World View: Crisis in the Middle East (2000)

From the November 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ariel Sharon’s provocative visit to Temple Mount on 28 September, with his entourage of one thousand soldiers, was perhaps the final slap in the face for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian workers who had suffered decades of poverty, degradation and discrimination since Israel annexed the West Bank and Gaza in the wake of a failed Arab invasion in 1967

Like the black South African resistance movement, engaged in a long struggle against white minority rule, the stone-throwing youth of Palestine can perhaps be forgiven for perceiving their struggle to be one against a Middle Eastern form of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

The statistical injustices which are very much part of the present unrest speak for themselves. Since the start of the Oslo peace process seven years ago, unemployment in some areas stands at 40 percent and the average income per head of the population living in Gaza and the West Bank is $1,500 (compared to $17,000 per head in Israel proper). The Israel/Palestine disparity is also echoed in access to land and water. Whilst Israel has 2.1 million hectares of land, with access to 2 billion cubic feet of water, the West Bank and Gaza share only 0.6 million hectares of land and have access to a miserly 232 million cubic metres of water. When it comes to other serious issues such as health housing and education, it is evident that Palestinian workers are very much second-class citizens.

Moreover, since the Oslo round of talks, Israel has continued with a closure policy which has restricted movement from one part of Palestine to another—a freedom of movement guaranteed under the Oslo and Wye Valley agreements—and has isolated towns and cities in pursuance of their policy of trying to prevent the emergence of a viable Palestinian state.

There is nothing exceptional or unique about the present crisis in the Middle East. For the Palestinian state-in-waiting, it is a familiar tale about conflict over land and resources between an “occupier” and a “subject people”, an occupation deemed illegal by the United Nations under resolutions 242 and 338 which call upon Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories but sanctioned by the world’s only superpower—regardless of the hypocritical cant mouthed by US peace brokers at the negotiation table. As Tim Llewellyn commented in the Observer (15 October):

“The US of Bill Clinton and any foreseeable US of George W. Bush is the friend, mentor, armourer and financier of Israel, advocate, judge, progenitor and saviour of unilateral Israel’s rights and executioner of Palestinian aspirations.”

This is the US which allegedly plays an objective role at the negotiating table, whilst propping up the Israel state to the tune of $4 billion per year—money which is dressed up as aid, which is never accounted for and in breach of US legislation which outlaws the financing of a state with a covert nuclear weapons programme. Hence Senator Pat Buchanan’s remark that “Congress is Israeli occupied territory.”

Increasing lebanisation

The US has invariably steered peace negotiations away from the UN. Throughout his term in office, like his predecessors, Clinton and team have overtly and covertly worked the Middle East peace process to advance US-Israeli interests only.

At the UN, the US has consistently sided with Israel, the two countries almost alone in opposing resolutions censorious of Israeli policy; the two countries siding, in fact, as sole opponents of a myriad pro-human rights resolutions. Little wonder, with so much US support, Israel feels vindicated in invading Lebanon, bombing who and wherever it chooses, restricting the movement of Palestinians, annexing East Jerusalem and building settlements in areas that could only ever frustrate the peace process. In the seven years since Oslo, Israel’s “illegal” settler population in Gaza and the West Bank has increased from 110,000 to 195,000—60 percent of this increase in the West Bank.

Neither would it seem that Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO and heading the Palestine Authority, can deliver the much hankered-after peace. Arafat was the Great Leader that so many Palestinians invested their hopes in, but like all leaders he is at the mercy of those with even more power. In recent years there has been a growing image of Arafat as a puppet of Mossad and the CIA, whose reputation for corruption is not concealed by his life-long struggle against Israeli-perpetrated injustice. Only three years ago, his own accountants were forced to admit that $400 million had gone astray. Out of his current budget, some 60 percent is disbursed by Arafat to his bureaucracy and security forces. Of the remainder only 2 percent goes to infrastructure. While he surrounds himself with a police force of 40,000 (a 33,000 increase since Oslo), prepared to arrest and detain anyone perceived as a threat—union leaders, human rights activists, those militants Israel deems a serious threat to their interests—his régime censoring a press critical of his ideas, and with the Fatah faction and the tanzim militia bent on a pro-Hamas line that Arafat seems reluctant to follow, Palestine is looking increasingly like a dictatorial régime inside a more repressive state in which those with the most to lose are those with the least.

In recent weeks we have witnessed a painful fractioning across the whole Palestine/Israel area. In an increasing “lebanonisation” of the region, both sides of the religious/nationalist divide have organised into militias. Fatah commanders pursue a 1970s agenda of all-out war against Israel, whilst right-wing Jewish extremists refuse to acknowledge the rights of Palestinians in defiance of previous Israeli commitments. Despite the hastily cobbled-together Sharm el-Sheikh deal, seven years after the Oslo round of negotiations and two years after the agreement at Wye Valley that saw the PLO detach itself from its promise to destroy the state of Israel, the prospects of peace seem as distant as ever.

Where socialists stand

So where do socialists stand in all of this? When it comes to the nationalistic zeal and religious fervour of recent weeks, there is nothing at all with which we can identify, for both are abstractions that have imbued the workers of the region with a false consciousness that prevents them identifying their real interests. The labels Jew or Moslem, Palestinian or Israeli do not camouflage the bigger and more permanent label of “working class”, a label most caught up in the present crisis could, if challenged, identify with.

Though we have focused here on the Palestinian grievances against oppression, it is fair to add that the majority of Israel’s Jews are also exploited and degraded and live lives of relative poverty, and within a system that depends on the exploitation of a global majority and their division for its continued survival. As the warring camps in the Middle East continue to vent their hatreds we can only maintain that there is more that unites them as members of that exploited majority, with the same basic needs and desires than can ever divide them along religious or national lines. For the real conflict is yet to be waged—that between ourselves, the exploited, and the master class—though with ideas, not rifles and catapults.

John Bissett

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

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.