The New Arab Order and the Israeli obstacle
MIDDLE EAST ation required the reorganization of the defence of the local pillars of that order. An external counterweight to the twofold Iranian and Iraqi threat had to be found. The massive intervention by the imperialist —above all US - troops was needed to destroy Iraqi military potential, a task beyond the strength of any local force. It was also intended to
OPERATION "Desert Storm" was conceived as a decisive step towards a political re-ordering of the Arab East under
American tutelage. The American war is to be succeeded by a pax americana the first elements of which have begun to be assembled since the end of the fighting. The cornerstone of the edifice is the alliance of the six monarchies who make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), with Syria and Egypt the main Arab members of the anti-Iraqi coalition.
Paradoxically, the main obstacle to the regional pax americana is now the State of Israel; the intransigence of
Yitzhak Shamir's right-wing Zionist government is presenting
US secretary of state James Baker with considerable difficulties in his efforts to achieve an Arab-Israeli peace under US auspices.
SALAH JABER
HE representatives of the eight
T
Arab allies, meeting in the Syrian capital on March 5 and 6, 1991, adopted the "Damascus Declaration", proclaiming the establishment of a
"New Arab Order" whose name is evidence enough of its relation to Bush's
"New World Order". The Declaration's two main aspects are military and economic. In the aftermath of the joint action against Iraq, the Egyptian and Syrian troops — 35,000 and 20,000 respectively
— currently in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are to remain there or be deployed in oththe "defender of the eastern gate of the Arab nation", undertaking its devastating eight year war against its neighbour with the financial backing of the Arab oil monarchies.
The Iraqi attack on Kuwait and the redirection of Saddam Hussein's ambitions towards his Arab neighbours, have meant that, for the first time in the existence of these states, both are in the camp of enemies of the traditional imperialist order in the Gulf.This unprecedented situcreate the political, and even psychological, conditions for the desired reorganization. But, for reasons both political and religious, the prolonged stationing of massive western forces in Saudi Arabia was not a likely option. Their continued presence on soil which, by religious decree (fatwa), is considered to form a gigantic mosque, might make them a running sore inflaming the anti-western nationalist or religious resentments of the Arab masses.
Three-tier security system
In consequence the US and its rich Gulf protégés have devised a new security system adapted to realities both new and old This system has three levels, with direct American military intervention the last resort. The first level is the Gulf monarchies' own armed forces, which are going to be considerably reinforced. The size of the Saudi army is to be doubled or tripled to 100,000 or 150,000 men, very likely backed up by Egyptian, Pakistani and perhaps Moroccan mercenaries. Kuwait's small army is similarly to be increased
And, of course, there is a big guaranteed market for the US' military industry, after the live demonstration of its products efficiency in Desert Storm. The sales already negotiated with Saudi Arabia alone by Washington have reached 1. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.
THE ANSWER IS NO! ....
er Gulf states, and may even be reinforced (Syria is envisaging doubling its
BUT GO AHEAD, WHAT contingent).
WAS YOUR
According to the Declaration, these
"the core of an Arab peace
QUESTION?
troops are force set up to guarantee the security and integrity of the Arab states of the Gulf
Region." Although this military alliance claims that it is not "directed against any party", it is clear that in reality the security and integrity of the Gulf monarchies can only be threatened by the two pretenders to hegemony in the region, recently-defeated Iraq and Iran, which has found its position strengthened by the crushing of its adversary.
These two states have long counterbalanced each other with regard to the imperialist and reactionary order in the
Gulf. When Iraq was a source of nationalist subversion, Iran under the Shah held it when Iran became a in check.
Then, source of Khomeinite subversion after
February 1979, Iraq elevated itself into
PLANTE
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MIDDLE EAST the round sum of $10bn. A deal of the same order will probably be reached with Kuwait, whose arsenal has to be more or less restocked from scratch. Bush, meanwhile, answers those who, from pacifist naivety or devotion to the Israeli cause, question these arms' sales and recall the Bush administration's own declarations about arms control in the region, by referring hypocritically to the need to establish an equilibrium of forces among the region's Arab countries, (rather than between them and Israel):
"The official (of the Defence department) stated that the administration is determined to increase the arsenals of the friendly Arab states in the Gulf — countries which, he added, are individually less powerful than Iraq. It is only in the context of the reinforcement of the weakest states, he said, that the administration would consider regional limitations on arms."2
No freeze on arms exports
In sum, far from promoting regional disarmament including of the Zionist state, Washington would not "consider" a freeze on arms' exports to the region before it had raised the military potential of each of its most reliable allies individually to a level that could deter a potential enemy comparable to Iraq (meaning Iran).
