Middle East

against fascism in lebanon The resemblance between the basic situation in Lebanon and that in Northern ireland is immediately obvious. The former state was created because the Arab revolutionaries were too weak to achieve an Arab nation-state after the first World War just as partition was established because of a similar failure by the Irish, Lebanon is divided between two communities that are self-defined by religion — Christians and Muslims. The first is relatively privileged and identifies with imperialism; the other — despite incompetent leadership and sabotage by Arab capitalism opposes it objectively.

Furthermore, the Lebanese situation resembles the Irish Republican interpretation of the Irish national problem far more closely than that interpretation reflects the facts it claims to explain, Although the Lebanon is a semi (or neo) colony rather than a colony such as Northern Ireland, the division there inbetween Christians and Muslims ig more directly the result of imperialist intervention than that of the six counties where the situation was maintained by the needs of the local manufacturers — a class less developed in Beirut than in Belfast, The Muslims have been abla to do what the six county Catholic can only hope to do: cutbreed their oppressors. In addition, the Christians ore spearheaded today by @ mass party far more openly Fascist than any of the major Loyalist political groups: the Phalange of Hitler's old fan, Pierre Gernayel. Nations and self-determination But two inter-connected facts that are not paralleled in Ireland affect the struggle in the Lebanon, Firstly it is just one aspect of the overall struggle for Arab national self-determination, for which the major problem is posed by the colon state of Israel. Further to this, the existence of thet state, the struggle by the treacherous King Hussein of Jordan has made Lebanon the chiet base for the Palestinian Qquerrillas, This fact has occasioned the present struggle of the Lebanese Musiems, and raised it to a new bevel, The Muslims had attempted before 1975 to modify, if not overthrow, the Christian political hegemony (which included a guaranteed majority of parliamentary seats), In 1958, the Christian President's attempt to prolong illegally his term of office provoked a rising that could be suppressed only by the US marines. The presence of the nationalist Palestinians in the state afer 1970 was @ threat to the security of the Christian bourgeoisie which tried to crush them several times and armed, eventually, Gemayel's Phalange the better to do so, {t failed, the Muslim community supported the Palestinians and renewed its demand to reduce Christian political privileges. The Lebanese Anmy split on communal lines. American imperialism, weakened as an after effect of Vietnam, cannot intervene directly.

The new colonial regime in Syria came to the aid of its overlord: like all the Arab governments, it fears the revolutionary effects of a victory for the Palestinians and their allies, However, the struggle has not been ended finally. The anttimPerialist forces, which includes the Lebansse section of the Fourth International, remain unbeaten, | |