about productivity (which will surely come). For too long they have been thought of as the deserving poor and they will no longer play this role.
And the effect that Mr. Powell was so worned about? it will inevitably affect the pupils. No more can thin do-gooding ladies be able to churn out to the class the iniquities of strike action and how esponsible citizens do not hold peop] o ransom like this and in any case th pay you lose in striking will never be recouped by the increase that you might win. No, ladies, the days of the profes sional schoolmaster/mistress are gone: no longer will we talk in terms of fessional responsibility and hope that. someone will remember us in the wages battle; we have learnt, and we will not forget.
DUAL POWER?
But it is not the millenium, the barri cades are not about to rise. The question of dual power is not being posed, nor, following the excellent example of our French comrades, are we holding active strikes, i.e. occupying the schools and having seminars/general assemblies/meet ings with the school pupils:. that is as
DWARF The Editor and Editorial Board, The Designer, Circulating and Advertising Staff, Secretaries, Sellers, Readers of the Black Dwarf.
Dear Sirs, I was one of the people who originally welcomed a journal such as the Black Dwarf promised to be. I saw it as having a useful purpose in the left-wing revolutionary life of this island.
Lately, however, one thing has begun to worry me. I extend this worry to many other newspapers and journals of the "left" in this country. It concerns your attitude to Israel, and the activities of the so-called Palestine Liberation Movement.
I am in favour of Israel and the right of that country to exist. I do not believe in Jewish (or Israeli, if you like) people being blowr up while they are travelling in buses or sleeping in their flats.
I think that El Fatah are tools of Arab imperialism, and that they'd give a more genuine revolutionary impression if they started off by breaking the rotten despotic medieval regimes hem on so that their own feudal set-ups car never be threatened.
The whole British left has been duped into believing that El Fatah are genuine revolutionaries fighting Western Imperialism. The most one can say is that the conflict is no more than a frontier war between two empires, and this being so, there is no more right on one side estinians are fighting. He merely says they are "tools of Arab imperialism"; that the conflict is just "a frontier war". There are revanchist elements in the Arab countries. There is a frontier war between Israel and the Arab states. But this is not the centre of the Palestine problem. The Palestinians are fighting because they have been thrown out of their land by European settlers and oppressed by a specific form of colonialism, Zionism. This is not an anti-Semitic myth; it is history. None other than Moshe Dayan has straightforwardly stated: "They take us to be foreigners, invaders that took an Arab country and turned it into a Jewish state. And they are right about it. From their point of view we did it" (January 18, 1969).
There is another conflict, that between Israel and the Arab states. In 1948 the Arab states got involved for several reasons. They wanted to grab land for themselves (Jordan). They wanted to use the issue to quieten domestic contradictions (Egypt). There is also a deep, if sporadic, feeling of inter-Arab solidarity which crystallises on specific issues-Suez, Palestine, Algeriaand which impels regimes to intervene. Finally, there is the simple fact that if Israel is to become the home of the world's 14 million Jews, it will have to expand, and there are elements in Israel who want its boundaries to reach the Nile and the Euphrates.
The Arab states have always tried to control the Palestinians. At first this meant suppressing them. Independent political action by Palestin ians was banned in Jordan and Egypt. When the Palestinians did succeed in setting up their own nationalist organisation, Fath, the Arab states tried to smash it (the first Fath fighters to die were killed by the Jordanians) and set up their own puppet force, the Palestine Liberation Organisation, headed by Ahmad Shukheiry. After the June war it became impossible to suppress the Palestinians, especially as the regimes themselves were totally discredited. Moreover, they saw that the guerrillas would put pressure on Israel to negotiate. This is why they tolerate them. But they hope to control them and to defuse their own internal contradictions by so doing. Ultimately however, a genuinely revolutionary struggle by the Palestinians is in contradiction to the Arab States. The Democratic Front unlike El Fatah, has recognised this and has quite openly called for the overthrow of the existing Arab regimes by socialist revolutions.
What are the Palestinians to do? In the first place they are oppressed by Zionism; they must take up the struggle against it. But they can only succeed if there is successful revolution in the other Arab states and the example of militant struggle they are setting is a danger to these regimes. Since the June war there have been out- faced squarely, and can only be met by consistbreaks of guerrilla war in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Oman. There have been student and worker demonstrations in Egypt and Lebanon: There has also been a wave of peasant militancy in Egypt. These two struggles are clearly related, and The Black Dwarf has criticised those Pal estinian groups that do not make this essential connection (issues no. 19,no.22).
It is also incorrect to subsume all guerrilla activity under the smear-concept of "terrorism". Support for guerrilla war involves support for the military and political struggle. Individual and socialism. irresponsible terroristic actions carried out against targets in Europe ( El Al office in Athens) or against Israeli children do not invalidate the Palestinian cause, nor are they characteristic of the struggle being waged.
But if Israelis erect kibbutzim on stolen land they have supported the agression against Palestinians: Alan Sillitoe is concerned about the rights of Israelis: does he also respect the rights oj these Palestinians? If he is not prepared to oppose the eviction of one million Palestinians he is condoning a policy of colonialist agression.
He raises the issue of anti-semitism. The Palestinian problem is an important one,involving the fate of millions of people. It is also the result of a European phenomenon, anti-semitism, which led to the Jewish response of Zionism. If the British worker is not exercised about this issue now, this does not mean it is not important. If we had said that no-one should bother about anti-semitism in Poland because the British working man is not interested in it, we would rightly be accused of ignoring our responsibility as socialists to speak out on a major issue. The same applies to Palestine. The possibility of arousing anti-semitism disguised as anti-Zionism has got to be ently opposing anti-semitism wherever it is found. This miserable and vicious form of racism is still to be found in Britain and elsewhere, and until it is eliminated the Jews of the world will quite rightly feel insecure and many turn to wards the 'security' of Israel. For anyone concerned about resolving the Palestinian issue the fight against anti-semitism is of major importance. For unless anti-semitism is liquidated in the Middle East, peasants and workers, both Israeli and Arab, will never be able to construct There is another kind of racism, anti-Arab racism. This is prevalent in Europe and is quite rampant in Israel. It regards Arabs as inferior, lazy, murderous, corrupt etc. In talking of the guerrillas as "pirates and butchers" Sillitoe is falling into this kind of racist refusal to make a serious analysis of why the Palestinians are acting as they do, and to acknowledge their rights. This racialism must also be liquidated.