The only arms of which the Bush administration intends to halt further deliveries to the Arab countries are the NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) weapons, as well as ballistic missiles with a range of more than 150 km? Washington will continue to sell other weapons, including highly sophisticated ones to its Arab allies.
Apart from the commercial angle, there is a real will in the US to strengthen their protégés ability to withstand external and internal shocks, drawing out the lessons of the great vulnerability they showed during the Gulf crisis. In any case, the planned sales will not upset the regional balance of forces, in which the State of Israel is clearly dominant. It is an open secret that the latter has a sizeable arsenal of NBC weapons and of missiles with ranges ten times the limit that Washington is setting for its Arab allies.
Ironically it is Israel that is now calling for a freeze on regional military capabilities in order to stabilize its advantage after the crushing of Iraq, while sparing the Israeli economy the cost of an arms race, at a time when it is having to deal with Jewish immigration from the USSR.
The second level of the new defence system is the "Arab Peace Force". Of the two components of this force it is Mubarak's Egypt that is presently the most reliable. It has been massively rearmed by 4 ty with Israel in 1979, the object being to the US since the signing of the peace treaInternational Viewpoint #206 • May 13, 1991 replace the structural dependence of the Egyptian army on the USSR with integration into the American military system, involving joint annual manoeuvres ('Bright Star") as well as comprehensive re-equipment.4 The latest consignment of this re-armament programme, submitted this year to the US Congress, involves 46 of the latest F-16 planes with stocks of bombs and missiles.
Syrian army dependent on
The Syrian army remains dependent on Moscow for its material, and its "Americanization" is not on the cards for the foreseeable future. That would require a Syrian-Israeli peace treaty on Camp David lines and an assurance, by this and other means, of the irreversibility of Syrian allegiance to Washington.
moment Damascus is an ally under strict surveillance from Washington, which nonetheless hopes that Syria's economic interests will, at a time of Soviet bankruptcy, dictate to that adept of realpolitik Hafez-el-Assad a firm anchorage in the American camp.
The third level, and the last recourse, is direct intervention by the American army, and in particular the direct use of its troops on the ground. Before Iraq invaded Kuwait, American military plans for the region largely rested on Israel and the Saudi and Egyptian armies integrated into the Pentagon's regional system. At the top of this is the CentCom (Central Command whose HQ is at Tampa in Florida and whose chief is none other than Norman Schwarzkopf.
The CentCom could also count on Turkey, but it also had its own intervention forces: the American bases in Turkey, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, the American fleet in the Gulf with facilities at Bahrain, and the surrounding fleets, including in the Mediterranean, as well as the Rapid Deployment Force based in the US and Europe.
The operation against Iraq showed a sluggishness in the deployment in Saudi Arabia and its great vulnerability in its first phase. Military commentaries retrospectively underline the fact that if Iraq had taken the initiative in August to push into Saudi Arabia to forestall the buildup of the coalition forces, the US would have confronted a far more difficult task. The Pentagon has drawn the lessons of that experience.
Certainly, Schwarzkopf confirmed on March 24 that his army did not plan to leave a big permanent ground force in the Gulf area. He also announced however that an advance post of the American command, connected to CentCom, would be set up in the region, most probably in Bahrain. This post will be responsible for coordinating allied regional strategy and the organization of joint Arab-American land, sea and air manoeuvres, which presupposes the, if not permanent, then at least frequent presence of US troops. At the same time, the permanent American fleet cruising the Gulf waters, will be
And, above all, the direct deployment of American troops on the ground in an emergency, will be greatly facilitated by the "pre-positioning" of American equipment. Two stores are planned: in Turkey, and, of course, in Saudi Arabia. In both of these countries arms for a strongly equipped division will be stored in a way that permits the troops to be ready for combat in a few days on the spot. This improved capacity for rapid deployment, added to the capacity for medium-term deployment shown by the remarkable effort undertaken between August 1990 and January 1991 — the only genuine American exploit in this war — should, in the Pentagon's view, be sufficient to intimidate potential threats.
