“ALLIANCE!”
MARXIST-LENINIST
Summer
2005
________________________________________________________________
Bombings and assassinations continue in
Lebanon. The latest victim of this wave of terror was the 67-year old George Hawi,
who was killed when a bomb detonated in
his car; the former leader of the Lebanese Communist Party lost his
life on
June 21st, only a day after the so-called “anti-Syrian bloc” claimed victory in
the
parliamentary elections. The White House immediately accused Damascus
and
angrily linked Syria's ‘long and continued presence’ in Lebanon to
George Hawi's assassination and demanded a
formal investigation
into his death. “These are not random killings,
these
are targeted assassination of political figures," charged White House
spokesman Scott
McClellan. On June 22nd, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
warned Syria and prompted it to end destabilization activities in
Lebanon,
obviously referring to George Hawi's
assassination.
The assassination of Hawi is and very
probably will
be only one of several links in the chain of terrorist actions aimed at
destabilizing Lebanon, pushing this unfortunate country into a spiral
of
renewed civil war and isolating the Syrian regime and forcing it into
capitulation. The recent despicable acts of terror began with the
killing of
billionaire capitalist and former prime minister Rafiq Hariri
on February 14th, 2005. On March 19th, a
bomb explosion in the Christian suburb of Beirut wounded 11 people. On
March
23rd, another bomb killed three people in the Christian town Kaslik north of Beirut. On April 1st, a bomb
explosion
wounded seven people in Broumana, a
mountain resort
overlooking Beirut and the Mediterranean coastline.
After a lull in May, bombings have begun once again. On June 2nd, Samir Qaseer,
a prominent journalist of An-Nahar
newspaper was killed after a bomb destroyed his car
in the Ashrafiyeh neighborhood of Beirut.
And this
was followed by the assassination of George Hawi.
* * * * *
In almost all these cases, Lebanese reactionaries, US imperialists,
some
Western powers, especially Britain and France, plus the Western
corporate media
immediately blamed Syria. The Damascus regime was accused of attempting
to
maintain its hold over Lebanon even after it had withdrawn its forces
there; it
was accused of attempting to intimidate its opponents in Lebanon and
aiming to
destabilize its smaller neighbor. Everybody in the corporate media has
automatically
assumed Syrian culpability as proven and a foregone conclusion. As
expected,
none of these mouthpieces of imperialist robbers have mentioned the
names of
the US and Israel among possible suspects. This has been so, despite
the fact
that, Washington and Tel Aviv terrorists have openly been advocating
and
practicing a policy of preventive strike and targeted assassination of
their
opponents, especially after the events of 11 September 2001. Besides, a
survey
of the historical record and the day to day conduct of US imperialists
and
their Zionist stooges provide us with innumerable instances of such
acts of
provocation and terror. Indeed, it will not be an exaggeration to argue
that,
they have long adopted state terrorism, including bombings and targeted
assassinations as a regular way of “neutralizing” and defeating their
opponents
or intimidating and pressuring them into submission and capitulation.
Furthermore, they have enriched the ancient art of provocation utilized
throughout history by the ruling classes and their intelligence
agencies. These
masters of deceit regularly undertake terrorist actions, which
frequently are
blamed on their enemies and opponents, by means of disinformation
campaigns.
Here, it would not come amiss to remind the reader that most of the
armed
attacks in the present-day Iraq targeting ordinary people, mosques, aid
workers, reporters, plus the gruesome killings of hostages and actions
targeting country’s already crumbling infrastructure, are conducted
either by
certain sections of the occupying US military and/ or the private
“security”
firms and puppet Iraqi elite forces under their control. By committing
bloody
and loathsome terrorist acts imperialist powers and their intelligence
agencies
aim to discredit and vilify revolutionary forces and resistance
movements and
to undercut their mass support. They also utilize such methods to build
up some
sort of reactionary mass support and to accuse, weaken and isolate
their
bourgeois opponents, such as Syria, which seems to be the case in the
present-day situation in Lebanon.
The recently exposed provocative and terrorist plans of the US military
shall
shed considerable light on the nature and aims of these methods. In the
early
1960s, the US military drafted plans to murder innocent civilians,
conduct a
wave of terror in American cities and in this manner create public
support for
a war of invasion against Cuba. These plans were collectively called Operation Northwoods
and envisaged the killing of Cuban
migrants, sinking boats of Cuban refugees at sea, hijacking planes and
blowing
up American ships. American generals even contemplated causing US
military
casualties to trick the Alerican people
into
supporting an invasion of Cuba. “We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba” wrote a general,
according
to James Balford,
who disclosed the dirty plans of the
military clique in his book Body of Secrets, “casualty lists in U.S.
newspapers
would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.”
Despite all attempts at disinformation and distraction on the part of
the
mouthpieces of the bourgeoisie, the sharpening of all basic
contradictions of
capitalist-imperialist system and the growth of fascist and militarist
sentiment among the most aggressive sections of finance capital, has
been
laying bare the terrorist nature of its advance guard, comprised of the
US,
Britain and Israel. In fact, in January 2003, Israel openly announced
its
intention to conduct a campaign of so-called targeted killings in the
US and
other friendly countries, in the context of a “more aggressive role in
the war
on terrorism”. Eight months before the September 11 attack, US
Representative Robert L Barr Jr had introduced a "Terrorist
Elimination
Act", which designated even the so-called al-Qaeda
fundraisers as legitimate targets for assassination. After the events
of 11
September 2001 and the subsequent declaration of the war on terrorism,
American
neo-fascists laid claim to unprecedented global jurisdiction. They
vowed to
pursue Osama bin Laden's
followers with force wherever they may be or hide.
