Islam: sigh of the oppressed (1987)

From the June 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The bloody conflicts of the Middle East have complex causes — economic, strategic, religious and racial. But there has been little attempt by the western media to try to understand the whole picture. Instead there is a tendency to attach simplistic labels — "extremists", “fanatics”, "terrorists"— But those labels tell us very little. They offer nothing in the way of explanation. Instead we are given partial pictures of the bits of the Middle Eastern conflict that it is assumed are of interest to the west — the humanitarian efforts of medical workers in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon; the naive attempts by Terry Waite to get western hostages released; the covert attempts by the American government to do deals with the Iranians.

But we are given very little that enables us to understand why Palestinians were under siege in refugee camps; why Israel invaded southern Lebanon; why armed groups are holding westerners hostage; why Islam is such a potent force throughout the Middle East; why Iran and Iraq are still engaged in a bloody war.

The Sword of Islam

Islam is the world's fastest growing religion. Five times a day 900 million Moslems turn towards Mecca and kneel down to pray. It is a religion closely related to both Christianity and Judaism. Indeed Mohammed is seen as the last and greatest in a line of prophets that includes Moses and Jesus. Until the resurgence of fundamentalist Islam it was a religion of no more political importance than any other. As Islamic countries developed economically there was increasingly a separation between religion and politics. Religion, as was the case in most developed countries. was something separate from business, trade and politics, an anachronism that fitted uneasily with the demands of modern capitalism, to be paid lip service to only on high days and holidays.

The Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 changed that. Ayatollah Khomeini took power in Iran by exploiting the thwarted aspirations of the poor who had seen Iran grow rich under the Shah but were excluded from a share in that wealth. The Shah's close ties with the west — especially America — meant that it was easy for the Ayatollah to shift the blame for the poverty of the Iranian people on to the effects of western involvement in Iran. According to Islam westerners are infidels; according to the Ayatollah America is the "great Satan". In place of the huge disparity between rich and poor and decadent western culture the Iranian people were offered a revolutionary Islamic programme that combined religion with politics, the establishment of an Islamic republic with the Ayatollah at the helm. All Iran's problems would be solved, it was claimed, if there was strict observance of Islamic law. The inevitable failure of the regime to deliver the social justice that had been promised could easily be blamed on the vestiges of American imperialism.

Iran-Iraq Bloodbath

In 1980, shortly after the Iranian revolution, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq took advantage of the turmoil in Iran to settle outstanding Iraqi territorial claims (as well as historic Arab grievances against Iraq's Persian neighbour). Iraq invaded Iran at a time when Iran was weakened by purges of the army, minority uprisings and internal chaos, with the aim of recovering land along the frontier as well as regaining control of the strategically important Shatt al-Arab waterway. But what is essentially a territorial conflict has been hugely complicated by longstanding racial and religious hostility between the two countries.

Iraq is controlled by the Ba'ath party under Saddam Hussein. Ba'athism is a secular pan-Arabist ideology which has very few supporters inside or outside Iraq. Hussein maintains his position through the activities of ruthless internal security services. And the opposition is hopelessly divided: Kurdish rebels pursuing their own nationalistic goals in the north; disaffected Shias who are more in sympathy with the Iranian "enemy" than with the Ba'athist regime but who nevertheless fear the consequences of an Iranian occupation.

Iraq's intention was to administer a swift, sharp blow to Iran. Almost seven years later it is now obvious that the Iraqi regime seriously miscalculated the strength of the Iranian resistance. For Iran has managed to turn it into a "holy war" and has made slow but inexorable advances into Iraqi territory.

Despite Iraqi weapons superiority, Iran has managed to fight back by sending thousands of young Iranian fighters to the front in wave after wave. And there seems to be no shortage of volunteers willing to die a martyr's death and thus be assured a place in heaven. Khomeini has successfully used the war and the revolution to justify each other. But he has also painted himself into a corner. Iran is now seriously weakened economically by the war. There is a strong case for ending it. However, the Iranian leadership has consistently sought to justify the bloodshed as being a necessary sacrifice in a fight to the death in a holy war. It would be difficult for the Ayatollah to now enter into negotiations to end the war without doing serious damage to his credibility as a religious and political leader.

The American Arms Connection

Another problem that the Iranian regime faces is access to weapons. Prior to the revolution America had been Iran's main arms supplier. Now Iran gets weapons from Israel (despite the regime's official anti-Israeli stance), South Korea and Taiwan. And, as has become apparent in recent months, there have also been covert arms deals between Iran and America in return for the release of western hostages held in Beirut.