The three-tier defence system has, as with any security system, both a deterrent, and a defensive and repressive func-
However, the masters of the imperialist order know that, nonetheless, this is not enough to assure the desired stability. They are perfectly well aware of the need to finish the structure off with preventive action, especially as the first two tiers are not wholly secure.
The armed forces of the Gulf monarchies are not renowned for their efficienindependently of the reliability of their governments in Washington's eyes, are constantly exposed to the risks of a popular uprising that could spread to the armed forces. Their relative political fragility is a function of their precarious socioeconomic situation. Unlike in the Gulf oil monarchies (which rank among the richest countries in the world), the populations of Syria, and especially Egypt, have been seeing a sharp drop in their living standards®, a source of chronic political
It was under the pressure of similar problems that Iraq's dictator decided to invade Kuwait, despairing of further funding by his "rich brothers." Saddam Hussein reacted to the refusal of the Kuwaitis to continue to underwrite his regime, and developed for the occasion a nationalist rhetoric calling for an equitable apportioning of the wealth of the Arab nation between all its components. Syria, for its part, has regularly milked the Gulf oil monarchies for funds using politicoterrorist blackmail in the name of the confrontation with the Zionist state.
Military protection rackets
Desert Storm has radically changed the context where rich, but vulnerable, states, gave way to pressure from poor, but militarily powerful, states determined to operate a protection racket. The energetic US intervention on the side of their rich pro-
tégés has given the oil monarchies, now confident of American protection, a feeling of freedom from any regional threat. They have been making their sense of emancipation pushed by Washington to continue to provide aid to those Arab states that accept the pax racket run by states who did not shrink from subversion has been replaced by a system of contributions for the consolidation of the reactionary order, notably to states that offer their
The Damascus Declaration deals with this aspect. It is founded on the one hand on "the respect for the principle of
SUDAN
MIDDLE EAST has declared that the Saudi authorities are now reserving half of the work visas to be granted for Egyptians®. This is the main benefit for Cairo of AFGHAN- its political attitude; immigra-
ISTAN tion to the Gulf soaks up a portion of the unemployment and is the main source of hard currency for many countries via remittances. Egypt and Syria, furthermore, will be the main beneficiaries of the Development Programme currently being got underway by the six oil monarchies of the GCC, which will dispose of a fund of $15bn, of which a third will be available soon. This proARON gramme, in the spirit of the Sou
Damascus Declaration, Will be
Gulf Co-operation Council the sovereignty of each Arab
Arab Co-operation Council state over its own natural and economic resources" the other on "the reinforcement of economic cooperation" between the signatories, with a view to extending it to other Arab countries. The innovation here is that aid from the rich states will henceforth be accompanied by conditions similar to those that regulate the financing of eastern Europe by the imperialist coun tries. The finality of the "economic cooperation" is defined in the Declaration: "to encourage the private sector...to participate in the development process...and allow small and medium sized enterprises to profit from the fruits of cooperation...'
Concrete measures have already been taken or are on the way in the general spirit of the Declaration: special recompense for Egypt and Syria for their good and loyal services and a mechanism for $2bn - welcome aid for a Ba'athist regime close to bankruptcy. Egypt's needs are far greater. The country has 55 million inhabitants and great poverty, and has also suffered directly from the Gulf crisis, since some two million of its people were working in Kuwait and Iraq, while tourism, a major source of hard currency, has been hit.
