returning the Sinai to Egypt, the Begin government stalled about applying the IsraeliEgyptian peace treaty. worries the Israeli leaders is the period after April 25, 1982.
For months, Menahem Begin and his team have prepared for this test. After purely and simply annexing the Syrian Golan Heights at the end of 1981, Begin put the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under Israeli civilian administration, and on April 21 the Israeli government launched an aerial attack on Lebanon at Damur, ten kilometers south of Beirut.
In its April 23 issue, Le Monde "these raids were especially seriall because of their exceptional violence." killed at least twenty-five people.
In returning the Sinai to Egypt, the Begin government did not want anyone ideas that this evacuation would be followed by any other conces-
The Israeli government has been worried by the overtures that Egypt has made to the other Arab states and the remarks that Yasser Arafat made on May 17 ("President Moubarak will be a friend of the Palestinians...the political map of the Near East will be changed this year...with the return of Egypt to the Arab world."). Because such moves could open up the way for a revival of the Saudi fahd plan and negotiations over the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied terri-
What the Zionist government wants to get across to the Arab states, the PLO, and the Palestinian masses is that the only choice is one between war and a negotiated capitulation in the style of the Camp David Accords. That is, the Arabs would have to recognize the Zionist state, not in its original frontiers, as the European bourgeoisies want, making such a step by the PLO a precondition for negotiating for the creation of a Palestinian state, but in the framework of a Greater Israel, including the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights. Menahem Begin's avowed intention 35 years after the creation of Israel.
To accomplish this end, it is necessary to crush the Palestinian resistance both inside and outside of the Zionistheld lands. That is the reason for the bombings of south Lebanon and the 16 bloody repression against the Palestinian masses in the occupied territories.
Cynically, the Israeli government has leaked what its plans are. According to a dispatch to the State Department the U.S. ambassador in Samuel Lewis, reproduced in the Israeli press (the Jerusalem Post of January 15, 1982), the Israeli government was considering ten "surprises" to be carried out before the evacuation of the Sinai. Some of them already have been. cluded: failure to evacuate all the Sinai; transfer of the premier's offices to East Jerusalem; an invasion of southern Lebanon; an air attack against the Syrian missiles in the Bekaa valley; the extension of Israeli law to all the occupied territories; refusal to return two islands in the
Strait to Israel; an intensification of the Israeli attacks on the PLO offices, including in Europe; and even bombing of the Libyan and Pakistani nuclear installations under construction.
Supplementary Begin government did not fail to stage some diplomatic maneuvers to neutralize or divide the Arab states and to give the Western bourgeoisie some excuses to justify their "moderation." One example is the ceasefire in Lebanon that was signed on July 24, 1981 under the auspices of the U.S. and which today is being blithely violated. Another is the "commitment" Menahem Begin made in front of Francois Mitterrand in order to get the French president off the hook for visiting Israel. This promise was violated a few weeks later, which shows how little Menahem Begin cares about diplomatic speeches and agreements.
However, such a policy is full of dangers for all the conservative forces involved in the region. For the Arab states, even those with the most reactionary governments, following a policy of a separate peace with Israel and of capitulation to
Such a policy endangers the most conservative regimes and the stability of this strategic region. This is understood both by the Saudi monarch and the Jordanian regime as well as the European bourgeoisies. They are all seeking a negotiated solution that would not be a simple repeat of the Egyptian-Israeli treaty or the Camp David Accords. understand the ineffectiveness in the long term of trying to impose the kind of peace that Washington and the Zionist state have in mind-an Israeli military protectorate under a cover of "autonomy" for the occupied territories.
The rising resistance of the Palestinian masses, its spread to all sections of the Arab population, and its unification foreshadow what will happen if Begin's gap between the PLO's diplomatic maneuvers abroad and the mobilization of
Palestinian population - with the Israeli-held lands. petty-bourgeois leaderships is that this gap may continue to grow and in time threaten their hold.
But Begin is not worried about His plan for a Greater Israel requires crushing the resistance and expelling the Palestinian masses from their
This plan obviously cannot be reconciled with the perspective of creating a Palestinian state, even one limited to the West Bank and Gaza, since this would back these territories, and that, according to Begin, would constitute a mortal danger to Israel.
But sooner or later such a policy will undermine the ground under the feet of the Begins and Sharons. The young Palestinians, the youths and children, who have demonstrated with bare hands and stones against the Israeli army are showing once again that no occupation army can wipe out a people who are fighting for their land and liberty.
For the first time, this is beginning to be understood by sections of the Israeli population and leading them to reject
The only way to solve the crisis in the area in the interest of all the working people is for the Palestinian and Israeli masses to fight together against Zionism, for the return of the occupied territories, an end to Israeli attacks on Lebanon, and halting the preparations for war.
For the first time, such a mobilization appears as a real possibility, as shown by the demonstration of tens of thousands of persons on March 27 in Tel Aviv against war and the occupation.