One should not, however, be led to believe that, the US and Israel have
only now
- begun to tread a path of terrorism, that is a path of provocation, assasination and massacres -
only after the events of 11
September
2001.
First of all, this
feature has been inherent in the nature of the internal and external
policies
of all property-owning and exploiting classes throughout history.
Secondly, reactionary bourgeosie
and its apparata of
repression have further refined and developed this practice in the age
of
imperialism.
Thirdly, US
imperialists,
the main enemy of workers and oppressed peoples of the world, have been
directly or indirectly responsible for the killing of tens of millions
of
people in various parts of the world throughout the 20th century. One
should
only remember the massacres conducted by the death squads in El
Salvador and
Guatemala, planned and financed by the US military, the numerous
attempts of US
intelligence agencies on the lives of foreign leaders, such as Congo's Patrice Lumumba,
Cuba’s Fidel Castro,
Haiti's Jean-Claude Duvalier, Indonesia's Sukarno, South Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Diem,
the Dominican Republic's Rafael
Trujillo
and Chilean Chief of Staff Rene
Schneider, CIA-led Operation
Phoenix in Vietnam, in
which nearly 20,000 local leaders, such as mayors, doctors, teachers
suspected
of revolutionary sympathies were killed. In 1986, US President Ronald Reagan himself
ordered the bombing of Muammar Gaddafi’s
compound, remarking that he would shed no tear if the Libyan leader
were
killed. Another terrorist President of the US, George Bush Sr
made a similar remark in hitting Saddam
Hussein's palace in Baghdad in 1991. At
the time he stated that, “No one will weep for him when he is gone.”
His
successor, President Bill
Clinton prepared a secret memorandum
expanding the use of deadly covert actions and authorizing in 1998
lethal force
against al-Qaeda
and ordered the more or less systematic
bombardment of Iraqi territory which led to the killing of hundreds of
innocent
people and the degradation of the defensive capacity and the civilian
infrastructure
of this unfortunate country as a prelude to its invasion in March 2003.
As to Israel,
its brief political life span has been characterized by a rich
inventory of
state terrorism, including, torture, provocation, assassination and
massacres.
Let’s take a look at a few instances of the record of the Zionist
state.
After the creation of Israel in 1948, Zionists worked relentlessly to
create
fear among Jews in the Arab countries to insure the migration of the
Jews of
Middle Eastern countries into Israel. This tactic of terror was
successfully
employed in Yemen, Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia.
According to the detailed accounts of Naim Giladi,
for instance, to provoke the departure of Jews from Iraq, Zionist
agents
carried out bombings against synagogues and other Jewish institutions
in
Baghdad at the beginning of the 1950s. Zionists were also successful in
inducing through bribes the puppet Iraqi government to pass
anti-Semitic laws
which further encouraged Jewish immigration into Israel.
In July 1954 Israeli government agents conducted several acts of
sabotage
against British & US property in Egypt. Israel aimed at
incriminating
“Egyptian terrorists”, thus driving a wedge between Britain &
Egypt, and
postponing British evacuation of the Suez Canal. The plan failed.
Several
Israeli agents were caught by Egyptian authorities, who confessed to
their
crimes during their open trials. This fiasco led to the resignation of
the
Israeli “Defence” Minister Pinhas Lavon in February 1955.
On April 27th, 1997 Yediot Aharonot
published a
1976 interview with Moshe Dayan. Dayan,
who was the defense minister in 1967, explains there
what led, then, to the decision to attack Syria.
At
the time of the Six Day War of June 1967, Syria was portrayed as a
serious
threat to the security of Israel, and a constant initiator of
aggression
towards the population of northern Israel. But according to Dayan,
neither before 1967, not after that date did Syria constitute
a threat to Israel.
“Just drop it”, he says, “I know how at
least 80% of all the incidents with Syria started. We were sending a
tractor to
the demilitarized zone and we knew that the Syrians will shoot. If they
did not
shoot, we would instruct the tractor to go deeper, till the Syrians
finally got
upset and start shooting. Then we employed artillery, and later also
the
air-force... I did that... and Itzhak Rabin did that, when he was there
(as commander of the Northern front, in the early sixties).”
The instances of systematic bombing of
Palestinian and Lebanese civilian population by the Israeli army, use
of car
bombs to eliminate Israel’s opponents, launching of missiles from armed
helicopter and warplanes at the leaders and members of resistance
movements,
demolition of homes of the people by armed bulldozers and destruction
of
Palestinian and Lebanese economy and infrastructure etc. are too
numerous and
too well known to be mentioned separately here. Therefore, it is
obvious that
–together with its American boss and partner- the terrorist Israeli
state is a
much more likely candidate for the recent terror attacks in Lebanon.
Besides,
as the following analysis demonstrates, Israel has been and remains
committed
to a divided, weakened and destabilized Lebanon, which has been a
regular
target of Israeli aggression and was under the occupation of the
Zionists for
nearly a quarter of a century.
