The proposals for military disengagement in the Middle East drawn up by US Secretary of State Kissinger, agreed with Israel last weekend, and now being discussed by the Egyptians, have been hailed on all sides as a "breakthrough". Nothing could be further from the truth.
What they represent in fact is a manoeuvre to prevent the Geneva peace talks from foundering, given the wide distance which soparates the protagonists on all the 'substantive issues", let alone the problem of the Palestinians. They also represent an attempt by Kissinger to draw Syna - which has so far preferred to watch developments from afar into the constant round of bargaining.
Essentially, the talk about disengagement is • ploy to conceal the fragility of the Geneva set-up and the extreme difficulty of forging a stable and durable imperialist peace in the area. PALESTINIANS No peace settlement has any chance of successwhatever the agreements between the Egyptian and israci generals-unless it includes at least some gesture in response lo the aspirations of the Palestinians. If no pretence of a solution is forthcoming, then Palestine will remain a timebomb embedded in any eventual settlement. But the continued lip-service paid by the Arab regimes to the Palestinian cause is inspired simply by the need to retain mass support at home.
Right from the start of the Yom Kippur war, it was cleat that the Palestinians would be the losers regardless of the military outcome. The objective of the Arab ruling classes was clear: they hoped to win a prestige victory leading to the recovery of some of the occupied territories, which would then enable them to recognise the existence of the State of Ismael without too much loss of face.
This strategy naturally implied the isolation of the Palestinians in their struggle for national and democratic rights. What remained uncertain, however, was the attitude of the organisations of the Palestinian Resistance in this new conjuncture. And initially they expressed distrust of the new war and its real motives, reaffirming their intention to retain, under all circumstances, full freedom of initiative in the struggle for the liberation of Palestine.
RESISTANCE ISOLATED But the war turned to the political advantage of the Arab states. The Arab ruling classes could now at last, with the support of the Soviet Union, begin to apply their peace strategy. The Resistance found itself completely isolated, facing total destruction of its organisations if it continued the war alone.
It should be noted that the majority of the Resistance organisations, above all the PLO (which acts as a co-ordinating body) and Fateh, are structured in a totally anti-democratic way, Palestinian exiles outside a refugee camp - they were enthused by the October war, and want to carry the struggle through to the liberation of Palestine.
or else are strictly dependent on various Arab regimes (Saika-Syrian Ba'ath, Palestine Liberation Army -Iraqi Ba'ath). They are dominated by all powerful bureaucracies which possess substantial material privileges; hence the PLO displays all the characteristics of a State bureaucгасу.
Since political power is concentrated in the hands of these pre-State apparatuses, they have a tendency to capitulate in order to safeguard their existence as organisations. But at the same time the leaderships have to reckon with the opposition of their militant rank-and-file together with the Palestinian people in exile, in the refugee camps, who were enthused by the October war and want to carry the struggle through lo the liberation of Palestine UNPRINCIPLED COMPROMISES The vacillating positions of the PLO leadership): express this dual pressure. In the absence of a real revolutionary organisation of the Palestinian mases, it is probable that the tendency to capitulate and liquidate the struggle will win the day. The pressures of the Kremlin, which supplies the Resistance with much of its equipment, will undoubtedly strengthen this trend.
Yassir Arafat, the leader of both Fateh and the PLO, is straining every muscle to obtain a place at the Geneva conference. But by so doing, he is not only showing his willingness to engage the Resistance on the path of unprincip led compromises, but at the same time undermining his own hold over the Palestinians, since it is obvious that any peace established at Geneva can only be at the expense of the Palesfinian people.
This diplomatic struggle for representation is leading the PLO leadership to make concessions which only a few months ago would have been unthinkable, Thus Arafat is reliably reported to have declared to Sadat that, 'King Faisal of Arabia thinks and acts exactly like a fedayin of Fateh'. The powerful diplomatic and military support given by Saudi Arabia to Hussein during the massacre of the fedayin in September 1970 is well known; such counterrevolutionary statements are a clear indication of the political decay and degeneration of much of the Palestinian Resistance OCCUPIED TERRITORIES Mean while, resistance in the occupied territories has intensified since the October war. During the fighting, the Palestinians in the occupied territories stopped work en masse in solidarity with the Arab states, and in the last two months a new wave of unrest has swept the West Bank The Israelis have reacted sharply by deporting "trouble makers" to Jordan, and closing Bir-Zat college, neur Ramallah, described as a centre of agitation and subversive activity", Needless to say these measures were supported by Mapum, the left face' of the ruling Alignment, The Zionist regime will probably be compelled to give up the West Bank eventually in the peace talks (to whom Hussein or the PLOis as yet far from clear). But even at the eleventh hour, the occupation authorities are committing new crimes-deportations, blowing up of houses, etc-which only demonstrate the futility of trying to co-exist peacefully with the racist State of Israel, The overthrow of Zionism is a precondition for genuine peace between Arab and Jew in the Middle Hast.
ALAN ADLER