For the American administration. Iran's need for weapons was a weakness which they hoped to exploit in order to open up a channel of communications with Hojatolislan Hashemi Rafsanjani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament and likely successor to the Ayatollah. He is seen by the west as a "moderate” with the potential to give the Americans a way back in to this economically and strategically important area. As we now know, American attempts to "normalise" relations with Iran went badly wrong. Not only has Reagan's credibility been badly damaged by the "Irangate" affair, but so too has that of the Iranian regime. If people in the west were scandalised at the hypocrisy of an American government which used emotional rhetoric about not doing deals with terrorists, then in Iran too there is a scandal in the making about the regime there doing deals with the "Great Satan". This has made it even less likely that the Iranians will risk further loss of face by negotiating a peace treaty with Iraq. In fact Khomeini has recently declared that his objective is to overthrow Hussein and the Ba'athist ruling party and also to capture Basra and the "holy" city of Karbala.

Flashpoint in the Lebanon

The seeds of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians are well known. The consequences of that conflict have been bitter and wide-ranging but in recent years have focussed increasingly on Lebanon. Many Palestinians, dispossessed of their land, entered the Lebanon as refugees. Their presence in the south of the country and Israel's allegations that they were using bases there to launch guerrilla attacks on Israeli settlements in northern Galilee provided the justification for the Israeli army to invade Lebanon in 1982 with the declared aim of forcing the Palestinians out of southern Lebanon.

When the Israeli army entered the region Shia Muslim villagers welcomed them as liberators. For when the Palestinians had arrived from Jordan, they had taken effective control of the area. PLO checkpoints had been set up, taxes imposed and land taken away from the local people. The Shias also feared that the presence of Palestinians would lead them into conflict with Israel — a conflict which they didn't want. At first Shia villages had taken the Palestinians in as refugees. But by the time the Israeli army arrived the Palestinians had alienated the villagers who felt as dispossessed as the Palestinians themselves.

The Israeli army drove the PLO north as far as Beirut where they were trapped and finally surrendered; 14,000 Palestinian fighters went into exile. The Israeli army stayed on with consequences for the whole region.

Shia Resistance

The presence of an Israeli army of occupation in southern Lebanon and the brutality that was meted out to Shia villagers quickly turned the initial welcome into hostility and hatred. The Israelis raided their villages and Shias were killed. For them occupation by the Palestinians had been replaced by occupation by the Israeli army who maintained order with an iron fist, fearful that if they left the Palestinians would move back in.

In Beirut too, the Shias were caught up in the war between Israel and the PLO. Before they went into exile the PLO was holed up in the western part of the city. The Israelis indiscriminately blew up apartment blocks, killing PLO fighters as well as Shia civilians who had stayed in the war-torn city for fear that if they did not their homes would be taken over by Palestinians displaced by the bombing of refugee camps.

Israel had hoped that by eliminating the PLO from Lebanon their allies, the Christian Phalangists, could be restored to power in Lebanon. In fact in September 1982 the Christian President-elect. Bashir Gemayel, was assassinated. The new pro-Phalangist government of Amin Gemayel could only hang on to power with the support of the American-led multi-national peace-keeping force. But it was too late for them to wield effective political power — by this time Lebanon had disintegrated into a series of armed factions battling it out for political control.

By the time that Israel was finally driven out of Lebanon at the beginning of 1985 Lebanon had become a disaster area. The Israeli ruling class had realised none of their objectives: Israel's northern border was, if anything, less secure than it had been prior to the invasion. The PLO had been driven into exile in Tunisia but the Israelis now had a new enemy in southern Lebanon — the Shias; the Christian Phalangists had only nominal power and Israel's alliance with them had been discredited as a result of the horrific massacre of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatilla by Phalangist forces, which the Israelis had done nothing to prevent. But it has been the resistance by the Shia militia, Amal. which has had the most lasting effect.

In their fight against the Israeli army of occupation the Shias in Amal have shown the same willingness to sacrifice themselves as had the soldiers in the Iranian army. Their tenacity had driven back the Israelis, inflicting the most significant defeat they had ever known. Furthermore, by 1984 Amal had taken to the streets of Beirut and had entered the battle for power between the Moslems and the Christians. Amal won control of West Beirut.

The influence and example of Iran on the Shia resistance is obvious as teenage boys and young men throw themselves willingly into the bloody street fighting around the Green Line which separates Christian East Beirut from Moslem West Beirut.

But for some Amal was not religious enough. They joined Hizbollah, the 'Party of God", the most extreme of the Islamic sects, which is fighting for an Islamic republic along the lines of that in Iran. Not surprisingly Hizbollah receives massive funding from Iran. It consists of small semi-autonomous groups which use a variety of different names, each taking responsibility for their own kidnappings and murders. Their attitude towards the west and Israel is uncompromising. It was Hizbollah which was responsible for the suicide bomber who drove into the American marines base killing 240 Americans and prompting their withdrawal. Since then there has been no shortage of willing volunteers for similar missions — young men willing to die as martyrs for the Islamic cause, Hizbollah, unlike some of the other Islamic groups, is not nationalistic. Its aim is nothing short of the creation of a world Islamic republic.