The Arab oil monarchies and the US are making a special effort to damp down the Egyptian powder barrel and thus safeguard their most docile ally. The oil monarchies have cancelled more than $7bn worth of debts owed them by Egypt, and Washington has cancelled that the same amount of the country's military debt. The Bush administration and its oil allies, furthermore, are putting pressure on the IMF and other imperialist creditors for favourable treatment for Egypt under the aegis of the Fund. More than 30% of Egypt's $40bn government debts are to be cancelled and the rest re-scheduled. Two new loans of $300m each are to be granted to Cairo by the IMF and the
This favourable treatment, following on from the generosity shown by the Club of Paris (cancelling 50%) and Washington (cancelling 70%) to Walesa's Poland, will surely incite the governments of the most indebted countries, including the Latin American trio (Brazil, Mexico and Argentina), to demand similar facilities. David Mulford, under-secretary at the US treasury, has answered them in advance, saying that Poland and Egypt are "politically and economically unique" That is to say, both the cancellation of the debt and the provision of new financing are more than ever to be subject to "good Price rises planned for Egypt
The political conditions fulfilled by Egypt are clear enough. The economic conditions are to be laid down by the IMF. As usual they include the suppression of subsidies on basic goods and ser-
The Mubarak government is already warning the population to expect high rises in the price of electricity, petrol and other oil products, and thus in transas well as on basic foodstuffs including bread and meat. Every previous attempt to implement such instructions in Egypt has led to popular riots, as in most Third World countries subjected to the
To soften the shock, the Gulf oil monarchies are already giving priority to Egyptian immigrant workers to the detriment of Palestinians, Yemenis and others from countries that did not support the antiIraqi coalition. More than two million such workers have already been expelled from the oil monarchies. The number of Egyptians working in Saudi Arabia has risen by almost 50% in three months, going from 684,000 in December 1990 to
The Egyptian ambassador in Riyadh regulated by methods inspired employed in eastern Europe, given the similar structures of the economies, with a dominant state sector. The accent is on the expansion of the private sector, aiming to consolidate a Arab Order" based on free enterprise and the combination of Gulf capital, the labour power of their Arab allies and imperialist capital and technology, all under American patronage.
This idyllic project is almost utopian, however, given the extraordinary complexities of the region's social and political problems, as is well illustrated by the of the situation in Iraq. The main hidden rock on which the pax americana may founder in the short term is, of course, the Israel-Arab conflict. This latter has been the main factor of political instability in the Arab region for decades and the main catalyst for the anti-American feeling of the Arab masses. The United States has had to deal with the permanent embarrassment of the political opposition between its Arab clients and allies on the one hand and its privileged military partner, the Zionist state, on the other.
The Damascus Declaration could not get away with not mentioning this conflict. Pretending to repeat the official Arab stance — "an international peace conference under the UN flag" — and the settlement of the conflict on the basis of UN resolutions to "put an end to the Israeli occupation of Arab territories and guarantee the national rights of the Palestinian 2. International Herald Tribune, March 8, 1991. 3. IHT, April 29, 1991. 4. The Soviet material that has been replaced has been sold or given by Egypt to allies such as the Afghan Mujahedin or the US itself, who use Soviet arms for target practice. 5. This also assumes that the allied armies have American equipment. 6. The Egyptian population is growing by a million every nine months. 7. IHT, April 11, 1991. 8. IHT, April 6, 1991. May 13, 1991 • #206 International Viewpoint
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MIDDLE EAST
Israel and Lebanon, and in the plans for a "Jordanian solution" of the Palestinian issue been opposed which would be isolated by such settlements. On the other hand, each time that Washington has
GOLAN people", the Declaration introduced two clear concessions to Washington. On the one hand, the "international conference" is no longer a requirement, but merely an "adequate framework", on the other, there is no longer any mention of an independent Palestinian state, but only of Palestinian "national rights".
The post-Gulf war keynote speech by Bush to Congress on March 6, a few hours after the publication of the Damascus Declaration, echoed these preoccupations. He reaffirmed his administration's adherence to UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 and the principle of a territory-for-peace swap, that is, the withdrawal of Israel from territories occupied in 1967 in exchange for the recognition of the Zionist state and its frontiers by the Arab states, and a guarantee of its security. He also undertook to respect "legitimate Palestinian rights".
