The talk was on the effects of the Gulf crisis on the
Palestinian struggle. The following are major excerpts.
DOCUMENT
THE IMPACT of the Gulf events on the intifada has been really enormous. This has been reflected concretely, as we have seen recently, by an intensification and spread of the confrontations. They have spread to all of Palestine, including the territories occupied in 1948
It has to be noted, however, that in spite of this escalation of the intifada, media coverage has declined. The reason for this should not be sought in the new conditions of the confrontation, as they would have us believe, but in a deliberate attitude of the media toward the crisis.
It should be stressed, in fact, that the intifada's reaction to the confrontation underway in the Gulf was in accord with its nature. It is a call to fight, to intensify the struggle against the camp of our enemies - imperialism, Zionism and Arab reaction.
This not a question of applauding a leader-symbol nor a call to step up diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis. It is rather a call for confrontation expressed in the slogans of the intifada, not support for the settlement between Saddam and the United States that the Arab governments want.
Crisis has economic costs for Palestinians
Moreover, the crisis has had direct economic consequences for the intifada. They came from the decline of emigrants' remittances to their families in the occupied territories, and the decline in the financial aid given by the oil states to the PLO.
The scope of these effects is obvious if you realize that nearly 650,000 Palestinians depend for their existence on jobs in the Gulf states, and that emigrant remit-
PALESTINE tances amount to nearly a third of the GNP of the territories of the intifada.
According to some estimates, the oil states have already expelled a quarter of a million Palestinians, including 41,295 from Saudi Arabia, 5,100 from Qatar, 3.630 from Oman and 5.850 from Dubai (according to Shaher Saad, general secretary of the West Bank confederation of unions, in Ash-Shaab of September 11, 1990).
It is an ill wind, however, that blows no one any good. These negative effects can have positive consequences. They can increase the return of the emigrants to Palestine in the face of the immigration of Soviet Jews and their settlement as colonists.
They reinforce the idea of self-reliance, the return to the land, the creation of coop erative projects for industrial or craft development, and thus consolidate the basis of the new economy of the intifada.
Radical reform of PLO necessary
Moreover, the economic effects of the crisis make necessary a radical financial and administrative reform of the PLO, in the framework of a democratic reform, or even transformation, of its institutions. Such a reform must be aimed at eliminating the parasitic institutions and apparatuses that gobble up the PLO's resources, and at getting rid of corruption and patron-
It is also necessary to remove the filthy rich bureaucratic layer that enjoys huge privileges, such as villas, luxury cars and involving stays at first-class hotels — in a word, the layer that lives like oil sheikhs.
It is this same parasitic layer that maintains the closest relations with the worst Arab reactionaries in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. It is is one of the bases for a policy of seeking a deal to settle the Palestinian question. It lives from peddling this merchandise, which has become greatly devalued today.
The events underway in the Gulf region and the confrontation camp of imperialism, Zionism and Arab reaction have dealt a decisive blow to the logic of a peaceful Arab-Palestinian settlement. This scheme had long been tottering under the blows of the intifada and the effects of the shattering of the illusion that a settlement could be reached with the
That hope faded after the formation of a including Sharon, Levy, Neuman and oth-
School students
International Viewpoint #195 • November 26, 1990
PALESTINE / FRANCE
Save Dessie Ellis! HIS APPEAL turned down by the Irish High Court, Dessie Ellis was extradited to Britain on November 14. He was in his 36th day of a hunjob market, only some