Syrian involvement in Lebanon

Syria has for a long time been a key factor in the Middle East. The regime of President Hafez Assad has an interest in keeping Lebanon divided. That way, it is hoped, it can be turned into a Syrian puppet state. As a result the Syrian government has cynically exploited the divisions, offering support to first one side, then another. Syria first intervened in Lebanon in June 1976 to prevent a coalition between the Palestinians and left-wing Lebanese which would have enabled them to secure an outright victory in the civil war.

The PLO has been based in Beirut since the late 1960s and, for the last 20 years, Syria has tried to curb Palestinian aspirations for independence while at the same time giving them support in their war against Israel. The Assad regime fears a fully independent PLO for two reasons. Firstly, they are scared that such a development might provoke Israel into attacking Syria. Secondly, they fear that the PLO might make a separate peace with Israel that would leave the Syrians out in the cold. For the Syrian ruling class, the "Palestinian Question" is much too important to be left to the PLO alone.

Syria withdrew its forces from Beirut in June 1982 — after reaching a ceasefire agreement with the invading Israelis. From then until Syria's return to Lebanon this year Assad had tried to achieve Syrian objectives there by means of support for various of the armed groups. In particular Shia Muslim groups are given logistical support by Syrian intelligence and Amal was encouraged to subdue and take control of the Palestinian camps. It was their failure to achieve this objective which led to the return of the Syrian army this year.

The War of the Camps

The Palestinians in the refugee camps of south Lebanon were those who had been left behind when the PLO was forced into exile. They include many women, children and old people. As the Israelis withdrew and the civil war continued, they were caught in the crossfire between the rival militias fighting to secure control of the rubble that was once Beirut. Amal's control of the area around the camps and their long-standing resentment towards the Palestinians led to the camps being laid siege to. The inhabitants were forced to live in appalling conditions of squalor and starvation, risking being shot at if they left the camp in search of food. It was this worsening situation which led to the return of Syrian troops. The refugees in the camps had no option but to accept the protection of the Syrian army.

The Bloody Reality of the Middle East

It is necessary to describe the shifting alliances, political manoeuvrings and shady deals of the ruling class in the Middle Eastern countries for an understanding of the complex web of war and politics in that region. But to do so gives little insight into the millions of lives that have been blighted through war, poverty, insecurity and fear or into the future of children who are growing up in an atmosphere of racial and religious hatred and bloodlust. Each piece of the complex Middle East jigsaw represents millions of scarred lives.

• The Iran-Iraq War is still going on. Hundreds of thousands of lives have already been lost; millions of people have been maimed for the sake of a small stretch of strategically important water and the political credibility of the leaders of the two countries. For this, ordinary workers are being sent in wave after wave to the front as cannon fodder.
• The Israeli invasion of Lebanon achieved nothing even in terms of the objectives of the Israeli ruling class. As well as lives being lost on both sides, the experience of life under yet another army of occupation has driven still more people into the bloody arms of Islam. And Israel continues to launch raids on South Lebanese villages claiming they are "terrorist" strongholds. It is often civilians — women and children included — who are killed.
• The PLO, newly reunited under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, is likely to launch a new campaign in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Guerrilla attacks in those areas will be met by mass arrests, detentions and deportations of Palestinians and pre-emptive and retaliatory strikes by the Israeli air force across the Lebanese border.
• Lebanon continues to be torn apart by civil war. Palestinians in the refugee camps are protected for the moment by Syrian troops, but the Syrians have no control over Hizbollah which is not fighting for control of West Beirut but for a world Islamic republic.

It is tempting to see the Middle East as inhabited by religious fanatics willing to die for causes that we have no understanding of. let alone sympathy with. But fundamentalist Islam has grown out of the same roots as evangelical Christianity in the United States and similar reactionary religious movements elsewhere in the world — discontent and alienation. That so many young people are willing to die as martyrs in the hope that they will then have the key to paradise says something about the misery of their lives here on earth. For the very countries where militant Islam has the most adherents — Iran, Egypt. Lebanon — are the very same countries where the ostentatious wealth of the minority is on display in the cities while the vast majority live in grinding poverty. It is not difficult to understand the anger and resentment that is caused. Neither is it difficult to see how that wealth and opulence, and the decadence and corruption that often go with it. comes to be identified with "the west". It is often the multi-nationals who own and build the luxury hotels that the poverty-stricken workers who built them will never have the opportunity to enter; foreign companies that exploit them in factories, mines and oilfields. And the ruling class is quick to adopt western lifestyles. Little wonder then that the poor are attracted to a religion that portrays the west as "the Great Satan" — bleeding the workers of the Middle East, imposing "their" alien and decadent culture. Little wonder that the deceptively simple solution of the establishment of an Islamic republic which promises justice and a restoration of traditional values and codes of behaviour, should seem attractive. As Marx wrote:

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feeling of a heartless world and the soul of soulless circumstances. It is the opium of the people.

But Islam, unlike opium, will not numb the pain caused by years of bloodshed.

Janie Percy-Smith

Blogger's Note:

Janie Percy-Smith's article also included the following informational material reproduced below in separate, standalone boxes.