Bush's speech gave the signal for a new series of Kissinger-style regional tours by his secretary of state, James Baker, the difference being that the strategy of "small steps" dear to the former, aimed at achieving separate settlements between each Arab state and Israel, is no longer on the order of the day. In fact, the front of Arab states bordering on Israel is now under American hegemony, Syria having rejoined this camp bag and baggage. Desert Storm has created an exceptionally favourable political climate for Washington's plans in the Middle East at a moment when, for a fistful of dollars, Moscow has abdicated any pretence of challenging its traditional rival. Soviet participation accepted
Under these conditions, the former American opposition to a global settlement with Soviet participation has been dropped. On the contrary, it is now the Bush administration that wishes for a package deal with all the concerned Arab parties and with the agreement of the Kremlin. The area of agreement between Washington and the Arab partners, with Moscow's blessing, is greater than ever. These partners, which include Syria and the PLO leadership, have ceased to outbid one another in nationalist rhetoric. 6 fishment Le aour and other supporters, The moderate faction of the Zionist estabInternational Viewpoint #206 • May 13, 1991
PALES) • including ruling Likud members - of a partial withdrawal from the occupied territories in exchange for a peace treaty with guarantees - also situates itself on
Four key issues mark it out: two fundamental issues — the question of the Syrian Golan Heights occupied and annexed by Israel in 1981 and that of the occupied Palestinian territories, including annexed East Jerusalem; and two more trival points — the framework for the negotiations and the problem of Palestinian representation. The Egyptian-Israeli conflict has been resolved and the fact that Egypt is taking part nevertheless bears witness to the solution of the fifth, and for a long time the most thory, problem.
### Recognition of Israel
Indeed, the problem of the recognition of the State of Israel, the guarantee of its frontiers and the "normalization" of relations with it, has already been resolved by Cairo according to the wishes of the Zionist government. The full reintegration of Egypt into the Arab fold, and its close alliance with the Arab members of the anti-Iraqi coalition, without any change in its "normalized" relations with Israel, underline the fact that these relations, which led to the boycott of Egypt by other Arab countries, are now accepted, including by Syria, which has made this fact known to James Baker.
Hafez-al-Assad has always shown himself ready to face down the nationalist sentiments of the Syrian population, when his own interests have required it. From his intervention in support of the reactionary Christian camp in Lebanon in 1976 to his recent involvement on the American side against Iraq, the dictator of Damascus has made it clear to Washington that he will keep his side of any bargain even if it means clashing with his own people. His attitude to the US has never been arbitrary, but always adapted to the modulations in American regional policy, which is more versatile than his own.
Every attempt by the US administration to seek solutions outside of a broad settlement - firstly between Israel and Egypt, then in 1983 between come out in favour of a global Israeli-Arab solution, in the spirit of the Geneva conference after the October 1973 war, the Syrian regime has offered to cooperate. In each case the state of SyrianAmerican relations has had an effect inside Lebanon.
All the political and economic factors, both on a regional and world scale, now lead Hafez al-Assad into the camp of the US and its rich Arab protégés. This is the only intelligent option for the bureaucratic-bourgeois dictatorship that he heads. Damascus' tacit acceptance of the Egyptian-Israeli peace also indicates its inclination to be satisfied with an arrangement for the Syrian Golan Heights of the same kind as the one that led Israel to return the Sinai to Egypt, that is, demilitarization of the territory under American guarantee, including a control system.
### Withdrawal from Golan
And it is along these lines that America is now thinking': an Israeli withdrawal and demilitarization of the Golan, extenthe mandate of the United Nations' forces to the whole of the Syrian territory currently under Israeli occupation, with eavesdropping posts, probably under US control (Israel will ask that these be under their control, but this would be hard for Syria to accept). The principle of some such compromise over the Golan has recently been defended by the Israeli foreign affairs minister, David Levy, the health minister, Ehud Olmert, and the armed forces chief of staff, General Dan Shomron, who issued a controversial statement a month before his
These figures, none of them in any way "doves", believe that the strategic benefits of a peace with Syria are greater than those accruing from a continued Israeli military presence on the Golan. They know that the ten thousand or so Israeli settlers installed on the Syrian plateau are not deeply attached to this barren territory willingly accept leaving in exchange for adequate financial compensation of the kind that the US gave to the ex-settlers in the Sinai. They also think that an agreement on the Golan Heights would spare them the need for one on the occupied west bank of the Jordan.1° The Israeli "rejection front", led by the sinister figure of Ariel Sharon, at present the housing minister, and the defence minister Moshé Arens, have nonetheless protested vociferously against any notion of a compromise over the Golan Heights, pulling the prime minister Shamir along
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KOWEIT
the Soviet Union; on some estimates, up to a third of the new immigrants fall into the latter category (information compiled from News From Within). * behind them. Labor deputies have also lined up with the "refuseniks" from the governing Likud party, but their opposition will not be so hard to overcome.
