. VITALE WRITES ON ZIONISM AND THE ARAB WORLD
(The following review of a 32-page pamphlet, "La cuestién judia, el sionismo y el mundo 4rabe" (The Jewish Question, Zionism and the Arab World),* by Iwis Vitale, a well-known figure in the Chilean left, has been translated by World Outlook from the October issue of Punto Final, a pro-Cuban magazine published in Santiago, Chile.]
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* Published by Impresora Delta, Santiago, Chile. 1967.
A controversial subject which Vitale analyzes -- “why the conflict was a genuine test that revealed the disorientation existing in the ranks of the left in contrast to the homogeneity among the bourgeois parties." Taking Zionism as the target of his attack, in view of the role it plays as the ruling political movement of Israel, the author sets out to demonstrate the falseness of its arguments, insisting that his criticisms are directed against it and not against the Jewish people. Vitale presents the Arab-Israeli conflict "not in the abstract and outside
of time, but in a concrete historical context: in the epoch of colonial and social revolution."
On the basis of a number of facts that make the document interesting, the pamphlet ends with a series of conclusions which we summarize as follows: (a) imperialism has carried on a permanent aggression against the Arab peoples; (b) one should defend, not the governments, but the conquests of the Egyptian people; (c) the defeat of the Arabs was a victory for imperialism and a setback for the world revolution -- it strengthened the "dirty war" being waged by the United States in Vietnam and improved its position for an attack against China; (d) the course of the military operations showed that the pro-imperialist government of Israel was calculating on taking the initiative; (e) "the policy of the Soviet bureaucracy was just as vacillating as in the Caribbean crisis of 1962 if not more so"; (f) the Arab governments, incapable of achieving unity because of their bourgeois pplicies, displayed complete absence of coordination; (g) the vanguard workers of the Arab countries have witnessed the fact that unity is not feasible under religious slogans but only on the basis of an intransigent class line.
In short, a thoughtful contribution on a problem of our time that has been the subject of impassioned debate. Every studious person should include it in his library.