(The following article has been translated by Intercontinental Press from the November 1 issue of the Belgian revo lutionary-socialist weekly La Gauche.]
The current Lebanese crisis highlights once again the rapid spread of Palestinian revolutionary enthusiasm to the neighboring countries. In particular, this crisis confirms the eminently revolutionary role that the dynamics of the Palestinian resistance is playing in the Arab world.
A pole of attraction for the Arab youth, the fedayeen collectively constitute the present driving force of the Arab revo lution, if sometimes only unconsciously. Some Palestinian resistance move ments are far from thinking in terms of international revolution.
Even in Lebanon, which harbors a prosperous cosmopolitan bourgeoisie enriched by serving as middlemen in the transit of goods destined for the Near East and as bankers for the oil sheiks — a land of speculation and productive investment par excellence - even here the very foundations of the system are crumbling.
The Palestinian insurrectionary spirit is spreading, threatening the bourgeoisie and the comprador parasites, and thereby profoundly disturbing American imperialism, which considers the stability of this little country essential to the maintenance of its dominance in this region of the world.
From the beginning, Lebanon hashad the mission of serving as an axis for the penetration of Western capital. Let us remember that the autonomy of Upper Lebanon (the famous "Institutional Settlement") accorded by the Sublime Porte in 1864 resulted directly from Franco-British intrigues.
Since then the country has retained this special function, and the recent American guarantee of Lebanon's territorial integrity serves as a reminder of the importance the reactionary forces accord to maintaining this status quo. This importance was so great, more 1014
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NASSER: Beauticians have been called in for facial work on his reputation.
over, that the threat of Lebanon's toppling over onto the side of progressive nationalism in 1958 was enough to make the United States decide to send its marines there.
But the Lebanese state rests on a fiction. Centuries of colonialist intrigues have fanned religious hatreds, making it possible to divert class antagonisms into sectarian conflicts. The constitution itself provides a careful balance between the Maronite Christians and the Muslims aimed at counterbalancing the nationalism of the Arabs by the Christians' Western attachments. No one dares carry out a census for fear that the results would upset the equilibrium.
Actually, while there is indisputably a Lebanese community consciousness, especially in the urban Christian population (Beirut, for example), the Lebanese people are aware of the profound ties that bind them to the other fragments of the Arab nation artificially divided by the political Balkanization imposed on the region in 1918.
This was clearly to be seen during the recent days. As Le Monde recognized in an editorial, the youth have transcended the sectarian barriers and are resolutely orienting toward a revolution. The spectacular occupation by the Palestinian commandos - with tr approval of the inhabitants - of ts. Sabra section of Beirut as well as the nearer suburbs; and the generalized rebellion in Tripoli, where the Palestinian and Lebanese insurgents fought together indistinguishably, show the extent to which the Lebanese are conscious of the common fate that joins them to the Arab nation.
It is apparent that under the impetus of the Palestinian struggle the vanguard is maturing at an accelerated rate. This development has been expressed concretely in the regrouping of the three organizations professing to adhere to revolutionary Marxismthe Socialist Lebanon party, the Lebanese Communist Union, and the Marxist-Leninist Legions (very close to the Democratic Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine). And these far left forces are in position to rapidly outdistance the traditional leadership of notables who have "colonialized" the Lebanese political parties.
The present insurrectionary wave has spread out from the Palestinian refugee camps, although they have been systematically isolated from the surrounding population by the authorities. The refugee communities struck back with an energetic offensive against attempts by the Lebanese army to encircle and impose surveillance on them. The army's objective presumably was to bring the fedayeen to heel or to liquidate them outright. This strategy, however, enabled the Palestinians to secure control of the Tripoli-Lattaquié national highway as well as several police posts. The attempt to crush the Palestinian guerrillas thus ended in failure.
The result was a "Jordanization" of the situation in Lebanon. As in the Hashemite kingdom, the Palestinian commandos are tending to form an Arab state within a state, building up a military and administration network parallel to the official Lebanese institutions and armed forces. This situation guarantees freedom of action for the Palestinians and, in the event of new revolutionary developments among the Lebanese population, might ci stitute the beginnings of real duas power, consolidating Palestinian and
Lebanese popular militias against the army of the Lebanese bourgeois state.
It is this revolutionary process that Nasser is endeavoring to block by his proposals of negotiations, trying to restore his faded reputation by setting imself up as an arbiter between the fedayeen and the Arab bourgeoisie.