"Divide and rule' in Lebanon

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London l * 59 kir Aurorr 1982 t0p • Polish Solidarity Campaign News 18 8PL. 30p plus 20p p&p. WHEN the French developed the 'confessional' system in Lebanon following 1922, they thought they had fashioned the perfect antidote to Arab nationalism.

They had done better than that, though. They had built a system based on relioinucy dafined communğıy vıru ities which was to retard the development of any modern politics in Lebanon.

The confessional system makes religious sectarianism the official system of the country. It provides that all important, and many not-soimportant, stale posts be distributed according to religious community: The President, for example, always a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, and the President of the Chamber of Deputies, a Shia Muslim.

Maronites

The Maronite Christians dominate. They have refused to participate in any Arabist movements, and evolved an ideology - based on a completely spurious history -according to which they are the last crusaders, an outpost of Western Christian civilisation and a bulwark against Arab-Muslim backwardness. The Zionist racists of Israel have not been slow in recognising the similarity of this view to their own.

Each confessional group, Maronite, Greck Catholic, Greck Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, 50D per • capeday Druze, Sunni, Shia and so on, each has its place in the sectarian state order, based on its population size as recorded in a 1932 census. In 1932 the ratio of Christians to Muslims was six to five. Today about 60% of the population is Muslim.

This population change made a conflict between the Christian communities and the Muslim communities inevitable.

Sectarians

But the struggle has been against confessionalism itself and not for rejigging the sectarian balance. This reflects a growing social differentiation, the relative impoverishment of the Muslim population and their radicalisation (in part as a result of contact with the Palestinian refugee population in Lebanon).

The reformers, people like Raymond Edde, who were in favour of concessions to the Muslim bourgeoisie by adjusting the confessional system to the new demographic realities, have been incieasingly isolated.

Clans

On one side, they are faced with the ultra-conservative Christian parties, the National Liberal Party (headed by the Gemayel family) and the many clanbased militias; on the other side there are the components of the Lebanese National Movement - a front of more than a dozen organisations and their militias, which is in alliance with the Palestinians.

There are, of course, some Muslim reactionaries on the side of the so-called Lebanese Front, as well as Christian leftists (not to mention the many Christian Palestinians) on the side of the National Movement. ^ One of the central points of the programme of the Left is the "abolition of sectarianism as a basis for political organisation and appointments."

So the Lebanese internal conflict is not simply a squalid affair of communal rivalry. The Muslim-Left forces are fighting to end confessionalism. And they reflect the growing social consciousness of the swelling ranks of the poor.

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Socialist Organiser, Thursuay. July, 1982 support Palestinians Israel's rampage through Lebanon... who can still believe that Zionism is really about letting Idemns the Israeli invasion of the aimed at driving the PLO out of and imposing on the Lebanese right wing government sympathetic 2) Calls on the Labour Party NEC to state publicly its condemnation of the Israeli invasion and to recognise the PLO as the chosen representative of the Palestinian people in their struggle for self-determina3) Welcomes the blacking action against Israel initiated by Australian and Greek trade unionists and the stand taken by the Scottish TUC against the invasion. We call on the TUC to instruct member unions to black all trade with Israel until its armed forces have completely withdrawn from Lebanese territory. 4) Agrees to affiliate to the Labour Committee on Palestine which is committed to Beirut: Israeli bombs blast a woman out of her third-floor flat Well, why won't the Palestinians' supporters among the Arab regimes allow the PLO members from West Beirut settle in their countries?

The Arab leaders have all to one extent or another cemented their own deals or basis for "peaceful coexistence" with imperialism and with the Zionist state of Israel.

They make rhetoric against the Zionists; but they themselves rest upon a political . balance in the Middle East of which the Zionist state is a component Indeed for regimes such as the Saudi monarchy and the Gulf states, which have no borders with Israel, the existence of the Zionist state complements their own direct military alliances with US imperialism. The Palestinian problem is for them, on the one hand an irritating element of instability in the Middle East for which they would like to find some compromise formula - such as a "mini-state" on the West Bank; on the other hand it as a offers them the chance to pose before their own workthe Jews live in peace?

struggle? the 1950s discussed the possibility of invading the South of Lebanon as far as the Litani River, or other measures to establish firm control over the Lebanon.

This has been the case since long before the PLO existed as an organisation.