Egypt

Although the Islamic revolution in Iran was successful, there had been similar rumblings in Egypt in the 70s. Ever since then Islamic fundamentalism has been on the increase, especially among the young, who are disillusioned with a system that has failed them and who harbour a deep-seated resentment which goes back to Nasser's accession to power in Egypt. Moslem militants helped him to power but, in his bid to create a modern state, Nasser crushed Moslem militancy. That resentment was increased by Egypt's defeat in the 1967 war against Israel. Moslem leaders saw that defeat as a punishment for the country's desertion of Islam.

Nasser was succeeded by Anwar Sadat who trod a tight-rope between his aim of building a modern capitalist state with the help of western investment, and his image as a devout Moslem, largely put on to placate the Islamic militants. A few Egyptians got very rich, but at the same time people were leaving the countryside which was no longer able to support the rapidly expanding population. They entered the cities in search of waged work and were condemned to live in poverty and squalor alongside the wealth that their labour had created. Islam seemed to provide a means for understanding their situation.

In 1977 Sadat cut subsidies on basic foods in an attempt to deal with the country's worsening economic situation. There were riots and Sadat was forced to back down Instead he took a gamble — to sign the Camp David Agreement with Israel — the enemy of Islam and the cause of Egypt's humiliation in the 1967 war. Under the agreement Jerusalem, which contained the third most important Moslem shrine, was to remain in Israeli hands. In return for the agreement America promised increased aid. But this did little to appease the fundamentalists who protested at what they saw as a sellout. Sadat responded by cracking down on the Moslem Brotherhood — the main Islamic group. As a result Sadat was assassinated in 1981.

Since then there have been no concessions made to the fundamentalists by Sadat's successor, Mubarak. Their protests have been met by repression which has served only to harden their determination. Islamic self-rule as in Iran is increasingly seen as the solution to all their problems and some groups, at least, are willing to use any means at all to achieve that objective.

The PLO

In April this year, while the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon were still under siege in the camps in Lebanon, the Palestinian National Council (the highest policy-making body for the 4-5 million Palestinians scattered around the world) met in Algiers. In recent years the PLO has been divided by internal dissension and leadership battles. But Yasser Arafat, leader of the mainstream Fatah movement, and a shrewd political operator, successfully reunited the PLO under his leadership. However, in order to secure his position he had to make concessions to hardliners like George Habash, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. These concessions include the distancing of the PLO from Egypt's President Mubarak, considered to be too soft on the Israelis, an escalation in the armed struggle against Israel and the demand that the PLO have the sole right to represent the Palestinian people at any future international peace conference.

These concessions will make the holding of such a conference unlikely. Israel will not agree to sit down at a negotiating table with the PLO. Relations with Jordan — one of the prime movers behind the proposed conference — are now strained because of the more militant stance adopted by the PLO. Both Jordan and Egypt have already agreed that the PLO will not be invited to an international conference unless it first endorses UN Security Council resolution 242 which implicitly recognises Israel's right to exist. The PLO is unlikely to do this.

Israel

The invasion of Lebanon by Israel was a disaster not only in military terms but also in political terms. The official justification for the invasion defence of Israel's northern borders was not considered sufficient by many Israelis. The national consensus on defence, which had existed since the founding of the state of Israel, was broken. For the first time there was a significant number of Israelis who were willing to accept the consequences of being conscientious objectors in a highly militaristic country. There were demonstrations against the war and some of the demonstrators were army officers appalled at what they had seen in Lebanon. The news of the barbaric massacre of Palestinians in the refugee camps and Israel's connivance in it increased the revulsion of some sections of the population against the war

But, while some Israelis are at last asking questions about whether "secure borders" are really worth the cost in human lives, there are others who are motivated by a religious fanaticism that bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the Islamic fundamentalists. It is these right wing Jewish militants who regard Jewish settlement on the West Bank as necessary — whatever the cost. The Kach movement, led by Rabbi Meir Kahane, is a racist political movement which wants to expel all Arabs from the Jewish state. The right wing are a minority — but a minority that is increasingly attractive to many young Israelis disillusioned with the failure of the political solutions so far offered. Just as Islam offers its adherents certainty in place of ambiguity, simplicity instead of complexity, and a morally superior cause for which to fight, so too does right wing Judaism offer its adherents absolutes as well as a "Promised Land" of milk and honey instead of poverty and insecurity.

And that insecurity looks set to continue. For the last 30 months Israel has been ruled by a coalition government made up of the Labour Party under Shimon Peres, currently Foreign Minister, and the right wing Likud Party, under Yitzhak Shamir, currently Prime Minister. That coalition looks more and more fragile and is likely to break up over the question of an international Middle East peace conference as proposed by the United Nations. Peres is broadly in favour of participation in such a conference. Shamir is opposed. Like the population as a whole the government is divided on the question of “land without peace" or "peace without land". Those who defend the idea of a "Greater Israel" — including the right — are opposed to the idea that any of the land captured in 1967 — the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights — should be given back. The Palestinians are unlikely to agree to a solution which did not include at least this.

