Camp David, the new conflict in Lebanon, and the tripartite Washington conference have again placed the Middle East at the center of world attention. The situation continues to change constantly and the periods of equilibrium that develop are extremely precarious and fragile. However, over the past two months there have been tangible changes in the relationship of forces and in the situation of the principal protagonists.
The results of Camp David are clear in their basic outline. The Zionist government of Israel can rightly claim victory. It was able to deepen the split among the Arab states; neutralize Egypt, the principal Arab military force; avoid any form of recognition of the Palestinian movement; and is now even less disposed to accept any plan for an independent Palestine. In the not too distant future Israel also hopes to obtain economic advantages, which are not unimportant given the growing diffi. culties and tensions in its economy and the inevitable repercussions these have in the social arena.
To a large extent the Egyptian government has traded off its present isolation within the Arab world for strengthened ties with imperialism, with the prospect of long-term support in all fields, and for the advantage of appearing to the masses to have ended a war that official propaganda successfully portrays as the cause of the economic difficulties and growing impoverishment of the overwhelming majority of the people.
The Carter adminstration was successful in pushing the USSR out of the picture, portraying the United States as the only power able to play a decisive role. It also preserved and strengthened the traditional American alliance with Zionism, which remains a cornerstone of imperialist strategy in the region, while at the same time reconsolidating its links with the largest Arab countries.
Among the losers, the biggest is the Palestinian movement, which was left out of the game. Particularly hard hit was the moderate Arafat leadership, which had backed the ministate compromise solution and has now not only lost the partial recognition previously won but has also been explicitly denied the right to determine the fate of the West Bank and the Gaza strip. The empty protests and proclamations of solidarity from the "steadfastness front" are meager consolation even on the purely propagandistic plane.
The second biggest loser is Syria, which could in the near future find itself in a confrontation with Israel and imperialism. Damascus is bogged down in an increasingly inextricable situation in Lebanon, with no concrete perspective for solving its special problems.
The USSR is also a loser. It was unable to exert the slightest influence in the whole affair and to get back into the game it now has only one ally, hardly worthy of confidence-Assad's Syria.
The conservative Arab states-Saudi Arabia and Jordan-are in an uncomfortable position. In the last analysis they have everything to gain from a solution based on a perspective of Pax Americana. At the same time they have been pushed completely to the sidelines and were confronted with a fait accompli. Above all they fear that the Palestinians, who now have no hope for a "peaceful solution" to their national problem, may undergo a radicalization leading toward the replacement of their present leadership, or at least leading to situations of conflict that could mobilize the masses of other Arab contries. That is why they refused to get involved with Camp David, while leaving the door ajar.
The events in Lebanon, on the other hand, have served abrupt notice on all the mouthpieces of imperialism who hailed Camp David as a triumph for peace, reminding them that a lasting peace will not be achieved piecemeal or through separate agreements. In fact, any solution, even partial, touches on the interests of a whole range of forces. And any momentary equilibrium runs the risk of being overturned in short order.
The bourgeois mass media has raised a howl about the activities of the Svrian army, while trying to make us forget the role played by the reactionary militias of Chamoun and Gemayel. Those who endorsed all the reprisals of the Zionist government and all the massacres against the Palestinian resistance from Jordan to Tell Zaatar have no right to raise their voices in condemnation of the Syrian bombardment of Beirut.
The ones really responsible for the pres. ent tragedy, as well as for the tragedies of the past thirty years in that part of the world, are the Zionists, the imperialists, and the representatives of the Arab ruling classes. Despite their contradictory interests, these forces have worked together to prevent the Palestinian people from exercising their right to self-determination and to assert their independence. They were motivated primarily by fear that the Arab masses would revolt against the poverty and oppression they suffer, opening up an anti-imperialist battle with an anticapitalist dynamic.
The Syrian counterattack is a direct consequence of Camp David. Assad is faced with the perspective of an unfavorable evolution in the relationship of forces if the Camp David accords are concretized. In particular he is faced with the possibility that the Lebanese reactionaries and Israel, backed by the United States, might try to impose a settlement that is unfavorable to Syria regarding the problems that concern it most directly.
Such a settlement could undermine the base of the Syrian government, which rests on an unstable balance of forces and maintains itself through harsh repression. That is why Assad and company want to exploit whatever breathing space they have, not only to strike militarily at the Lebanese reactionary front, but also to weaken the Christian community as a whole by carrying out blind massacres, by destroying the conditions necessary for its survival and eventually forcing it into a massive exodus.
This in no way means that the Syrian leaders are primarily concerned with defending the vital interests and aspirations of the Lebanese and Palestinian masses. The Syrian army intervened in Lebanon to block the progressive Lebanese and the Palestinians from gaining further ground; and the intervention was aimed directly against them. At this moment, conjunctural needs have led the Syrian bourgeoisie to reverse its tactical orientation, but it is by no means excluded that it may make other pirouettes.
Above all, Assad and company seek a solution that would help stabilize their regime, and they are not at all opposed to a compromise with Israel and the United States, though on different terms than those accepted by Egypt.
In the final analysis all the indigenous and international conservative forces have an interest in seeing the overall thrust of Camp David succeed; both Washington and Cairo have staked their hopes on this.
However, the Palestinian movement still exists and has not been substantially weakened by the Israeli aggression last March. Furthermore, the masses in the occupied territories reject any accords that trample on their rights, and the Arab ruling classes themselves are divided by contradictory interests. This means that Camp David and similar accords will have to be imposed, and by the most brutal methods. That will not be easy, and new conflicts are inevitable. In this sense recent events in Lebanon could be an anticipation of other dramatic developments on a much larger scale.
The revolutionary-Marxists of the region must continue their determined struggle for an overall solution to the problem of the Middle East demanding, within a perspective that is both anti-imperialist and anticapitalist, recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to selfdetermination and independence, and the right of the exploited Arab masses to organize independently.
This means the immediate withdrawal of Zionist troops from all occupied areas, a demand that is part of the struggle against the Zionist state of Israel; the withdrawal of United Nations troops from Lebanon; and the dissolution of the reactionary armed gangs of Chamoun and Gemayel. It also means rejecting any illusions regarding the supposedly progressive role of the Syrian army, whose presence in Lebanon is intended to serve the interests of the Syrian bourgeoisie and its ruling group. That is why Syrian troops must also leave Lebanon.
The Lebanese masses and Palestinian militants should not entrust their defense to any imperialist army, whether or not it is camouflaged by the UN flag, nor to any supposedly national bourgeois army. The
Palestinians must continue their armed struggle independent of every Arab state and strive to achieve a strategic convergence of the struggles of the Palestinian masses, both inside and outside the occupied zones, with the struggles of the masses of all the Arab countries against imperialism and their native ruling classes, and with the coming struggles of the exploited Israeli masses themselves.
The Lebanese workers, peasants, and students must organize their own mass self-defense and must struggle to win or regain their democratic rights, in order to totally secularize Lebanon, and to convoke a constituent assembly elected through proportional representation, by a single voting list and on a nondenominational basis.