Especially under the present
circumstances, neither
Syria and Iran nor the Lebanese Hezbollah
have anything to gain from the assassination of Rafiq
Hariri that took place on February 14th.
They also do
not have anything to gain from the bombings and assassinations that
have
followed it. One, however, cannot say the same for the US and Israel,
who more
or less openly pronounce their intentions of redrawing the map of the
Middle
East in accordance with their interests, of enhancing the “security” of
the
Zionist state, their aim of securing the control of oil and natural gas
sources
and their “right” to assassinate, destroy and terrorize all who stand
in their
way.
Here I present a recent analysis of the Hariri
assassination, the starting point of the last spate of terrorist acts
in
Lebanon. I hope it will shed some light over the causes behind the
continuing
acts of violence in this unfortunate country.
Garbis Altinoglu,
21 June
2005
The
Significance of the Assassination of Rafiq
Hariri in the Light of the Strategic and
Tactical
Objectives of Israel
11-15
March 2005
Introduction
A very professionally executed act of assassination resulted in
the
death of Rafiq Hariri,
former prime minister of Lebanon on February 14th by a very powerful
bomb. A
hitherto unheard of organization called “Victory and Holy War in Syria and Lebanon”
claimed responsibility for the assasination.
Right
after the event, the US, Israel and the imperialist media put the blame
on
Syria. In tandem with this propaganda campaign, the reactionary
Lebanese
opposition led by Maronite Christian
bourgeoisie and
their opportunistic allies (mainly “Progressive Socialist Party” of Druzes and some Sunni politicians) took to the
streets to
demand the withdrawal of Syrian troops and an end to the Syrian
domination over
Lebanon. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
upbraided Syria, while Margaret
Scobey, the American ambassadress in
Damascus was withdrawn. Already, the Bush clique and its mouthpieces
had for
months repeatedly marshalled their lies
and slanders
with regard to the support Syria was allegedly providing to the enemies
of the
US and Israel; Damascus was being accused of helping the Iraqi
resistance,
harboring Iraqi Baathist chiefs and
weapons of mass
destruction, supporting the Palestinian resistance and Hezbollah
“terrorists”, which had to be disarmed, if progress was to be made
towards a
“peace” between Palestine and Israel.
The Current
Significance of Hariri Assassination
The causes and motives behind this assassination cannot be understood
by
observing solely Lebanon, where the wounds of the long drawn-out civil
war have
not been healed entirely. Neither can these causes and motives be
understood by
solely observing the present-day Middle Eastern scene. These latest
developments in Lebanon can only be understood in the light of the
decades-long
imperialist-Zionist strategy of liquidation of Palestinian revolution,
almost
two decades-long imperialist-Zionist strategy of dismemberment of Iraq
and
present imperialist-Zionist aggression targeting the Palestinian, Iraqi
and
Lebanese resistance movements and the regimes in Syria and Iran.
Moreover, the track record of the Zionist bourgeoisie has clearly shown
and
continues to show that it can go to any lengths to achieve its evil
ends. These
include torture, systematic killing of civilians, including children,
poisoning
of wells, assassination of both opponents and “friends”, systematic use
of
provocations, widespread deception and disinformation, violation of all
international treaties and trampling of all known norms of civilized
conduct,
massive bombings of residential areas etc.
In view of these incontrovertible facts, we can start to discuss the
matter and
ask that classical and salient question:
Who has gained
from the assassination of the multibillionaire capitalist and the
former prime
minister? Whose agenda has been served and promoted through this
barbaric act? Who
stands to profit from the ignition of the flames of civil war of
1975-1990 in
this country, during which tens of thousands had been killed and the
economy
and infrastructure was thoroughly destroyed?
Was not this civil war provoked by
Israel, who
held its southern half under a brutal occupation for 22 years? Was
not this country the target of several military operations and
invasions of
Israel, whose policy included systematic killing of political and
military
leaders of Palestinian and Lebanese resistance, by car bombs, armed
helicopters
and missile strikes?
It is patently clear that neither Hezbollah
and
Palestinian resistance, nor Syria and Iran, who have been declared as
enemies,
terrorists, rogue states etc and targeted by the axis of evil comprised
of the
US, Israel and Britain and therefore are under threat of aggression, do
not
stand to gain anything from the assassination of Rafiq
Hariri.
It is beyond a shadow of doubt
that this act of assassination benefits only,
a) Israel, who has been acting in keeping with the fascist principle of
“preventive war” and been preparing its plans of aggression against
Syria and
Iran in front of the whole world,
b) the US imperialism, the boss and partner of Israel and
c) the reactionary Maronite bourgeoisie of
Lebanon,
the lackey of the US and Israel.
The Syrian bourgeoisie, who already has been pushed into a corner and
accused
of various attempts to undermine the Israeli-Palestinian “peace”
process and
the US effort to crush Iraqi resistance, cannot be expected to be
behind this
act of assassination and play into the hands of its enemies, who are
looking
for excuses to further isolate Damascus and move against it; nor can it
be
expected to alienate its vacillating neghbors
in
Lebanon and the Arab world in general and help to push cowardly and
hypocritical Western European and Russian imperialists into the arms of
Washington and Telaviv. So, these
allegations do not
amount to anything beyond third rate disinformation work.