Peace in Palestine? (1993)

From the October 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Peace is always better than war. Because wars are never fought in the interests of ordinary people. And because in wars it is always ordinary people who suffer. So, irrespective of the issues involved or the terms agreed, Socialists can only welcome the ending of any war in any part of the world. Stop the killing is our permanent policy.

In that artificial subdivision of the old Ottoman Empire known as Palestine, those who suffered from the irrational attempt to set up a Jewish State there have been both the original population — whether of Muslim, Christian or Jewish religious background — and those who were misled by the Zionists into emigrating there.

Socialists and Zionists have been opponents since the beginning. Inevitably, as they represented two incompatible views as to the solution to the problem of anti-semitism.

The Socialist attitude was expressed early on by Karl Marx, himself of Jewish background even though brought up a Christian. In one of his first articles after becoming a Socialist Marx argued that Jewish people should seek emancipation, not as Jews, but as human beings. To do this they should abandon their religion — just as Christians should abandon theirs — and become members of a secular human community in which money and the state should be abolished, i.e. socialism. In the meantime, under capitalism, Jews should enjoy the same political rights, in a secular democratic state, as Christians and others.

The Zionist movement propounded the opposite view: that the Jews were a separate nation and that as such they were entitled to their own state, in Palestine. People of Jewish background should not seek emancipation as human beings, but as Jews. Neither should they seek integration within the political states in which they found themselves, but separation in a state of their own.

The battle lines were thus drawn and throughout Europe and America Socialists and Zionists vied for the support of workers of Jewish background. Socialists argued against the idea that the Jews were a nation or a race; most Jews were workers and should join with other workers to achieve socialism which would mean ‘the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex". Even though many Zionists were not religious, all they had to go on to justify Palestine as the place for their Jewish State was an irrational belief, the religious myth set out in some holy book that the Jewish God had given Palestine to the Jews to be their homeland.

Many Jewish workers were convinced by the Socialist argument and rejected Zionism, and played — and still play — a considerable part in the Socialist movement. Most Jew's rejected Zionism in practice — and still do — by integrating into the countries where they lived. The terrible experience of the Second World War, however, convinced many (though by no means most) European Jews to embrace the idea of a Jewish State.

In 1948 the Zionist dream was realized. Palestine was partitioned and a State of Israel established. Zionist extremists practised what is now called "ethnic cleansing" and hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish inhabitants of the Israel part of Palestine were driven front their homes. Those who remained suffered the same fate the Zionists sought to free Jews from: being a minority in someone else\s "nation-state".

The establishment of Israel did not end anti-Semitism. In fact it caused it to spread to where it had never existed before — to the Arab-speaking parts of the world where for centuries Jews had lived in peace and security, integrated and speaking Arabic. Now, as a direct result of the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine, they came to suffer the same persecution that the European Jews had. The result was that centuries of integration were undone in decades. Today there are virtually no Jews living in Arab countries: most Arab Jews are now in Israel where they form an underprivileged group.

Our opposition to Zionism does not mean that we support the PLO. Unlike some, we don’t single out Jewish nationalism for special condemnation. We condemn ail nationalisms equally. The "Palestinian nation" is just as much a myth as the "Jewish nation", or any other nation. Nationalism is the ideology which seeks to justify the capitalist division of the world into separate "nation-states", each competing to gain a place in the sun for its ruling class and each with its own killing machine. We utterly reject this view of the way humanity should organize itself.

As Socialists we re-affirm that all peoples should seek their emancipation, not as members of nations or religions or ethnic groups, but as human beings, as members of the human race. They should unite to abolish the division of the world into so-called nation-states and to establish a World Co-operative Commonwealth in which we will all be free and equal members — citizens of the world, not subjects of nation-states.

PLO in retreat (1984)

From the January 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Even capitalism’s grotesqueries do not usually run to civil war in the absence of a nation-state, but that is precisely what has been happening in the Lebanon. The Palestinians, uprooted and dispersed at the lime of the formation of Israel in 1948, are engaging in fierce inter-factional fighting. Even before the latest events, it was the case that more Palestinian guerrillas had been killed by the armies of their supposed allies, the other Arab states, than by Israel; but now. Palestinian is killing Palestinian.

In June 1982. Israel launched a full scale invasion of Lebanon, supposedly in retaliation for the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador to Britain. Soon there were over 100,000 Israeli troops in Lebanon and the capital, Beirut, was bombed and besieged. About half a million Palestinians live in the Lebanon, many of them since 1948 in the more-or-less permanent settlements known as refugee camps. In August that year, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) began to evacuate its headquarters in Beirut. The following month, the Israeli army acquiesced as Phalangist Lebanese militia massacred upwards of two thousand men, women and children in the Sabra and Shatila camps.

