Palestine — the Struggle Goes on

For the last few weeks, at first due to the hi-jackings, and now because of heavy fighting, the Middle East has dominated the world's news media. King Hussein of Jordan is reported to be sitting ona very shaky and temporary throne, the Palestinian guerrillas have won control of the major towns in the north, Amman is in ruins, and the American forces are poised to swoop like a vulture on its prey.

Yet there has been very little attempt to analyse the background to the current troubles. This article is an attempt to rectify that omission.

From the late nineteenth century there was a growth of Zionist organisations demanding the establish ment of a Jewish National state in Palestine. Such demands received a boost from the British government in 1917 when Lord Balfour, in a letter to Lord Rothschild gave the cabinet's blessing to such an undertaking. They were strengthened in 1920, when the territories of de« feated Turkey were carved up among the victorious allied powers and Britain was granted the mandate for Palestine. ' From that time onwards, a steady immigration of Jews into Palestine took place. It should be stressed that they were welcomed and helped by their new Arab neighbours and no religious or political discord was evident.

Following World War IU, and the horrors of Hilter's 'final solution', the Conscience of the world, especially Britain and the U.S., was stricken by the masses of Jewish refugees - though not to the extent of lifting their own immigration controls. Through the medium of the newly-formed United Nations, they established a Jewish State of Israel in 1947, by partitioning Palestine -refusing the Arab proposal to set up a binational state. Naturally this decision was resisted by the Palestine people who saw no reason to give up their homeland to solve the consciences of European and American politicans. They resisted with arms, but were opposed by a force - many of them American Jewish World War II veterans -which was armed with surplus World War II weapons and so was capable of defeating an ill-armed mainly peasant population.

massacre Not content with defeating them militarily they drove them out of their homes and off their land by terrorist tactics. Gangs like the Stern and Irgun killed every man, woman and child, as in the arab village of Deir Yassin. This massacre is now officially denounced by the Israeli government (though they still pay official pensions to the members of these gangs). But joe \9G7 WAR RePuBLic (aver)

RR OE EE LL the official forces themselves, the Haganah, were accomplices in similar escapades. The unit which took Lydda and Ramlah, under the command of Moshe Dyan, drove the populations (over 30,000 ed the towns.

Since 1948 about one and a half million Palestinian refugees have subsisted in U.N. camps in Jordan and other Arab countries. Their numbers have been augumented as a result of various expansions of Israili territory, the latest being after the war in June 1967. by the world, and devoid of hope, these refugees have sat in their camps and, with a few exceptions, resigned themselves to their fate. But their children are not so defeatist.

Zionist enemy Now in their ceens, twenties and thirties, they have formed themselves into guerrilla organisations such as Al Fatah, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. It is these guerrilla groups, rather than the official Arab government forces, which have engaged the Zionist enemy. It is these same guerrillas who have been attacked by Hussein's new military junta in Jordan.

To many it is inconceivable that Arab should fight Arab. But the Palestinians' struggle is a struggle for land, and those who struggle for it are those who were driven from it. Hussein's struggle is to maintain a corrupt and rotten monarchy in power, a monarchy which quigley tinians. each) out at gunpoint and then sackat home.

Ignored end. has consistently sold out not only the Palestinians, but the Jordanian peoples. Hence Hussein's eager acceptance of the American 'peace' plan for the Middle East - a plan which ignored the twenty year old plight of the dispossessed PalesThe popular press and the T.V. news bulletins have squawked with rage about the guerrillas "wrecking the Middle East plans". They are doing nothing of the sort. They are wrecking, and quite rightly so, an attempt by the reactionaries to sell out the Palestinian cause at the first sight of an American dollar. 'King' Hussein and fellow feudal monarch 'King' Feisal of Saudi Arabia have always been content to allow their countries and their resources to be exploited by foreign , (U.S. and British) economic exploitation in order to guarantee that the military imperialist arm of those states could be called on to support their tottering regimes. Now the real implications of such support is evident. Britain has sent commando units to Cyprus. The U.S. has placed its paratroopers on emergency stand-by. Obviously they intend to intervene if Hussein falls.

Our position is clear. We support the struggle of a people who have been intimidated and driven from their homes. We attack people like Hussein and Nasser who claim to uphold the rights of the Palestinians while merely using their plight as a means of diverting their own people's eyes from the problems The Palestinian struggle is not Anti-Jewish. It is Anti-Zionist. It is to establish a secular socialist state in Palestine where all people will have equal rights and opportunities. The parallels between their struggle and ours is obvious. As socialists, we must look forward to the defeat of Zionist entrepreneurs and Arab monarchrists,: and the victory of Palestinians - Arab and Jew - in the establishment of a Palestinian Workers Republic.

campaign...

The P.D. campaign against the Criminal Justice Act with. its mandatory sentences continues, with five meetings this weekWe welcome the fact that the Republican Movement have also taken up the now demand to repeal the Crim inal Justice Act.

Meetings this weekend will be as follows:

EBPSON sicees sues Sains .:3.00pm Strabane. ... nce anvicw sce 3.30pm Bot 9 a5 7s ee ae ee 8.00 pm GOS SIOUG 5 .5:.5:5.5,35s, 415.58. 8.50 8.00pm POMEPKOY e635 gs :028 1

FREE CITIZEN 25th SEPTEMBER 1970