Lebanon - 240,000 in 1964 ing class and peasant popu- - are first and foremost the lations as defenders of the Arab cause by giving cash dispossessed Zionism. Their objective has and a measure of diplomatic increasingly been to defend support to the PLO. themselves, to survive and to While the degree of direct dependence of the Arab. create conditions to return to Palestine. regimes upon imperialism plainly varies, all of them - they have come under attack including Syria - share the not only from the Zionists Saudi desire to appear as champions of the Palestinians without being thrust into any struggle against the invasions but also from forces of extreme right wing Zionist state. The PLO leaders them- reaction in Lebanon selves obviously feel that only by remaining in a state bordering Israel can they hope to retain a political organisations. credibility in pursuing their demands. including ine private ally There is thus a conflict Lebanon, and the fascists of of interest. And in addition many Arab bourgeois regimes look with alarm at the success and extent of the alliance developed in recent years in Lebanon between the Palestinians and the forces of the Lebanese Left: they fear that the political dynamic of this might disrupt the delicate political balance upon which they rest in their own countries.

But even if we defend the Palestinians Lebanon.

against Zionism, what right have they got to of their alliance with the Palestinians.

But this strength of the left is also a major thorn in The Zionists have since the side of the Zionists -and a factor motivating the present invasion.

We must understand that in the present context the interests of the Palestinians and the oppressed Lebanese masses are both equally counterposed to the Zionists, the imperialists, and their tools in the PhalanTalestillah. gist militias.

The enforced withdrawal of the Palestinian fighters from West Beirut would offer no reprieve to the Lebanese massses: instead it would leave them further exposed to the violence of •DUl the same time the Zionists and the extreme repeated air raids, What about the eviartillery strikes and partial dence that the ZionLists want peace in the Middle East? After whose objective is to crush all, they have given not only the Palestinians but back the Sinai to also the Lebanese left wing Egypt, evicting the These right wing forces. Yamit settlers.

Major Haddad South For the Zionists to hand back the empty desert land Phalange, Ilave been of Sinai in exchange for a extensively supported by the military alliance which proZionists with arms and cash. tects them against danger of In fighting back, the Pal- attack by its most powerful neighbour is a good trade estinian forces have made an important development indeed - particularly since beyond the previous position even this land was seized non- nvolventent the from Egypt in the first political struggles in the place! countries where the were We should note however settled. And, together with pied West Bank and • the that economically, the occuthe left, they have inflicted serious setbacks on the Phal- Gaza Strip are territory angist Millas. establishing worth far more to the virtual dual power in parts of Zionists - providing them with abundant, cheap. exploitable Arab labour, and These are real gains tol markets for their domestic the Lebanese and peasants: they are the fruits industries.

And, unlike Sinai, both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are included in the Biblical land of Israel, which Begin and the Zionist leaders feel duty-bound to retain, no matter what pressure is brought to bear upon them.

Meanwhile having neutralised the Egyptian bourgeoisie through the Camp David deal, Begin has been able to focus the whole weight of the Zionist offensive on his northern borders - annexing the Syrian Golan Heights. intimidating the Syrian rulers, and brutally invading Lebanon.

These are not peaceful gestures but further evidence that the Zionist state is an aggressive, expansionis/ state.

OK, but if we condemn Zionist aggression and nationalism shouldn't we also condemn the nationalism and violence of the Palestinians?

The violence meted out by the Zionists is institutionalised state terrorism, with the objective of driving out or permanently subjugating the Palestinian people. The armed struggle of the Palestinians is not only dwarfed in comparison to that of the Zionist military - 10,000 dead so far in the most recent invasion of Lebanon alone! - but must be understood as primarily defensive reaction, an attempt to hold off further Zionist attacks or regain what has been seized by WO This Labo 1) Cor people a to Israel.

tion.

these policies.

The Labour Committee contacted at 28 Carlton Road, London N16.

Socialists do not condone attacks on civilian targets nor do we believe that guerrilla actions against the Zionist military machine can liberate the Palestinian ur Party/Trade Union branch: people. But we must at all times defend the right of an oppressed nation to struggle, arms in hand, against its oppressors. The Palestinians are the oppressed, the dispossessed, and the Zionists are the oppressors.

While the Zionists openly argue - echoing Nazi phrases - that Palestinians are "two legged animals" and state their objective of crushing them, we have already seen that the leaders of Palestinian nationalism advocate no such racialism in relation to Jewish people.

And, as one Palestinian speaker recently pointed out in a public meeting in Oxford, when we come down to individual actions by Palestinian militants against Jews, we may oppose them, but who would compare the despairing punches and kicks of a man being hung with the violence of the executioner who coolly tightens the noose around his neck?

Turkey Solidarity Campaign Contact: BM Box 5965, London WCIN 3XX.

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Socialist Organiser, Thursday 22 July, 1982 Page

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