Dissent within the PLO ranks has greatly increased since the withdrawal from Beirut. Syrian-backed opponents of PLO chief Yasser Arafat have been attacking troops loyal to him. The Beirut defeat weakened Arafat's position, as did his willingness to talk to King Hussein of Jordan over an American peace initiative in September last year. The manoeuvring of Hafez Assad, the Syrian President, led to Arafat being expelled from Damascus (where he had gone after abandoning Beirut) last summer and going to the Northern Lebanon coastal city of Tripoli. There he and his supporters have been bombarded by dissident PLO men and the Syrians, who have forty thousand troops in the Lebanon. The rebels — led by men such as Ahmad Jibril and Abu Mousa — accuse Arafat and his clique of being corrupt. building large houses and even harbours and helicopter pads for their own use from PLO funds (Guardian 23 November 1983). At the time of writing, the PLO seem likely to be forced to evacuate Tripoli, perhaps under a United Nations flag, though it is not clear where they will be able to go.

Lebanon is a former French, earlier Turkish, colony. It became "independent" in 1943, but has remained embroiled in the murderous power politics of the Middle East. Its internal politics are dominated by two coalition groups: the Lebanese National Movement (L.NM) is a reformist grouping which supports the PLO and its main rival is the Lebanese Front, dominated by the Phalangist party (founded in 1936 and named after the Phalange of Franco’s Spain). The Phalange opposes the PLO, has collaborated with Israel and supports the expulsion of all Palestinians from Lebanon. Bashir Gemayel, leader of the Phalangist militia and president-elect of Lebanon when assassinated in September 1982. had gone on record as saying that in the Middle East there was one people too many, the Palestinians. No apologist for Zionism could have been blunter. These were the ideas that motivated the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

The Machiavellian tactics of Syria and President Assad lie behind much of the present turmoil and the possible escalation into war with the American part of the ludicrously-misnamed multinational "peace-keeping” force. Despite brave words about retaliation for encroachment of its airspace, Syria has done nothing in response to Israeli and French air-raids on parts of Lebanon it controls. Syria's Russian-supplied armed forces are operating only against the PLO. Ironically, it is the Palestinian cause that Assad claims to be espousing, and whose chief spokesman he intends to be. A country with scant supplies of oil, Syria can only become powerful by conquest and/or influence. The plan for a Greater Syria encompasses Jordan and Palestine as part of Syria: control over that part of Lebanon not in Israeli hands is a first step on this road. Assad has retained dictatorial power in Syria for thirteen years; in 1982 he killed over twenty thousand Muslim fundamentalist opponents of his regime. In 1976, during an earlier civil war there, Syria invaded Lebanon in order to contain the Palestinians and the Lebanese National Movement, and supported the Phalange — all in the name of Arab nationalism and the Palestinian "revolution".

The expansionist role of Israel in all this must also be remembered. Some Israeli military leaders have made no secret of their strategic aims: the Lebanon to be cleared of foreign forces and re-established as a christian-dominated state, the West Bank and Gaza annexed to Israel, the PLO destroyed and Jordan converted into the Palestinian state. The even less rational wings of Zionism claim that, as large parts of Lebanon belonged in Biblical times to Asher, one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, so they should belong to Israel today! This kind of nonsense — hankering after past glories that only benefitted the ruling class anyway — seems as prevalent in the Middle East as in most parts of the world.

Meanwhile Israeli oppression of Palestinians in the occupied territories continues. Palestinians on the West Bank have been dispossessed of their homes in favour of Israeli settlers. They must carry identity cards and are subject to military orders which, for instance, prohibit such subversive acts as the planting of fruit trees. One Palestinian is quoted as saying:

 For the moment, the Israelis have divided us into two categories, the educated, who cause trouble by talking about social and political rights, and the labourers, whom they need. They would like to expel the first and keep the second. (Time 21 November 1983).

The Palestinians are seen by Israel as at best, a source of cheap labour.

There are those who see the PLO and the Lebanese National Movement as representing something more than just a nationalist organisation. For instance, one member of the Palestine National Council writes:

Israel's war against Lebanon was . . .  intended to destroy the first successful alliance between the Palestinians and a nationally committed Arab movement as well as the first liberated national zone where the alliance could have developed a prototype of a liberated Arab national polity.
(Ibrahim Abu-Lughod. in Race & Class, Spring 1983)

The claim, then, is that a PLO/LNM alliance would pave the way for "national liberation" throughout the Arab world, which would involve the removal of such despots as Assad and Hussein. This would explain why both Israel and Syria are opposed to such a development. But such claims are nonsense. A "democratic secular" Palestine would be a capitalist Palestine. forced to exploit its workers just as Palestinian oppresses Palestinian in intra-PLO feuds today. All leadership must be overthrown, Arafat and Jibril as well as Assad and Shamir.