Inversely, on the issue of the Palestinian territories on the West Bank and Gaza, the majority of the Israeli Labor Party are amenable to the compromise plans of Washington. The solution officially being promoted by the Republican administration, since the time of the "Reagan Plan" of September 1982, is that of "Palestinian self-government of the West Bank and Gaza in association with Jordan." This found an echo in the Amman agreement in February 1985 between Jordan's King Hussein and PLO leader Yasser Arafat proposing a Jordanian-Palestinian confedcration and a joint delegation to the negotiations with Israel."
The US remains inclined to this kind of settlement, which, in their eyes, offers the best guarantee of control over the Palestinian territories, and is rendered all the more credible in that the PLO leadership has already accepted the principle. This is why King Hussein continues to be a key element of the regional pax ameribetween Jordan and the US due to the former's condemnation of the aggression against Iraq could not last long. In any case, the Bush administration knows full well that King Hussein was merely adapting, against his own inclinations, to the feeling among "his subjects" in order to keep his throne. Indeed, the King's increased popularity both with Jordanians and Palestinians as a result of his stance in the war will be of assistance in the implementation of Washington's plans. 12
This explains the irritation of the administration when Congress voted through last March a motion stopping American economic and military aid
MIDDLE EAST (S35m and $20m respectively) to Jordan. Bush and his men had to explain to Congress that they had made a mistake in their understanding of the Jordanian attitude. Congress ended up giving the president the power to restore aid, if he judged this to be in the interests of a peaceful regional settlement'3.
The other key to this process is, of course, the Palestine Liberation Organization. It is true that, well before the Gulf crisis, the US had broken off its official contacts with this organization. Since then they have not been keen to reestablish them, and, indeed, have been trying to get their Arab allies to boycott the PLO and cut off its funding.
Attempt to restore French prestige
From this point of view, the recent meeting between the French affairs minister and Yasser Arafat - a feeble attempt to restore the Mitterrand
From one trap to another
THE myth of Israel as a safe haven for the world's Jews continues to have some currency, even amongst those who are otherwise critical of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. In fact, the primary concern of the Zionist movement has always been the immigration of Jews into Palestine, rather than their physical safety or personal freedom. Prior to 1939, the main Zionist bodies opposed all attempts to open the gates of western countries to Jewish refugees from the Nazi terror, fearing it would endanger the project of colonizing Palestine. After 1945, the Jewish Agency employed blackmail and open terror in the Displaced Persons' camps to force Jewish refugees to go to Palestine rather than the United States. Recent articles in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz have highlighted the mechanisms used to force Soviet Jews to go to Israel, and then keep them there against their will. As Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union began to swell in early 1990, the Israeli government brought pressure on the US and other western governments not to increase their quotas of immigrants from the USSR. The travel routes of immigrants were changed and the transit camps in Rome and Vienna replaced by ones in Warsaw and Budapest. Recently,
Israel has reacted angrily to Germany's decision to accept as immigrants Jews who apply directly from the Soviet Union. Israeli foreign minister David Levy has demanded that Germany should not encourage the immigration of Soviet Jews, and has received a pledge from Chancellor Helmut Kohl that they will not be granted "refugee status".
Israel is incapable of providing adequate employment, housing and support for the flood of Soviet immigrants. But it is nonetheless placing almost insurmountable obstacles in the way of those who wish to leave. Although new immigrants receive Israeli citizenship upon arrival in the country, they are prevented from receiving passports. Even the acquisition of a laissez passer is made virtually impossible, applications only being granted to new immigrants if they have reimbursed the Jewish Agency for the costs involved in moving them and their families to Israel. Any immigrant wishing to leave
Israel for a limited period must obtain guarantees on all these moneys.
