Mideast talks: First big test for New World Order

Scan page 1

As the first meeting between contending forces in the Middle East was ending on Nov.1 in Madrid, thousands of Arab residents of the Lebanese towns of Kafr Rumman and Nabatiye were fleeing an intensifying Israeli military assault.

Israeli forces have been shelling these towns and smaller villages across the 50mile-long border of the enclave the Israeli army carved out for itself in southern Lebanon six years ago.

A military expert in the region told a local radio station, Voice of the Nation: "First Israel carved out the security zone [in Lebanon] to safeguard its northern territory. Now it wants to create a cordon sanitaire to protect the security zone."

This event exemplifies the history of the Middle East since the Zionist settler state was imposed on the Palestinian people in 1948 by common action of world imperialism and world Stalinism through the agency of the United Nations.

This latest incident, occurring during the three-day "Peace Conference," was accompanied by a virtual silence by the conference's American sponsor. The silence illustrates the latter's hypocrisy and exemplifies the basic source of the Arab-Israeli conflict—the unremitting criminal oppression spearheaded by Israel against the indigenous peoples of the Middle East.

The conference between Israel and "representatives" of some of its most aggrieved victims was slated to be followed by separate meetings between the Zionists and each of the three participating Arab delegations-from Syria, Lebanon, and a combined delegation from Jordan and Palestine.

Although the Zionists rule out any so-called "land for peace" deal, this kind of a "deal"will be at the center of any "peace" treaty reachable by these negotiators that stands a chance of enduring for more than the briefest time.

The Bush administration has forced Israel to come to the bargaining table. The U.S. victory in the Gulf War and the decline of the crisis-wracked USSR have combined to spur U.S. imperialism to forge a new balance of power between its client states in the region.

U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III has made it clear that his gov- (See stories on pages 2 and 3.) ernment demands an accord be struck between its client Arab and Zionist regimes that would approximate more accurately the new relationship of forces in the region. threat that Roe v. Wade will be overturned.

The Arab regimes know that there is less room for maneuver now, and they know that they must find a way around their peoples' hatred of the Zionist instrument of imperialism before coming to terms with Israel.

The Zionists also know that they must give back some of their stolen territories. Thus, they are essentially (continued 13) on Polish elections