Flynt Leverett,
who served
on the National
Security Council under George W. Bush as the Senior Director
for Mideast Affairs, from February 2002 to
March 2003 conceded
this state of affairs to a certain extent in his article “Don’t Rush on
the
Road to Damascus”, published in New York Times on March 2nd, 2005. In
this
article, he urged the Bush administration to move cautiously in any
attempt to
force Syria out of Lebanon, citing pitfalls that could well result in
the
strategy backfiring; he drew attention to the fact that any effort to
engineer
pro-Western Lebanese government would be resisted by Hezbollah,
largest party in Lebanon's Parliament, which because of its record in
fighting
Israel is at least as legitimate in Lebanese eyes as the anti-Syrian
opposition
and contended that efforts to establish pro-Western government would
fail,
creating more instability in region when the US can ill afford it.
There is,
however, very little data indicating that the more realistic views of
this representative
of the more cautious sections of American imperialism are heeded.
By putting the blame on the shoulders of Syrian bourgeoisie for the
assassination of Rafiq Hariri,
imperialist and Zionist reactionaries are in reality targeting armed
Palestinian,
Iraqi and Lebanese resistance and to a certain extent the Damascus
regime and
the nuclear ambitions of Iran.
That is the
real reason behind the endless reactionary bourgeois demagogy over
terrorism,
rogue states, democracy, women’s rights, proliferation of nuclear
weapons,
dictatorship etc.
A Look at the Recent
Past
The invasion of Iraq and its “neutralization” as a potential
threat
to Israel, had been planned years, if not decades before. The embargo
enforced
upon Iraq in the wake of the Second Gulf War of 1991, led to the death
of more
than 1 million people in this country according to the UN, to the
destruction
of Iraq’s economy, infrastructure and public services. The US, Britain
and
France also established no-fly zones in the north and south of the
country and
imposed an illegal ban on the entry of Iraqi armed forces into Iraqi
territory
north of the 36th parallel (that is Southern Kurdistan) and south of
33rd
parallel (that is part of the region inhabited by Iraqi Shiites).
Together with
the embargo, this ban constituted a sort of prologue to the invasion of
Iraq
and the operation to redesign the map of the Middle East. Therefore,
the Clinton
years - when there occurred a slow-motion
genocide of
Iraqi people - was in essence no different than the reign of
neo-fascist Bush
clique following the elections of 2000.
Still, these neo-fascist forces, who represented the most reactionary
sections
of American finance capital were raising their voices even during the
Clinton
era; they were pressing for a more aggressive policy vis-a-vis
other imperialist powers for the “protection” of the positions of the
US, for
strengthening and extension of the control of the US on oil and natural
gas
resources of the Middle East and Central Asia, for taking more radical
steps to
improve the strategic position of Israel and for crushing the
resistance of
workers and of peoples through more naked, extensive and systematic
military
aggression. For instance, David
Wurmser, Vice
President Dick
Cheney’s Middle East Advisor, Douglas Feith,
Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, Richard Perle,
former
Chairman of the Defence Policy Board and a member of the Advisory Board
of
JINSA (=Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs) had published a
report to
be presented to the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu back in July 1996.
The report,
entitled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for
Securing
the Realm”, urged the Zionist bourgeoisie to abandon the
traditional of
“land for peace” formulation and to adopt a more aggressive policy.
Smearing
the Hezbollah-led resistance of Lebanese
people
against the UN-condemned Israeli occupation as “aggresion”
in a spirit of utter hypocrisy and advocating the weakening of Syria
and the
overthrow of the Saddam Hussein
regime, the report told:
“Syria
challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An effective approach, and one with
which
Americans can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic
initiative
along its northern borders by engaging Hezbollah,
Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon,
including
by:
*striking Syria’s drug-money and counterfeiting infrastructure in
Lebanon, all
of which focuses on Razi Qanan.
*paralleling Syria’s behavior by establishing the precedent that Syrian
territory is not immune to attacks emanating from Lebanon by Israeli
proxy
forces.
*striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove
insufficient, *striking at select targets in Syria proper.
Israel also can take this opportunity to remind the world of the nature
of the
Syrian regime. Syria repeatedly breaks its word. It violated numerous
agreements with the Turks, and has betrayed the United States by
continuing to
occupy Lebanon in violation of the Taef agreement in 1989. Instead, Syria
staged a sham election, installed a quisling regime, and forced Lebanon
to sign
a "Brotherhood
Agreement" in 1991, that
terminated
Lebanese sovereignty. And Syria has begun colonizing Lebanon with
hundreds of
thousands of Syrians, while killing tens of thousands of its own
citizens at a
time, as it did in only three days in 1983 in Hama…
Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey
and
Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This
effort can
focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important
Israeli
strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s
regional
ambitions.”