Like the Zionists, the Palestinians have embraced a dangerous myth about the past; in their case, the myth that pre-1948 Palestine was some kind of paradise. It was no such thing: most Palestinians struggled along on tiny plots of land, under the weight of massive debts, exploited by a class of landlords. Palestine did not belong to the Palestinians, any more than modern Israel belongs to working class Israelis. They have yet to realise it, but the workers of the entire Middle East — within whatever irrelevant national boundaries they now live — have an identity of interest, that 

Paul Bennett

Running Commentary: PLO recognition (1980)

The Running Commentary Column from the July 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

PLO recognition

“They’ve taken my legs, but it only means I’m more firmly planted in the soil.” Mayor Bassam Shaka of Nablus (3.6.80).

The terrorist attacks which maimed two West Bank mayors and wounded other Palestinians in Hebron last month were the climax of weeks of mounting violence in the area, provoked by what all governments would term “necessary vigilance for the security of the state”. The victimisation of communities, refugee camps and families by the Israeli security forces—together with arbitrary searchings and beatings—are having the effect of driving the most “moderate” Palestinians into the arms of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, something that Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in the heady days of 1978 was designed, in part, to prevent.

The nature of the Israeli government’s “civilising mission” on the West Bank was clarified last month with the publication of a letter (dated 19 May) by Uri Avnery, a Labour member of the Knesset. Reproduced was the following extract of orders from the military government to Israeli army conscripts: 

“Any one you catch outside, you first beat with the clubs all over his body, except the head. Have no mercy, break all his bones! Give no explanations. First of all beat, and when you are finished you can explain why you have done so. If you catch a small child, order his whole family out, make them stand in a row, and beat the father in front of his children. Don’t treat this beating as a privilege, it’s a duty! They understand no other way.” (Middle East International, 6.6.80).

It would be misleading to suggest that the PLO’s growing international respectability—the EEC states now recognise it—is the altruistic response to what is occurring on the West Bank (the Arab Community in Palestine were, after all, dispossessed and dispersed rather a long time ago). Rather, it is the consequence of an awareness that vital oil interests (and to a lesser extent, arms markets) depend upon Middle East “stability”, and that the Israeli government’s policies could lead to a further surge of Islamic extremism in the area. (The fact that the American government is internationally out of step on the question doesn’t mean its heart is in the wrong place Carter is doing nothing to upset a strong pro-Israel lobby in election year.)

With autonomy for the Palestinians more firmly on the agenda, can we expect a resolution of what appears to be an intractable problem, with both sides determined to give no ground? A homeland with “secure borders” may sound reasonable, but capitalism is not as simple as that. The PLO’s policy of “liberation” through violence veils the more important issue of whose freedom is at stake, and for what purpose. Peace has hardly gone hand-in-hand with the creation of nation states; real freedom will require self-determination of an entirely different kind.

WHSmenzies

“I believe in a poly-culture of the press from left to right, from cranky to sound.” James Goldsmith, proprietor of Now magazine (“Question Time” BBC1, 12.6.80.)

Owners of newspapers are fond of pointing out that we live in a country where the concepts of freedom of speech, assembly and publication are enshrined in the Constitution. Every one of us has the legal right to own a daily newspaper, provided we can get our hands on several million pounds. What they don’t mention however, is that you can expect some difficulty in getting W. If. Smith to distribute it.

Last month was published a thin book, Where is the Other News? (Minority Press Group) which attempts, among other things, to show why W. H. Smith and Menzies are prepared to display those old family favourites Dental Surgeon and Pig Farming (sales of 3,000 per issue) and not journals like the Socialist Standard (sales of 4,000 per issue). These big two wholesalers have cornered two-thirds of the newspaper and magazine market in Britain (Menzies have 93 per cent of the Scottish market), with total business in 1978 estimated to be 792 million pounds; and their domination of the market is increasing as small wholesalers close down.

Smenzies argue that a publication lacks “credibility” if it is not part of the advertising-funded, market-research based magazine industry. Should they agree to distribute a journal they will ask to vet the boards (not German for weeing on the floor; they only want to check the contents before it is printed—ostensibly for libel, but then aren’t the “quality press” more plagued with writs than anyone?).

But, you might ask, isn’t it naive to expect that Smith’s or Menzies could be other than conservative and not committed to the free availability of challenging opinion? Perhaps so; but in France it is mandatory for wholesalers to distribute periodicals of any circulation. What is clear is that, under capitalism, the free dissemination of ideas has less to do with legality than with the ability to pay—something to remember the next time you “read” Sir Larry Lamb’s Sun.

Hard stuff

Socialists have often shown that capitalism causes an immense waste of resources. An article in the shipping industry newspaper Freighting World, illustrates the point. On 26 March a Captain F. L. Cox points out that because airline passengers can buy cheap alcohol, most aeroplanes are priced to carry a much greater weight than is desirable. A Boeing 747 for instance could have over 500 bottles of spirits in the passenger compartment. Captain Cox points out that this extra weight causes the following problems:

1. Fire hazard. Most spirits would be classified under IATA rules as combustible liquids, some as flammable liquids. Fire would spread more readily after an accident.

