Formal democracy
Revolutionary Communist League - Matzpen fallen on his feet. He has managed both to avoid a governmental crisis and to throw the mass movement, which had grown dramatically since June 1982, into disarray. Because the peace movement staked everything on the expectation of the political consequences that they thought the commission of inquiry report and the game of illusion should have.
There has been no defection from the government coalition. No change of the in Israel Michel WARSCHAWSKI - TEL AVIV. In the western press, a flood of eulogies on Israeli democracy greeted the Kahane commission of inquiry's report into the Sabra and Chapolicies as if nothing had happened. What is more, they got a verdict, endorsed by all the big political forces, which says, "The matter is closed".
As we wrote in International Viewpoint No 24, February 21, 1983, now majority is foreseen because the Labour Paety is more than ever incapable of using the repercussions of Sabra and Chatila to win a majority, or even force a crisis within the government coalition.
Thus, it is not on the parliamentary terrain that the next stage will take place, but in the street. This was confirmed, tragically, by the grenade thrown by far-right activists, which killed Emile Greensweig, Peace Now militant.
tila massacres. Forgetting what was involved - the massacre of thousands
Antiwar demonstration in Israel (DR) 'break from the Labour Party. It must of defenceless Palestinians - Francis Cornu of Le Monde and Serge July of Liberation (French daily papers) were in ecstasies over how special Israel was.
Israel was, believe it or not, ready to look into its own deeds. It had allowed an 'independent' commission to make a pronouncement about the - indirect -responsibility of the Israeli government for the massacres.
However, what is really special about Israel the whole world was able to see clearly a week later. But no-one in the media pointed it up. It was that althrough the commission drew its conclusions and made its recommendations, Sharon, Begin and Shamir are still at the head of the Jewish state. They are applying the letter of the recommendations but disregarding what lies behind them - the denunciation of the immorality of the leaders who are responsible for the criminal adventure in Lebanon.
This is Israeli democracy' - abstract formulas that hide the reality of repression, racial discrimination — the covering up of all the crimes of the Zionist state by
Now has a duty to finally take initiatives that will not only be a response to the excesses of the Begin-Sharon government but which can give impetus to a movement that will stay on the streets until it wins over a majority of the population to active and determined opposition to the policy of war and annexation.
It was in such a perspective that the Committee Against War in Lebanon decided not to yield to the many pressures put on it by the moderate pacifist currents to stop its activity. These currents argued that a halt was necessary to avoid widening the split that is more and more dividing Israeli society.
The only hope of putting an end to the criminal and suicidal policies of Sharon is precisely to widen this split. This is to say that Peace Now must commit itself entirely to fight for peace if it wants to justify the confidence that hundreds of thousands of Israelis have placed in it.
The following message was sent to the recent conference of the Palestinian Naneutral formulas. An example is the laws tional Council held in Algiers by the Fourth International section in the State that exclude Arab citizens of Israel from of Israel, of which Michel Warschawski is a well-known spokesman.
a whole series of social gains, not because they are Arab, let it be understood, but because they have not done their mili-
Palestine National Council
Algiers tary service.
The content is racist and discriminatory but the form is democratic.
Sharon therefore stays in the govern-
On the occasion of the convention of the Palestine National Council, we send ment and, so that there will be no misunthe delegates of the Palestinian Arab people fraternal greetings from the anti-Zionderstanding, keeps his responsibilities ist Jewish and Arab forces inside the state of Israel.
within the enlarged ministerial commis-
We are confident that this council will once again express the spirit of unity sions for military affairs and negotiations
Arab people in the most difficult moments of
The former minister for with Lebanon.
defence told the Paris newspaper Le
We wish to reiterate our commitment to continue the struggle inside the Zion-
222222
I have won'. For once the man
Matin, who has made untruths an essential ele-
We wish to reaffirm our commitment to the struggle for the achievement of his politics spoke the truth.
the full rights of the Palestinian Arab people and the establishment of a free soment of ciety in Palestine in which Jews and Arabs can live in peace, brotherhood, and
All this goes to show that those who naively or cynically argued for a mora-
As the vanguard of the anti-Zionist struggle inside Israel itself, we shall make torium on mass mobilisations against the every effort to strengthen the solidarity with the PLO, the sole legitimate re-
Begin government while waiting for the presentative of the Palestinian Arab people. Revolution until Victory.
conclusions of the Kahane report, were the game of Sharon and his playing
This gang got five months acolytes.
respite to go on with their criminal
4
Dear Brothers and Comrades, that distinguished the Palestinian the battle for Beirut.
equality.
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that the shouting is over Begin, has Begin. Sharon, Kaful- Vou murdered my son ! 3990
week. They want the following:
- The environmental-protection regulations for companies relaxed.
- More freedom to lay off workers.
- Education of the youth to be more under the control of the employers; youth should be obliged to do a year's