In 1997, that
is more than three years before the Bush clique took the reins of
power,
American, Israeli and Lebanese neo-fascist forces had organized the USFCL (=United
States Committee for a Free Lebanon) chaired by Ziad K. Abdulnoor,
a Lebanese Christian banker. The
USFCL, which had the support of Christian fundamentalist and
pro-Zionist organizatations, such as
JINSA, Project for a New American
Century, American Enterprise Institute, Center for Security Policy, US
Institute for Peace, stated its purpose to be “to rid the Middle East
of
dictatorships, radical ideologies, border disputes, political violence
and
weapons of mass destruction.” In fact, the forces who formed and
supported the
USFCL were none others than those who in October 1992 had formed and
supported
the Iraqi
National Congress, led by Ahmad Chalabi.
In 1998,
during the Clinton administration, US imperialists, who had been
responsible
for the death of more than a million Iraqi children, women and elderly
due to
the UN Security Council embargo, had proclaimed “The Iraq Liberation
Act” and
thus prepared the political infrastructure for the invasion of this
country in
March 2003.
In 2000, David Wurmser helped to draft a somewhat
similar
document entitled “Ending Syria’s Occupation
of
Lebanon: the US Role?” This document called for a confrontation
with the
regime in Damascus, which it accused of developing “weapons of mass
destruction.”
Among those signing the document were Feith
and Perle, as well as Elliott Abrams, Bush’s chief advisor
on the
Middle East, who was recently appointed deputy national security
advisor.
This document urged the use of US military force, claiming that the
1991
Persian Gulf War had proven that Washington “can act to defend its
interests
and principles without the specter of huge casualties.” It continued:
“But this
opportunity may not wait, for as weapons-of-mass-destruction
capabilities
spread, the risks of such action will rapidly grow. If there is to be
decisive
action, it will have to be sooner rather than later.”
In April 2003 Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
warned:
"There's
got to be a change in Syria."
And in
December 2003, Bush administration passed “The Syria Accountability and
Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act” into law with the support of the
US
Congress in an effort to prepare the US and world public opinion for
the
envisaged invasion of Syria and/ or the overthrow of the Syrian regime.
In brief, at least part of the ruling classes of the US, Israel and
Britain had
decided upon the destabilization and if possible invasion and
dismemberment of
Syria and Iran along with Iraq, long before the events of 11 September
2001 and
before the advent of George W. Bush’s presidency.
This
observation, however, will not take us to the origin of the story. A
cursory
examination of the process of formation and history of Israel,
shall be enough to disclose the fact that the policy and strategy of
this
illegitimate child of British and US imperialists has all along been
characterized by naked aggression as well as plots and intrigues
against the
countries and peoples of the region. As Edward W. Miller had said in his May
1996
article, titled “Lebanon, Israel’s Killing Fields”, “The basic Zionist
plot is
unchanged, only new players have appeared on Israel's stage.”
Expansionist
Strategy of the Zionist Bourgeoisie
Zionist chiefs
had formulated their ambitions toward Lebanon, decades before the
formal
foundation of Israel. In 1918 during their discussions with the British
authorities, they had demanded the extension of the northern borders of
Palestine, then under British mandate, to the Litani
river in Southern Lebanon. At the time of
the armed clashes
between Palestinian/ Arab and Jewish forces in 1947-48, Zionist
military units
had approached the Litani river,
but had to retreat under intense international pressure. In 1954,
during the
discussions with the representatives of the Eisenhower administration, İsraeli leaders had gone so far as to threaten
the use
of force against Lebanon in case it utilized the waters of the Litani river for the
economic
development of Southern Lebanon.
Former Israeli
Prime Minister Moshe
Sharett’s
diaries, which were published posthumously by his son in the face of
the
threats of Zionists, expose the targets and intrigues of Israel. In her
book, “Israel’s Sacred
Terrorism”, Livia Rokach
presents
extensive excerpts from Sharett’s diaries.
“Sharett's
Diary, however,” says Rokach,
“provides the entire documentation of how in 1954 Ben Gurion
developed the diabolic plans to ‘Christianize’ Lebanon, i.e., to invent
and
create from scratch the inter-Lebanese conflict, and of how a detailed
blueprint for the partition and subordination of that country to Israel
was
elaborated by Israel more than fifteen years before the Palestinian
presence
became a political factor in Lebanon.”
In another
section of the book, we come across another facet of Zionist
aggression:
“On May 16,
during a joint meeting of senior officials of the defense and foreign
affairs
ministries,” writes Sharett,
“Ben
Gurion again raised the demand
that Israel do
something about Lebanon. The moment was particularly propitious, he
maintained,
due to renewed tensions between Syria and Iraq, and internal trouble in
Syria.
Dayan immediately
expressed his enthusiastic support:
“According to him [Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan]
the
only thing that's necessary is to find an officer, even just a Major.
