
The following statement was issued June 13 by the Bureau of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International.
The Zionist state has unleashed a war of aggression against Lebanon aimed at crushing the Palestinian resistance. Begin and Sharon have not hesito the most powerful means of destruction and the most criminal methods. They have savagely attacked and bombed Palestinians and Lebanese without making any distinction between civilian and military targets.
This war has already claimed thousands upon thousands of victims, and the thousands of people have had to abandon their homes and jobs to swell the already enormous mass of refugees. Material destruction has been vast in both the cities and countryside. Palestinian targets have been hit with unprecedented violence by an army that, according to Begin and Sharon's plan, is supposed to impose a "final solution."
The Israeli attack was long premeditated. They were only waiting for a favorable occasion to unleash it. In 1978, Israel launched a similar operation, which by hindsight seems to have been a dress rehearsal for the present one.
the Palestinian resistance was able to maintain the bulk of its positions, and were not breached either by the smaller-scale operations
Thus the problem that the Palestining feeling of insecurity and pessimism about the future, an increasing awareness that the country was caught in a blind
To meet these problems, Begin needed to pull stroke that could create a new situation, and lend some solidity to his propaganda about "a new 1948, " that is the opening up of a new phase of growth for the Is-
The main objective of the military offensive was to deal the PLO the hardest blow in its history and thereby deal a political setback to the mass resistance in the occupied territories.
At the same time, Begin sought to weaken Syria both militarily and policically and force it to withdraw from Lebanon. This would prepare the way for a restructuring of the Lebanese state, "freed" from Palestinian influence, which would be handed over to the most conservative and reactionary forces, those elements prepared to accept a "Pax Israeliana" under the tutelage of imperialism. It would mean a shift in the balance of forces between the Arab states as a whole and Israel in favor of the latter.
Begin thought that there were a number of favorable conditions for launching this operation now. They included the prolonged neutralization of Egypt resulting from the Camp David agreements; the breakdown of the Leganese state; the weakening of the Lebanese left; the impossibility of any action by the Iraqis;
maneuvered behind the scenes, interested mainly in rescuing its ally in Damascus It has not in any way come to the aid of the Palestinian resistance. The U.N. force in no respect fulfilled its assigned task of serving as a buffer.
The Arab Dissuasion Force-in effect, the Syrian army-did everything possible to avoid fighting. The Arab states
Within Israel itself, the Labor op position gave blank-check approval to the aggression, and the antiwar demonstrations drew only a few hundreds of participants, who were brutally attacked by advocates of Jewish
The ceasefire agreement concluded separately between Israel and Syria was promoted by the U.S., which feared that Begin would go too far and touch off upsets in the region whose consequences could not be predicted. Iran's decision to send forces to aid the Palestinian resistance was the first alarm signal.
The PLO regarded the initial ceasefire as a betrayal, another indication that the Syrian regime was much more concerned with its own fate than the vital interests of the Palestinian people. Under the pressure of this maneuver, it in turn accepted a ceasefire, which seems extremely precarious. Begin has already violated it several times and undoubtedly will violate it any time he thinks that he has something to gain.
The successes scored in Israel's new ian resistance poses for the Zionists conand the internal problems of the Syrian blitzkrieg make it possible for the Zionist tinued to exist on the military level also.
regime, which made it unable to run the state to base itself on a position of
Despite the advantages the gained as a result of the Camp David
Begin knew very well that the Ame- on, and which will continue in an intense agreements, this question was not solved
That was what the Zionist establishment could not accept.
Another cause of concern for the risk of a major military confrontation.
rican imperialists would make only formal objections, since they also have an interest in seeing the PLO crushed, Syria weakened, and Israel strengthened.
strength in the negotiations now going way, regardless of the vicissitudes of the military confrontation.
Begin will be able to count on substantial aid from the imperialists and on
Zionist leaders was the evolution of the knew also that the West European boursituation in the occupied territories, most of all the upsurge on the West Bank, where the Zionists were confronted with growing mass opposition, and the determined struggle of the Golan Arabs who have remained on a protest strike for all the more worrying because it was having an impaet on layers of the Israeli population itself, as shown by the March 27 demonstration in Tel Aviv. The effects of the economic stiuation were also also a serious pressure. For the first time, the standard of living of the Israeli masses geoisies would not do anything concrete
Begin wanted as well to show that the Israeli state is not comparable to the shah's Iran, that it had a considerable military strength, great political cohesiveness and represented the only solid underpinning for a counterrevolutionary strategy in the region.
