Palestinian people attacked on all fronts
1985Pat Hickey 1985-08Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 12 →
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The following article is reprinted from the June 3, 1985, issue of Socialist Action, a British Trotskyist publication.
The attacks by the Syrian-backed and Muslim militia on the Palestinian camps mark another stage in the collapse of the Lebanese central government in the wake of Israeli withdrawal. It is another step by the Syrian regime of President Assad in its attempts to win control of Lebanon.
It shows yet again the cynical disregard of the Arab bourgeois regimes for Palestinian interests. Although the Shi'ite militias fought the Israelis; this attack on the Palestinians demonstrates that they are not a revolutionary or anti-imperialist force.
Nabih Berri, the Amal leader and Lebanon's justice minister, represents bourgeois-nationalist interests. The Palestinians are being attacked, as they were previously utilized, in the interests of Assad's role in a future Middle East settlement.
When the Israelis invaded Lebanon they had two aims. First, to break the strength of the PLO. Second to establish a Christian-Phalangist pro-Israeli state. The first was achievable, the second was not.
A Christian state no longer corresponds to the political, military, or demographic balance of forces. The main political factor now in Lebanon is Syria.
The Israeli "withdrawal" to the Awali river-which in reality leaves them in control up to the Litani riverhas opened the battle for control of Lebanon. This struggle, given the decisive weakening of the Christian forces, is concentrated on the issue of who controls West Beirut, which is mainly Muslim. The Shi'ite Amal has pushed back the Sunni muslims. The Palestinians, however, have been building up their forces in Lebanon over the past months.
They represented a threat to the Amal forces, hence the attack on the camps. The Assad regime has an interest in ensuring that no section in Lebanon assumes dominance. It wants a divided client state, that will ensure Syria's place among the Arab bourgeoisie in future negotiations. The crisis in Lebanon, with shifting alliances by Syria between Shi'ites, Druze, and Maronite Christian militias will continue.
The losers in all this are the Palestinians. Arafat's policy of relying on the Arab bourgeoisie for the advancement of the Palestinian cause has ensured that the PLO has once again entered a blind alley.
It is surely the crowning irony of the situation that the anti-Arafat Palestinians around Abu Musu, whose alterna-