We should
either win his heart or buy him with money, to make him agree to
declare
himself the savior of the Maronite
population. Then
the Israeli army will enter Lebanon, will occupy the necessary
territory, and
will create a Christian regime which will ally itself with Israel. The
territory from the Litani southward will
be totally
annexed to Israel and everything will be all right. If we were to
accept the
advice of the Chief of Staff we would do it tomorrow, without awaiting
a signal
from Baghdad... (16 May 1954)
“The Chief of
Staff supports a plan to hire a [Lebanese] officer who will agree to
serve as a
puppet so that the Israeli army may appear
as
responding to his appeal ‘to liberate Lebanon from its Muslim
oppressors.’ This
will of course be a crazy adventure.... We must try to prevent
dangerous
complications. The commission- must be charged with research tasks and
prudent
actions directed at encouraging Maronite
circles who reject Muslim pressures and
agree to lean on us.” (28
May 1954)
The Zionist
bourgeoisie has consistently followed a line of gradual colonization of
Palestine and seizing Palestinian land by naked force; moreover, it has
always
conducted a strategy of “divide and rule” vis-a-vis
its other neighbors, including Lebanon and that of supporting separationist movements of non-Arab minorities
in Arab
countries, a strategy of expansionism, terrorism and war. Oded Yinon,
a former senior analyst with the ministry
of foreign affairs of Israel stated the position of the Zionist
bourgeoisie
quite frankly in an article published in February 1982 in a journal
called ‘Kivunim’
(=Directions). Here he told:
“In reality,
however, Egypt's power in proportion both to Israel alone and to the
rest of
the Arab World has gone down about 50 percent since 1967. Egypt is no
longer
the leading political power in the Arab World and is economically on
the verge
of a crisis. Without foreign assistance the crisis will come
tomorrow... Egypt,
in its present domestic political picture, is already a corpse, all the
more so
if we take into account the growing Moslem-Christian rift. Breaking
Egypt down
territorially into distinct geographical regions is the political aim
of Israel
in the Nineteen Eighties on its Western front.
“Egypt is divided and torn apart into many foci of authority. If Egypt
falls
apart, countries like Libya, Sudan or even the more distant states will
not
continue to exist in their present form and will join the downfall and
dissolution of Egypt. The vision of a Christian Coptic State in Upper
Egypt
alongside a number of weak states with very
localized
power and without a centralized government as to date, is the key to a
historical development which was only set back by the peace agreement
but which
seems inevitable in the long run.
“The Western front, which on the surface appears more problematic, is
in fact
less complicated than the Eastern front, in which most of the events
that make
the headlines have been taking place recently. Lebanon's total
dissolution into
five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world
including Egypt,
Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula is
already
following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into
ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel's
primary
target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of
the
military power of those states serves as the primary short term target.
Syria
will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure,
into
several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi'ite Alawi state
along its
coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in
Damascus
hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes
who
will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of
affairs will
be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run,
and that
aim is already within our reach today.
“Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is
guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even
more
important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In
the short
run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel.
An
Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home
even
before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us.
Every kind
of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will
shorten
the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into
denominations as in
Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along
ethnic/religious
lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more)
states
will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi'ite
areas in the
south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. It is possible
that the
present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation will deepen this polarization.”
(Italics
mine)
In his
article, “Israel:
The Ultimate Winner”, Palestinian political scientist Saleh Abdel-Jewwad
examined the strategy of the
Zionist bourgeoisie vis-a-vis its Arab
neighbors. His
article published in the 634th issue of Al Ahram
in 17-23 April
2003, confirmed the conclusions of Oded Yinon’s analysis:
“For this
reason, successive Israeli governments have adopted policies based on
the
principle of supporting non-Arab ethnic minorities such as the Kurds in
Iraq or
the Maronites in Lebanon. Literature on
the Zionist
movement -- particularly those published at the end of the 1930s and
the
beginning of the Arabisation of the
Palestinian
question -- indicate that the Zionist leaders in general, and yeshiva
leaders
in particular, placed their hopes and concerns on on
establishing relationships with every minority within the Arab world
and neighbouring non-Arab countries.
“Since the end
of the 1930s, Ben
Gurion articulated some
principles which
would become indisputable Zionist tenets:
“1. The Arabs are the primary enemy of the Zionist movement. To
confront this
chief enemy, it is necessary for Zionism to search for allies in the
East to
stand with its allies in the West. These are needed to act as a counter
force
and support the power of the Zionist project when faced with this
(primary)
confrontation. At the end of the day it is a 'bloody struggle between
us and them'.
Therefore, any group or sect which opposes Arab nationalism – ‘the
primary
enemy of the Jewish people’-- or is prepared to fight against it, is an
ally
which helps Zionism implement its settlement and state-driven
policies...
“It is against this backdrop that Israel has supported secessionist
movements
in Sudan, Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon and any secessionist movements in the
Arab
world which Israel considers an enemy. Yet the concern for Iraq and its
attempts to weaken or prevent it from developing its strengths has
always been
a central Zionist objective. At times, Israel succeeded in gaining a
foothold
in Iraq by forging secret yet strong relationships with leaders from
the
Kurdish movement. In sharp contrast it failed to gain allies amongst
the Coptic
community in Egypt primarily because of the historical continuity of
the
Egyptian state.”
Zionist
Aggression Against
Lebanon
This strategic
approach of Israel to Lebanon, the weakest link in the Arab world, has
found
its expression in almost interminable interference in the internal
affairs of
this country and aggression against its people. In fact, the history of
Lebanese-Israeli relationship is a history of the military aggression
of
Zionist bandits against Lebanon under the protective wings of US and
British
imperialists. Here I mention the most significant instances of such
acts.
*In 1969,
under the pretext of retaliating against the killing of an Israeli
citizen in
Athens by an Arab, Zionist forces bombed the newly built Khalde
airport of Beirut. The airport complex and 13 civilian airplanes were
almost
entirely destroyed as a result of this attack.
