Israel's human shield
WHILST considerable media attention has been devoted to the suffering and fortitude of Israeli civilians faced with the
Billions of $ Facts and predictions from OECD economy. An article analyzing the British ence its effects and it is necessary to situation in the Financial Times of January 14 was thus entitled "The war as substitute for a New Deal". Even if this title neglects the fact that the policy of Roosevelt was insufficient to draw US capitalism out of the crisis of the 1930s, and that the Second World War powerfully contributed to this, it is true in part; the war could have a favourable impact on the economic conjuncture in the fashion of the Vietnamese
It is noticeable that the liberal discourse on the need to reduce public expenditure has hardly made itself heard since last August (we can be sure that it will return when it is necessary to discuss the wages of public employees and expenditure on health and education). Moreover, it is necessary to examine the significance of the fact that, more than ever, the United States is fighting on credit; if the Japanese and the Germans do not pay enough, either the US taxpayer must do it (but the growth of taxes would not be favourable to growth) or the federal state must borrow more to cover the growth of the deficit (but that could cost it dear, and financial problems previously evoked).
What might be the ultimate impact of the current war? It is too soon to ponder the multiple depends on how long the conflict lasts, but it is evident that war will continue to play a part in the regulation of the capitalist system. Beyond the war and the recession, the essential tendencies are still at work. Of the three principal contradictions of world capitalism, the most grave in terms of the breadth of its effects concerns the fragmentation of the world economy, resulting from the weight of the Third World debt, the modes of dividing up income and, finally, the exclusive function of the new technologies. The law of uneven and combined development operates in a more and more regressive fashion even inside the industrialized capitalist countries as well as in their relations with the dominated countries. The countries of Eastern Europe are beginning to experiunderline the fact that, for the first time in a long while, entire zones, such as Africa, the Middle East, and a good part of Asia, are going backwards.
The difference in the economic fates of different countries leads to another essential contradiction. On the one hand, the is tendency to globalization, of which the multinational firms are the active agents. The speed of growth of world trade continues to play a key role in the regulation of capitalism and the relations between classes and it is one of the reasons for the desynchronization of national economies, whether between Europe and the USA, or even inside Europe, which we have witnessed in the recent period. This persistence of the national dimension explains also why Europe is lagging behind in forming a homogeneous economic space, and has not been able to successfully conduct a policy of coordinated reflation at the level of the European Community.
The beginning of the 1990s is then marked by the return of the difficulties of world capitalism. It is in reality the fundamental contradiction, between profits and markets, which is resurfacing. 1980s have been years of a reestablishment of profits, on the basis of a wages squeeze and rigorous industrial restructuring. The markets have ben assured by the increase of world trade, by an increas ingly general tendency to the distortion of incomes in favour of non-wage incomes, and finally by the internal and external indebtment of the United States.
This mechanism is by its very nature unstable, as much in its international dimension as in its effect on the internal of each country, and the recession underway must be interpreted as the entry into crisis of this international set-up. Fundamentally, the recession signifies the increasing difficulty faced by world capıtalism ın expanding markets in a way compatible with the profitability of capital and a very high potential for increased production. * threat of Iraq's Scud rocket strikes, little room has been found to report the plight of the Palestinian population in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. BERNARD GIBBONS
SRAEL, basking in the glow of world approbation for its "restraint" in a war which its government has long lobbied for (with Foreign Minister David Levy making unilateral threats against Iraq whenever a peaceful solution seemed possible), is taking the opportunity to tighten the screws substantially in the occupied territories.
The territories have been under curfew since January 16, with disastrous consequences for the population. There are severe food shortages (in the Gaza Strip, where agriculture is in any case underdeveloped, famine is already spoken of). Palestinians are being allowed out by the army to shop once every three days, for a few hours. However, there is nothing to buy, as farmers have not had time to harvest their crops, and this at the peak of the citrus and other crop seasons. Palestinian families deprived of income
The position is equally bad with regard to livestock, and in any case farmers are unable to bring their produce to the towns to sell. Palestinians who earn a living through working in Israel have not been able to work since the beginning of the war, and as a consequence their families have no income. Doctors and medical personnel are not exempt from the curfew, with grave health consequences.
In addition, Israel is cynically and brutally using the 1.5 million Palestinians of the occupied territories as a "human hield" a nonths now, the press has been full of 27
International Viewpoint #200 • February 18, 1991
ISRAEL pictures of Israelis receiving their gas masks. Every new Russian Jewish immigrant is given a gas mask on arrival at Ben Gurion airport. New York mayor David Dinkins, currently on a nauseating solidarity mission to Israel, has been pictured trying on his mask.
However, the army and the civil administration in the occupied territories have done everything possible to prevent or hinder the distribution of gas masks to the Palestinian population. The initial claim, that they were not in danger, was contradicted by the distribution of masks to West Bank Jewish settlers. The government then said that, unlike Israelis, Palestinians would have to pay for their masks because they did not pay taxes (the latter claim, reported uncritically in the Western press, is untrue).