Soviet immigrants with laissez passers face great difficulty in even getting a tourist visa from many countries. Moreover, they cannot use tourist visas to apply for refugee status in other countries; once Soviet emigrants have reached Israel and become citizens there, they cease to be thought of as refugees. Even if they make direct applications to immigrate, many countries will not accept them if they have become Israeli citizens. Meanwhile, the debate continues in the Israeli press as to how many of the Soviet immigrants are actually Jewish, or have merely claimed to be in order to get out of government's prestige with the Arab populations, and notably with those of North Africa and the immigrants in France itself, and ensure Paris' participation in the Washington-led regional process could only futher irritate the Bush admin-
The latter knows perfectly well that the PLO, and more precisely the Arafat leadership, which is hegemonic in its institutions, is still the most "moderate" of the Palestinian leaderships. No other (for Washington) more politically acceptable leadership with at least a minimum of rephas emerged, years of effort, notably by King Hussein. He himself now recognizes this, repeating on every occasion that he does not want to substitute himself for the PLO but rather work with it.
He has all the more need of the PLO's collaboration in that his kingdom has to deal with the radicalization of the Palestinians who live there, and indeed make up the majority of its population. The radicalization has been further stimulated by the serious problem of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have had to leave the Gulf states without resources for themselves or for the families in Jordan who lived off their remittances. The precarious stability of Hussein's kingdom is yet another reason why Washington cannot ignore the PLO.
For all these reasons, the Bush administration intends to make sure, as much as 10. The Other Front, (A.I.C., Jerusalem), March 6, 1991. 11. International Viewpoint, no. 156, February 6, 1989. 12. Newsweek, February 18, 1991. 13. IV no. 203, April 1, 1991. 14. Faisal al-Hussaini is, incidentally, from the same aristocratic family to which Haj Amin al-Hussaini, the Mufti of Jerusalem and the commander of the Palestinian contingent in the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948 belonged. May 13, 1991 • #206 International Viewpoint
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MIDDLE EAST possible, of the support of the Arafat leadership for the deal that it wants to sponPalestinian bourgeois notables in the territories occupied in 1967, headed by Faisal al-Hussaini'4, who has close political and financial links with the Arafat leadership, show that he considers the latter's support indispensable, despite the desire of the Shamir government to simply ignore the
Inversely, the green light given these for the meeting with Baker, a few days after the cessation of the terrible massacre of Iraqis by the American army, and remembering that, in happier times, the Unified Patriotic Leadership of the Intifada ordered a boycott of Baker's predecessor George Schulz's, shows clearly that the right wing that controls the PLO's leading bodies has decided to pursue its of permanent concessions to Washington to the end. The Arafat leadership hopes that the latter will in return assert the PLO's place in the regional pax americana. This is why Arafat did not hesitate to declare George Bush's speech of March 6 "positive"
The left of the PLO - the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) led by George Habash and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), led by Nayef Hawatmeh, have consistently denounced policy and in particular the permission given to the notables to meet Baker.
They have opposed Arafat's decisions in the PLO's leading bodies to no avail. The branches of these organizations in the denounced the meeting with the American secretary of state, explaining that the latter's efforts are aimed at establishing a settlement between the Zionist state and the Arab reactionaries at the expense of the elementary rights of the Palestinian
A communiqué from the "State of Palestine" branch of the DFLP, dated March 12, 1991, states that: "the acceptance by certain Palestinian personalities of Baker's invitation to meet him amounts to collaboration with the Israeli-American plan which aims to push aside the PLO and sow confusion among the Palestinian masses, which continue with all their might to defend Iraq against the American aggression, all the more so insofar as the forces of this aggression continue to occupy a part of Iraq and exercise blackmail on its people."