*At the beginning of the 1970s, Zionists had started to launch more or
less
regular assaults on PLO bases in Southern Lebanon. This was directly
related to
the relocation of the main body of Palestinian resistance in Lebanon in
the
wake of the Black September days of 1971 in Jordan.
*In 1975-1976, a civil war took place in Lebanon between reactionary
and
fascist forces defending mainly the interests of Maronite
bourgeoisie and the progressive and leftist forces, defending mainly
the
interests of Druze and Sunnite Muslim
toilers allied
with Palestinian resistance. This war, which led to the death of tens
of
thousands of people and the destruction of the economy and
infrastructure of Lebanon was instigated by
Zionists. In fact, as I have
mentioned above, as far back as 1954, the latter were preparing plans
to
dismember Lebanon and establish a pro-Western and pro-Israeli Christian
state
there.
On 27 February
1954, Ben Gurion,
the founding father of Israel, had
written a letter to Prime Minister Moshe Sharett.
“It is clear”
he said, “that Lebanon is the weakest link in the Arab League... The
creation
of a Christian State is therefore a natural act; it has historical
roots and it
will find support in wide circles in the Christian world, both Catholic
and
Protestant. In normal times this would be almost impossible... But at
times of
confusion, or revolution or civil war, things take on another aspect,
and even
the weak declares himself to be a hero.
Perhaps (there
is never any certainty in politics) now is the time to bring about the
creation
of a Christian State in our neighborhood. Without our initiative and
our
vigorous aid this will not be done. It seems to me that this is the
central
duty - for at least one of the central duties, of our foreign policy.
This
means that time, energy and means ought to be invested in it and that
we must
act in all possible ways to bring about a radical change in Lebanon. Sasson
... and our other Arabists must be
mobilized...”
(Italics mine)
The growth of the progressive movement in Lebanon, with the support of
the
Palestinian resistance in the first half of the 1970s alarmed not only
reactionary Maronite bourgeoisie, but
their Zionist
and American backers as well. It was time for Zionists to implement
their
strategic plan of dismemberment of Lebanon. Long before the first shots
were
fired in the civil war of 1975-1976, Israel had been secretly supplying
weapons
and military training to the Lebanese rightists for several years.
Israel, like
the United States, wanted to see the Palestinians defeated in Lebanon.
In April 1975,
when a reporter asked Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin why Israel failed to
retaliate against a Fatah attack on a Tel
Aviv hotel,
he replied,
“We have
chosen not to reply to this operation because we are planning on and
waiting
for a confessional war in Lebanon which would have the same result.”
*Zionist forces once more invaded Lebanon in March 1978 up to the Litani river in
Southern Lebanon.
Around 1,000 people, mostly civilians were killed during the clashes
and
Israeli bombing of villages and towns. More than 250,000 civilians were
forced
to flee their homes. As a result of international pressure, Zionists
were
compelled to evacuate most of the territory they invaded. However, they
formed
a 100 km-long and 8 to 10 km-wide “security belt” at the
Lebanese-Israeli
border before they retreated. This “security belt” was manned by a
puppet
Christian mercenary force, called SLA (=South Lebanese Army) and led by
the
so-called Major
Saad Haddad.
*In July and August 1979, Israeli army conducted a heavy bombardment
against
Southern Lebanon, on the pretext of retaliating against the actions of
Palestinian guerillas. This assault was followed by the bombardment of
Beirut
in July 1981. Hundreds of people lost their lives and thousands were
wounded as
a result of these piratical acts of aggression.
*On 6 June 1982, Zionist forces began another major assault on Lebanon
under
the pretext of retaliating against an assassination attempt targeting
the
Israeli ambassador in London a few days before. During the assault
nicknamed
“Operation Peace in Galilee”, Israeli aggressors occupied a major part
of
Lebanon after bombing the Palestinian guerilla bases in Southern
Lebanon and
then proceeded to encircle Beirut itself on 13 July. The capital of
Lebanon was
pounded by Israeli artillery, tanks and warplanes for almost two months
and
reduced to rubble. 650 Israeli soldiers and 20, 000 Lebanese and
Palestinians,
most of whom were civilians, are estimated to have died as a result of
this
military operation.
In the wake of the retreat of Palestinian guerillas from Southern
Lebanon and
Beirut in the second half of August, Bashir Jemayel,
the leader of the reactionary “Lebanese forces” and a close ally of
Israel was
elected president of Lebanon. Jemayel was
assassinated on 14 September 1982. This immediately triggered a bloody
attack
by the Phalange militia of Bashir Jemayel
on unarmed Palestinian civilians residing in the Sabra and Shatilla
refugee camps in West Beirut. In the
Zionist-inspired and planned Sabra-Shatilla
massacre,
Lebanese reactionary mercenaries killed in cold blood approximately
3,000
women, elderly and children under the protection and supervision of the
Israeli
army.
*After the killing of 5 Israeli soldiers in the so-called “security
belt” in
Southern Lebanon, Zionist forces conducted another military operation
against
Lebanese people and resistance in July 1993. During this assault,
called “Operation
Accountability”, around 130 people, most of whom were
civilians,
were killed and 300,000 people forced to flee their homes.
*On 11-27 April 1996, Israeli army conducted another military operation
against
the Lebanese resistance led by the Hezbollah.