Finally, on the eve of the war, a Bethlehem inhabitant won a ruling Israeli High Court, that there had been "discrimination" in the distribution of masks. The government responded that it only had 173,000 masks available for the 1.5 million Palestinians, and it is now saying that distribution will take months — or until the war is over. Palestinian political prisoners have denied gas masks or, as in the case of the Megiddo camp, near to Haifa, given them
Zionist left rejoins camp of national unity
Under the impact of the confrontation with Iraq, the Zionist left and the human rights organizations have passed back into the camp of national unity, as is traditional when Israel's "right to exist" is deemed to be in danger. The image of Saddam as the new Hitler, bent on the physical annihilation of Israel, has had a powerful effect (in fact, the position of the Iraqi government on the question of Israel has for many years been the same as that of the other Arab states; for an international peace conference to guarantee the security of all states in the region, including Israel and a Palestinian state).
The Gulf crisis has led to the defection from the Israeli peace camp of many "beautiful souls" whose opposition to the occupation had always been posited in terms of the psychic damage it was causing to Israel's collective unconscious, rather than any commitment to genuine self-determination for the Palestinians. For such people, Palestinians have national rights only on sufferance and on the promise of good behaviour, a criterion which they in no way apply to their own national entity. Veteran left Zionists like Yossi Sarid and writers like Amos Oz denounced the Palestinians for "letting
Worse, Palestinians are accused of hav28 Tel Aviv and Haifa (the "cheering on" by ing "cheered on" the missile attacks on the Israeli government of the assault on Iraq apparently does not negate Israel's right to self-determination). However, the attitude of those on the left of the peace movement appears to be more differentiated, and many are committed to continuing the struggle against the occupation, regardless of their views on the war.
Meanwhile, Shamir's putting to good use Israel's newly glossy international image, obtained through its policy of "restraint" in the face of missile attacks. Substantial foreign aid from the European Community and the been sought and partially provided, and the International Monetary Fund is also to be approached. At the same time, Shamir has sent clear signals that there will be no softening of his government's position on the Palestinian question, whatever the aftermath of the war.
A first sign of this was the arrest and detention of leading Palestinian "moderate " Sari Nusseibeh on patently absurd charges of spying for Iraq. This move has been denounced even by the New York Times, which normally portrays Israel as a combination of Periclean Athens and the Big Rock Candy Mountain. It is a continuation of the policy, exemplified also with the detention of Ziad Abu Zayyad and Radwan Abu Ayyash last November, of dealing with "the danger of peace" through attacks on the wing of the Palestinian national movement most favourable to Arafat's line of recognition of, and coexistence with, Israel. The government is keen to use the Gulf conflict to undermine Arafat's credibility in particular, hence the targeting of Fatah "bases" (the media's favoured euphemism for Palestinian refugee camps and villages) in the recent Israeli attacks on southern Leba-
Cabinet appointment of advocate of expulsion
Shamir's stance was underlined still further by his firm rejection on February 4 of any post war international peace conterence, and the appointment to the cabinet of Rechavam Ze'evi, the leader of the Moledet party which advocates the forcible expulsion of Palestinians from the occupied territories.
Ze'evi is not exactly a vulgar fascist huckster in the Kahane mould; he comes from a Labour background and he is fond of pointing out (quite correctly) the continuity between his positions and the discourse of racial separation central to traditional Labour and particularly left Labour) Zionist thinking. Nonetheless, his appointment tilts still further to the right a cabinet already so reactionary that it would be considered off the political map in almost any other country.
The idea of transfer has, in any case, already been floated, if not openly advocated, by several prominent government figures. Agriculture Minister Rafael Eitan advocated what amounts to a policy of "selective transfer". Minister of Energy and Science Yuval Ne'eman recently warned Palestinians that continuation of the intifada would place them in a "1948 situation". Deputy foreign minister Binyamin Netanyahu has publicly aired his regrets that Israel did not carry out expulsions when the world's attention was on the Tiananmen Square massacre
A majority of the cabinet remains opposed to transfer, fearful of its international consequences (there are of course those on the right, such as MK Benny Begin — son of Menachem — who oppose it on grounds of principle). But it would appear that Shamir is trying to legitimize the idea and create the kind of cabinet where he can present himself to the world as a moderate when the post war wheeling and dealing begins.
Meanwhile, fear of expulsion remains in the occupied territories. Peace Now said before the war that it had obtained information, through leaks from staffed by settlers were prepared to carry out a mass expulsion of West Bank Pales-
Israeli entry into the war, or even a unilateral Israeli attack on Iraq should the outcome of the current war stop short of Saddam's overthrow or the destruction of Iraq's military capability, would put the possibility of expulsion firmly on the Bush promises everything to everybody
Aside from that nightmare scenario, it is difficult at the moment to discern any clear or coherent imperialist approach to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the fog of rhetoric about the post war order.
Some kind of international conference is hinted at, and the old idea of the emergence of a Palestinian alternative to the PLO is floated, though, outside of the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas, hardly an ideal negotiating partner for imperialism or Israel, there are no obvious candidates.
A division of labour appears to be emerging, with the British and French governments making soothing noises to the Arabs while Bush sends various emissaries to Israel to pledge undying support. In any case, it is already clear that Bush has made so many commitments that not all of them can possibly be met. It would, moreover, be staggeringly naive to believe that a victorious imperialism and a strengthened Israel are going to be more generous to the Palestinians than they have in the past.
Whatever happens, the grave dangers facing the Palestinians, in the occupied territories and elsewhere, must be central to the concerns of all those involved in the movement against the Gulf war. *