2. Deceleration hazard. Violent deceleration can result in bottle missiles flying through the cabin. In one accident, where the aircraft was a total loss, all passengers were safe except for one whose death was thought to have been caused by a flying bottle.

3. Rescue hazard. Broken glass in the cabin is dangerous to both the passengers and rescue personnel after an accident.

4. Security risk. A hijacker has tried to use a broken bottle as a weapon.

5. Passenger comfort. A) congestion of packages in the cabin; B) extra risk of intoxication and disorderly conduct.

6. Fuel wastage. Extra fuel has to be used in carrying duty-free goods. While only a small proportion of the total fuel load, it is still an unnecessary waste. More travellers return with the type of spirit popular in their own homeland: and it was probably manufactured there in the first place. (our emphasis)

So it can clearly be seen that one minor feature of the present insecure system—the urge to buy cheap booze as an advantage of overseas travel—is responsible for serious social difficulties which could be eradicated tomorrow if the workers woke up to the idea of a society without buying and selling.

Melvin Tenner 

Sting in the tail: China's destiny (1995)

The Sting in the Tail column from the May 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

China's destiny

In an interesting article on China in the Guardian (18 March) John Gittings  considered, among other things, where Deng's economic reforms are heading and why Mao's policies failed. He asked:

"What is meant by Mr Deng's famous phrase, used to justify his economic innovations, of 'socialism with Chinese Characteristics'? It is simply code , many suggest, for 'capitalism under the Chinese party rule.'"

Of course, what "many suggest" is spot-on, and Gittings adds that ordinary Chinese understand where Mao went wrong. They say: "Marx said that capitalism was a necessary stage, but Mao tried to skip it." 

Marx expressed his view in his preface to Capital where he pointed out that a nation "can neither clear by bold leaps nor remove by legal enactments the obstacles offered by the successive phases of its normal development."

The Chinese Communists' short-cut to "socialism" was inevitably a blind alley, and they now have China on the road it was always bound to take—the road to capitalism.

God, the holy boss

"Clergyman was employed by Church, not God."

This headline appeared over a story in the Independent (16 March) about a clergyman who had been handed his cards by the C of E and was claiming unfair dismissal before an industrial tribunal.

The Church in its defence stated that the "minister of religion owes his primary duties to God, rather than his Church". Although the tribunal agreed it still in favour of the jobless one because his contract was with the Church and not the Almighty.

The story also revealed that the C of E's little ploy has been tried on several previous occasions by the Methodists, Presbyterians, etc.

Obviously, the tribunal's ruling has very wide implications because there are many, many Gods. For example, military personnel and prostitutes who may in the future claim unfair dismissal will not have to take Mars, the God of War, or Venus, Goddess of Love, to some earthy tribunal.

Shattered dreams

Many workers dream about becoming their own boss, and 170 Scottish miners thought they had realised this dream when they took over Monktonhall colliery from British Coal three years ago.

Alas, their dream has been disturbed. A seam fault caused production to fall below target, so management cut bonuses and one shift of worker-shareholders staged a wildcat strike.

This was not what these miners had expected: "When we bought into Monktonhall it wasn't going to be them and us. It was going to be just us" (Daily Mail, 10 March).

The Monktonhall chairman's answer was a bit less idealistic: "If this place is going to be viable we have to cut somewhere."

Workers may dream about a secure and strife-free life but the realities of capitalism's economics usually bring a rude awakening.

We don't deserve them

How shamefully an ungrateful society treats its Great Men. A case in point is Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO, head of the newly-independent Palestinian state, and Nobel Peace prize winner.

Besides having to worry about the conflict between resident Arabs and Jewish settlers on the West Bank and the inter-Arab quarrels in the Gaza strip, he now has another worry on his plate.

According to a story in the New York Post, US Federal investigators are conducting a global search for his assets to see if the PLO's claim of poverty are true.

The investigators are looking into allegations that Arafat has access to huge assets including bank accounts, jetliners, factories and oil refineries. Hints of his wealth include a remark made by his wife in Washington last year, that it was difficult to run 12 homes.

She has to run 12 homes? Ye Gods, even this Great Man's poor wife isn't spared her worries!

Oxfam futility

There are over 170,000 registered charities in this country. Perhaps the most famous is Oxfam. Founded in 1942 it is still busy trying to raise funds to combat "hunger, disease, exploitation and poverty".

By any standards, it has failed miserably to deal with these problems, which far from decreasing are growing worse every day as capitalism spreads its tentacles throughout the world. As Oxfam itself says: 

"Take Bangladesh: the world was shocked by the catastrophic cyclone and floods in 1991, in which 140,000 people died. Yet the same number of children are killed by poverty in Bangladesh every two months. The main killers are common diseases, often spread by dirty water, like diarrhoea. Worldwide, a mother watches her child die of diarrhoea every 8 seconds."

Only world socialism can stop this carnage. The existence of 170,000 charities is an effect of the poverty of capitalism, not its solution.