Fundamentalists may reap rewards
However, there is a great risk that the main beneficiary of the Arafat leadership's never-ending compromises will, as in 1989 and 1990, be the Palestinian • Islamic fundamentalist current, particularly Hamas (Movement of Islamic ResisInternational Viewpoint #206 • May 13, 1991 tance). This current goes in for nationalist, anti-western and anti-Jewish outbidding, which makes it appear as the only "radical" alternative to the PLO, in a situation where the left is handicapped by the contradiction between its radical, anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist talk and the constant compromises by its exiled leaders with the Arafat leadership.!?
The factors which make for the radicalthe Palestinian population under Israeli occupation more strongly than ever, with the combination of the abrupt fall in remittances by immigrant workers in the Gulf and the reduction of the number of Palestinian in Israel by more than a half on by the Shamir government. The Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza are today experiencing deep social and economic distress, further aggravated by the fall in remittances from the PLO, which is no longer receiving funds from the Gulf monarchies.
The economic persecution of the Palestinians by the Shamir government, which has reached its height in the quasipermanent curfew imposed on the West Bank and Gaza during the war against Iraq, is clearly meant to compel them to
Low-intensity expulsions
The ministerial reshuffle during the war which brought into the Zionist governmental far right a declared supporter of "transfer" — the favoured euphemism for the mass expulsion of Palestinians from
- is a clear sign that such an outcome is not an imaginary catastrophist scenario, but a real and immediate plan, already embarked on in the form of what one might call "low-intensity expulsion".
There is a double counterpart to this on the one hand, of course, there is the mass immigration of Jews from the Soviet Union. With the collusion of Moscow, Washington and American Jewish organizations, the Zionist regime is literally obliging Jews who want to leave the USSR to go to Israel, despite the wishes of the overwhelming majority of them, who want to go to North America. By using these methods, the Shamir government envisages Soviet immigration rising from 185,000 persons in 1990 to 400,000 this year, and a total of a million in the coming few years.
The other concomitant is the colonization of the occupied territories. This goes hand-in-hand with the first, creating in Israel a socio-economic pressure that tends to incite a growing num-
Israelis to accept the privileges offered to candidates for colo-
The housing minister Ariel Sharon is applying himself to his job with under the name Immigration, he foresees the construction of more than 10,000 housing units for settlers in the territories occupied in 1967, of which more than 7,000 are to be on the west bank of the Jordan, 2,000 in East Jerusalem and one thousand on the Golan Heights. Sharon is not just planning to expand existing settlements: he is creating new ones, in violation of previous promises to Washington.
In comparison with these deeds by the Shamir government, his intransigence on the procedural questions concerning the 'international conference", now as the "regional conference", and on the participation in the conference of Palestinians from annexed East Jerusalem18, is only a trivial expression of a basic opposition to any restitution of the Arab territories occupied in 1967.
James Baker has made plain his irritation and that of the administration to which he belongs at the Zionist right's
Privileged and cosseted ally
This is a bitter acknowledgement: as we affirmed at the start of this article, it is the state of Israel, the United States' leged and cosseted ally, which is now the main obstacle to the pax americana in the Middle East. Washington is not however ready to throw in the towel: its interests in this part of the world are too important for that. The Bush administration will do its best to surmount Israeli obstruction by putting economic pressure on the Zionist regime. The latter, meanwhile, in its char-
The absorption of the Soviet immigrants presents enormous economic problems which has meant a lowering by 200 to 300,000 of planned immigration for this year. The Israeli economy and the living standards of the population are in marked decline. The Central Bank of Israel has sounded the alarm: unemployment could rapidly reach 20% of the active population and provoke massive emigration that cancels out the effects of the immigration from the USSR.19
The US therefore has good reasons to believe that it can bring its spoiled child in the Middle East to heel. Washington will probably seek to provoke a split in the Shamir government and create the conditions for the return of a more "moderate" coalition, including their docile allies in the Labor Party.
In any case the pax americana is not for tomorrow, and if it ever sees the light of day will be very fragile. * 16. Communiqué of the PFLP-interior at the beginning 17. / no. 157, February 20, 1989. 18. The US would like to solve this problem by declaring EastJerusalem an "open city" under intemational control, a project that has the support of the Vatican. 19. Financial Times, April 24, 1991.
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