During
this attack, nicknamed “Operation
Grapes of Wrath”, 154 people were
killed and 351 wounded.
However, all
these operations leading to the death of thousands of people proved
powerless
to crush and stop the resistance of Lebanese people to occupation. The
same can
be said about the incarceration, torture and killing of thousands of
other
people in the notorious Khiam prison/concentration camp –directed
by the SLA
and supervised by the Israeli military intelligence- in Southern
Lebanon. On
the contrary, this oppression fueled the resistance and contributed to
its
victory. In the end, Zionists and their mercenary puppets, who were
continuously harassed and forced into a defensive position through
guerilla
warfare, were unceremoniously thrown out of Lebanon as a result of
well-planned
and coordinated military attack on 23-25 May 2000.
In fact, the
defeat of the Israeli army in Southern Lebanon in mid-2000,
was and remains the first instance of Zionist aggressors being
militarily
beaten and thrown out of an occupied Arab territory. This victory of
the
Lebanese resistance in turn, would contribute to the reawakening of the
dormant
Palestinian resistance, the second intifadah
would begin in earnest in September 2000, four months after the
liberation of
Southern Lebanon. In passing, let me stress that, this is one of the
main reasons
behind the fanatical insistence of Israel and the US and their henchmen
in the
so-called international community on the disarming of the Hezbollah.
Conclusion
At
least since the formation of Syria as a sovereign state, after the
termination
of the French mandate in 1943, the Syrian bourgeoisie had voiced its
intentions
to reunite with Lebanon; it had argued that, historically Lebanon was a
part of
Syria and was torn away from the main body of the country at the end of
the
First World War, when the defeated Turkey was compelled to leave all
Arab
territories to the victorious Allies. To achieve its objective,
throughout the
last decades Damascus has entered into a variety of shifting,
unprincipled and
opportunist alliances with various factions in Lebanon; at times it has
not
refrained from acting in unison with the US and even Israel to prevent
the
supremacy of anti-imperialist and democratic forces as was the case
during the
civil war of 1975-1976. Without discussing the pros and cons of the
historical
claims of the Syrian bourgeoisie, we can say that, it is the Lebanese
workers
and toilers of different nationalities and religious confessions, who
have the
right to determine the destiny of their countries and to decide on the
content
and form of the relationship of Lebanon with Syria. No outside force,
including
Syria has the right to impose its will upon the Lebanese people.
On the other hand, it should be made patently clear that US
imperialists, the
main enemy of workers, other toilers and oppressed nations of the
world, have
no right whatsoever to interfere in the internal affairs of Lebanon or
of any
other country. Neither US imperialists, who have massacred tens of
millions of
workers and other toilers, planned and executed hundreds of reactionary
and
fascist coups d’etat, committed countless
provocations and war crimes against the toiling humanity, nor their
bloodthirsty Zionist partners and lackeys have the right to do so.
The position of Syria and its policy with respect to its smaller
neighbor,
cannot make us forget, even for a moment, the fact that US imperialism
and
Israeli Zionism are and remain the main enemies of Lebanese,
Palestinian and Iraqi
workers and other toilers. This is especially true at present, when the
US,
Britain and Israel have declared and initiated a new world war against
the
workers and peoples of the world in general and the workers and peoples
of the
Islamic world in particular and have been trying to pressure and
threaten all
political forces and states to toe their line under the motto of “you
are
either with us or with the terrorists.” Under the present
circumstances, states
such as Syria, Iran, North Korea etc. objectively become indirect,
though
vacillating and questionable reserves of the workers and peoples of the
world,
depending upon the extent of their resistance against and the level of
their
rejection of the threats and blackmails of the neo-fascist axis of evil
of
US-Britain-Israel.
Therefore, all class-conscious workers and consistent revolutionary
forces
should decisively reject the so-called democratization game of the
Lebanese
reactionary bourgeois forces inspired, financed and supported by the US
and its
allies. They should unequivocally oppose all interference in the
internal
affairs of Lebanon, Syria and Iran and a probable aggression of the
axis of
evil on these countries, notwithstanding the anti-democratic and
reactionary
nature of these regimes. In the case of an open military aggression
against
these countries (and other countries in a similar position) they should
wish
the victory of these regimes against American-Israeli-British
aggression and
take a definite stand against these rogue states.
“For example”, said Lenin
in 1915, “if tomorrow Morocco were to
declare war on France, or India on Britain, or Persia or China on
Russia, and
so on, these would be ‘just’, and to ‘defensive’ wars, irrespective of
who
would be the first to attack; any socialist would wish the oppressed,
dependent
and unequal states victory over the oppressor, slave-holding, predatory
‘Great’
Powers.” (“Socialism and War”, Collected Works, Vol. 21, Moscow,
Progress
Publishers, 1974, pp. 300-01)
Such a stand
cannot in any way be portrayed as an endorsement of these bourgeois
regimes,
which are ready to cooperate with the US and already do so to a certain
extent.
Therefore, Marxist-Leninists and consistent revolutionaries do not for
a moment
forget the fact that, only under the leadership of the communist party
of the
working class, can imperialist-Zionist aggression be defeated and
democratic
and socialist demands of the masses of exploited and oppressed people
of the
Middle East be met.
_______________________________END___________________________________________