His calculations proved The U.S. even opposed the adoption of a resolution condemning the attack in the United States. The West European states, including "socialist" France, did nothing more than issue condemnations as empty the more or less direct complicity of the reactionary forces in the region.
Nonetheless, the Zionist leaders' hope of opening a new phase in the history of their state and its domination in the region are in great danger of being
The main objective of the war was not achieved. The PLO suffered very severe blows, lost positions, had to accept very painful losses, but the Israelis could not destroy it.
The PLO guerrillas fought and continue to fight heroically, and their centers of resistance have not been eliminated enemy's worst attacks.
IEC Plenum May 1982
Available from good bookshops or by post from
Pluto Press Limited, Unit 10 Spencer Court,
7 Chalcot Road, London, NW1 8LH. (Please add
The hesitation that Begin began to show as soon as his army reached the outskirts of Beirut in itself reveals the blind alley in which Israel remains caught.
In the Lebanese capital and its suburbs, there are about two hundred thousand Palestinians who are determined to defend themselves to the last. To crush the Palestinian resistance and its organization, the PLO, which is not a "gang of terrorists, '" but the expression of the national aspirations of a people fighting for independence and survival, the Zionists would have to unleash a massacre bordering on genocide. And after that they would have to envisage massive population transfers toward uncertain destina-
Moreover, the Lebanese reactionary own divisions, are scarcely in a position to impose a strong regime of any stability
Building a puppet Arab militia like that led by Haddad in the southern Leganon border area is possible only in a limited and relatively thinly populated area. In any case, such an operation could not make it possible to avoid the costs of a intervention of the could change as the precariousness of the successes made by the offensive become clear and as the losses suffered by the aggressors come to be known. These losses are quite modest compared with those suffered by the Palestinians and Lebanese, but they will seem grave to the Israelis, who are not prepared to pay a high cost in blood for victories.
It is essential for the workers movement to mobilize throughout the world to force an immediate halt to the criminal aggression by the Zionist state, and to assure full solidarity with the Palestinian resistance. Demands must be raised that the Israeli army withdraw from all of Lebanon and that all the repressive and occupation forces be withdrawn from the occupied territories; that Lebanese sovereignty be restored; and the Palestinians keep their positions, their armed forces, and their organizations.
The second plenum of the International Fourth International since the Eleventh World Congress took place during May in northern Europe. The IC is elected by name at the World Congress and is the leadership body of the International between world congresses. Today its elected members come from 25 adopted resolutions of general orientation on: the lessons of the political revolution in Poland; on militarism and the imperialist war drive; and on the building of revolutionary youth organisations. adopted declarations on current events, such as the war in the Malvinas and the war between Iran and Iraq; and motions solidarity against repression in Iran,
*WILD LILIES
POISONOUS
WEEDS
Dissident Voice
from People's China
Pluto A Pros nated by Gregor Benton
The IEC
Uruguay, and
Portugal.
approved the line of two reports presented: one on the development of the
Central American revolution, the other on the revolutionary experience of the island of Grenada in the Caribbean.
Finally, the IEC had two oral disthe prospects of building cussions:
on the Fourth International today; and the organisational effort to implant ourselves in the major industrial sectors, as decided at the last World Congress.
The IC decided to open the preparatory discussion for the Twelfth World
Congress, the sixth since the 1963 reunifi-
We publish in the present issue of
International Viewpoint the main declarations and solidarity resolutions
PLUTO PRESS
WILD
LILIES
POISONOUS
WEEDS
Dissident Voices from People's
China
Edited by
Gregor Benton
It is necessary to denounce the The first collection of writings in English covering complicity of the U.S. with Begin, and the whole course of the democratic movement in the hypocrisy of the West European states, which have adopted economic sanctions against Argentina in the Malvinas Includes Wang Xizhe on Mao and the Cultural conflict, to take any concrete action Revolution, Liu Qing's prison diary, a report on the against the Israeli aggression. first-ever free elections at Beijing University,
The workers states have to be accounts of campaigns, protest movements, called on to offer economic and military statements of solidarity, interviews with the now aid to the Palestinian resistance and to all imprisoned leaders of the democratic movement, the Lebanese forces fighting alongside the articles by Western writers who were in China Palestinians against the Zionists. when the movement was flourishing and a translation of China's only known feminist wall-poster. STOP ZIONIST AGGRESSION!
ISRAELI TROOPS OUT OF LE.
BANON NOW!
SOLIDARITY WITH THE PALE-
STINIAN RESISTANCE!
China.
Paperback £4.95
50p p&p).
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A
Interview with Israeli Revolutionist: