[The following article appeared in the February 1 issue of La Gauche, weekly organ of the Ligue Révolutionnaire des Travailleurs (Revolutionary Workers League), Belgian section of the Fourth International. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
The scenario for the Geneva Arab- Israeli negotiations set up so laboriously by Washington and Moscow is proceeding according to plan, the two "sponsors" taking care of exerting the pressure needed to bring any recalcitrants to heel.
Thus, Kissinger forced Tel Aviv into negotiations that Golda did not want any part of. And, as a good realist convinced that Zionism has no future outside the American embrace, General Dayan has hastened to change his stripes and become a dove for the time being.
The goal of the two great powers is to stabilize the Middle East. For the peace that is being prepared at Geneva has been worked out long in advance so that each side can draw clear advantages from it. To be sure, the Israeli leaders will have to give back some territory and give up expansionist dreams. But in return they will gain borders guaranteed by the superpowers and will obtain an official declaration of nonbelligerence and de facto diplomatic recognition from the major state of the Arab world. That alone would qualify as an Israeli victory even apart from the fact that the negotiations will allow for ending a military mobilization that has been ruinous for the economy of the Jewish state.
It would also be a victory for the Egyptian bourgeoisie, which polished up its image by sending troops into combat, thus raising its political prestige and simultaneously obtaining the first withdrawal of Israeli forces. Furthermore, the reopening of the Suez Canal, which will be supplemented by 168
the Suez-Alexandria pipeline, will restore the national economy.
The beneficiaries of the operation necessarily will extend their thanks to the architects of this providential peace. Thus, Washington intends to consolidate its reentry onto the Egyp-
ARAFAT: Decides to become a "realist."
tian scene while at the same time preserving its grip on Tel Aviv. For its part, Moscow will renew its traditional ties with the Israelis (the decline of the anti-Soviet atmosphere in Israel since Soviet Jewish immigration was stepped up with the Kremlin's approval has been remarkable) and will find ways to profit from the Israelis' desire to maintain some margin for maneuver in face of diktats from the White House.
But above all, the two great powers are noting with satisfaction the defusing of the Palestinian powder keg.
For what is the main objective of the Geneva negotiations if not to confirm the existing balance of forces and prevent a revolutionary explosion with unpredictable consequences?
You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, so the two great-power sponsors are using alluring perspectives to entice the Palestinian leaders. And they have succeeded beyond all their hopes, especially the Soviet leaders, who have acted through Azimov, the Soviet ambassador to Beirut. The overwhelming majority of the Palestine Liberation Organization, with Fateh and the Democratic Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DPF) in the lead, has opted for negotiating with the Israelis with a view to creating a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank.
What is behind the sudden shift of the main organizations of the Palestinian resistance? First let us set the problem in context. It is obvious that the about-face of the fedayeen leaders tallies logically with their policy of Palestinian particularism. Arafat never proclaimed any other aim than the liberation of Palestine. This narrow nationalism, in the name of which he rejected confronting the Arab leaders directly responsible for the fate of the Palestinians, was to be apolitical; so Fateh rejected organizing itself a class basis. Hence, Fateh on straightaway followed an objectivepolicy of political conservatism. From the standpoint of this organization, a Palestinian ministate is a partial victory, and realism demands acceptance of this concession to the resistance from the great powers.
Although the DPF and its main leader, Nayef Hawatmeh, claim adherence to Marxism-Leninism, since the spring of 1970 they have in practice fallen into line behind Fateh's policies. Consequently, in the case of the DPF the current turn is sharper on a theoretical level -they now love what they used to denounce-but in the final analysis, it is less discernible on a practical level.
The minority sectors of the resistance are divided, and even those organizations that still reject the Palestinian state have been significantly weakened by internal differences, by their loyalty to various Arab capitals, and, above all, by their lack of political perspectives.
It is on this point that clarity is need ed.
The Palestine national liberation movement is an integral part of the Arab revolution. In fact, until "black September" it undoubtedly represented the vanguard of the Arab revolution, in a twofold sense:
- First, the fedayeen represented a mass current in struggle against Zionism and imperialism that was practicing people's war, that is, the resistance had reached the phase of armed struggle.
- And second, this fight was stimulating and polarizing the popular forces of the whole Arab world (and even beyond the Arab world, in Turkey and Eritrea, for example by its exemplary valor and by the fact that it was indirectly threatening the existing regimes.
But after the military defeat of the fedayeen, the movement was unable to get a second wind. In the absence of a coherent strategy - and the only conceivable one was to link up with the class struggle in the Arab states of the Middle East in order to unify the vanguard into a common front - the resistance crumbled.
The spectacular, politically aberrant acts of Black September and the other terrorist grouplets obviously did not enable the resistance to regain its strength; for while the resistance had no lack of heroes or of blind courage, what it needed was a political perspective. The week of bloodletting in Amman had hardly ended before Arafat began trying to negotiate a return to the status quo with Hussein, as if nothing had changed and, more important, as if the September massacres had not proven the impossibility of coexistence between the
Hashemite regime and the Palestinian resistance on the march.
The debacle of the Palestinian resistance was followed by a succession of setbacks for the Arab revolution (in the Sudan, Egypt, and Syria), the lessons of which the Palestinian February 18, 1974
vanguard was unable to draw. Furthermore, the October War waged by the Cairo and Damascus regimes left no room for political mobilizations. Instead of allowing a resurgence of the mass movement, it permitted the Egyptian bourgeoisie to consolidate its previously shaken bases.
During this period of retreat for the Arab revolution, the Palestinian militants have to rethink their whole conception of the struggle. By all evidence, nothing is going to be as before. History never repeats itself exactly, and the lesson of the first phase of the armed struggle is that a revolutionary political program must underlie the battle. The defeat of the fedayeen is proof from a negative direction that a revolutionary policy cannot be carried out without revolutionary theory and that the Palestinian tragedy cannot be resolved without integrating the struggle of the Palestinians into the Arab revolution.
The proposal for a Palestinian state must be considered in this context. Without claiming the gift of prophecy, one can advance the following predictions:
1. Given the territory that has been alloted to it, the Palestinian state will be economically unviable. Hence, it will have to fall into the political orbit of one of its neighbors. Considering the Israelis' desire to achieve economic normalization with the neighboring countries (Israeli industry needs the market and labor force of the West Bank), the future mini-Palestine will probably be dominated by its powerful Zionist neighbor; moreover, this would be in conformity with the geopolitical situation.
The example of Ireland is eloquent here. In 1921 the Irish revolutionary army was also offered partial realization of its objective: independence on a portion of the national territory. History has shown that those who accepted that solution in the name of realism were led to wage a counterrevolutionary civil war and liquidate their former comrades-in-arms. And the Irish Free State promised by the British remained subordinate to British capital despite its political independence.
This analysis leads us to a negative view of the proposed Palestinian ministate, which ultimately involves the liquidation of the political and military vanguard of the Palestinian resistance.
The Palestinian resistance today confronts the most difficult period of its history, just as the IRA did after the Irish bourgeoisie betrayed the national cause. Rejecting both right opportunism (the illusory Palestinian state, which would bury the hopes of the resistance) and left opportunism (the continuation of guerrilla war with no political perspective), the resistance must turn its activities toward winning the Palestinian masses in order to patiently organize them for the inevitable mass struggles ahead. This reorientation undoubtedly must involve putting the emphasis in the period immediately ahead on deep-rooted legal and semilegal mass work, while preserving underground the military apparatus of the resistance.
The growing militancy in the occupied territories, the radicalization of the Palestinian masses within the 1967 borders of the Israeli state, and the appearance of an Iraeli revolutionary vanguard drawing its strength from a real, though diffuse, anti-Zionist current among Israeli youth, offer militants of the Palestinian resistance a fertile field of activity if they are able to define a long-term strategy in the framework of the development of the Arab revolution in the Middle East.
The Palestinian revolution is entering a new phase whose most salient characteristic may be thereappearance of the national liberation movement within the Israeli state, which, because of its Zionist and therefore quasicolonial nature, can't avoid reproducing colonial relations vis-à-vis the Arab population within its own borders.
During this period, the key question for the future of the Palestinian resistance will be its joining with the Israeli vanguard and their common integration into a revolutionary front in the Arab East.
Notes
2. The leaders of the future Palestinian state will have to make themselves instruments of Zionist repression. There is reason to doubt that Tel Aviv intends to withdraw from some of the territories conquered in 1967 in order to offer the fedayeen armed bases and jumping-off points for assaults on Israel. In practice, this means that the setting up of the Palestinian state will be conditional upon the willingness of the leaders of the state to liquidate the P lestinian resistance, whatever they may say about their long-term goals.