Fearful race which masses cannot win Yoav Bar reports from Haifa on the threat of more slaughter in Lebanon

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tho mentorte maunt mickl enoush to stan it? A TERRIFYING race is now taking place ... will the crisis around the Israeli war of genocide against the Palestinlan masses in Lebanon develop fast enough to stop more and worse of the Sabra-Shatila horrors?

The danger is very real. The Lebanese fascists publicly pride themselves on their latest acts, and promise to continue to kill Palestinians until they see them all out of Lebanon. Israel continues mass murderous repression of the Palestinains and Lebanese left, supplying and giving a free hand to both the Gemayel and Haddad gangs. (Eyewitnesses have found it hard to identify which gang the murderers came from, as 'they all wear the same Israeli uniforms'!).

American and European imperialists, who pressurised the fighters out of Beirut and then opened the way for the Israeli-fascisi onslought, now press for a Syrian and PLO withdrawal from the whole of Lebanon. This will open the country for a full scale terrorizing of the population, and the death or expulsion option for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees.

But a real crisis is developing which can isolate and finally stop the bloody advance of the Zionist invaders. Not least is the crisis in Palestine itself, where the week after the Sabra-Shantila massacre has seen the biggest wave of unrest since the establishment of the Zionist state.

Bank The occupied West Bank and Gaza declared a 3 day general strike, which was really general despite repression and the threat of mass murder and expulsion.

The main breakthrough in this week of protest was by the Palestinians in the ine aearn tou mounts. wut ire area occupied since 1948who now constitute 17% of the A million official' residents of the Zionist state. From the Sunday that the news of the massacre arrived, there were demonstrations all round the country, and a general strike of the Arab Palestinian population was declared for Wednesday, September 22.

It was the third one day general strike in the '48 territories, following 'The Day of the Land' in 1976, and the general strike on March 30 (the day of the land) this year in support of the West Bank and Gaza struggle. This time the response to the strike call was total, and there was a mass demonstration in every single village or city neighbourhood.

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Most of the demonstra- where to demonstrate on the tions flew the Palestinian day itself. national flag, which in itself could lead to 3 years' impri- try to prevent this mass mosonment under Israeli law. bilisation. They decided on The slogans of the masses a bold act of 'revenge in the were very clear, calling for a most important Arab centre popular revolution to liber- within the 48 territories, the ate Palestine. Even in cities city of Nazareth. like Haita and Jaita, where most of the population was stration on Wednesday morexpelled in 1948, there were ning there, policemen and soldiers were smuggled into thousands marching and then hours of stone throwing the city in civilian buses, and and clashes between the began almost immediately youth and the police. shooting live bullets at the In many places the dem- people in the main street. onstrators went out to block main roads. The Bedouin of wounded, and only by real the Neger desert, who had luck was nobody killed. their land expropriated in Four days later, in Daburiya the massive military buildup near Nazareth, a memorial under Camp David, also march to the Sabra-Shatila played an important part in victims was fired on.

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A wave of arrests, accompanied by brutal beating, has gone on the two weeks since the strike. Workers who took part in the strike were fired in some After a peaceful demon- plants, and in one textile plant the Arab women workers called a strike against the firing of two of them accused in organising for the strike.

• More .than 40 were The same week opened real cracks in the Jewish society in Palestine, which might topple the present ultra-right leadership. On the Sunday after the massacre, some thousand demonstrators gathered in front of HARINGEY Socialist Organiser: fortnightly meetings at Brabant Rd trade union centre. For details phone 802 0771 or 348 5941.

POLISH Solidarity Campaign/Solidarity with Solidar ity: protest picket of British Soviet Friendship Society dinner, Ealing Town Hall, Saturday October 23, 6.30 pm. Please show your support for the Polish workers. SWAPO Women's Solidarity Campaign: meeting with Frieda Williams (SWAPO Women's Council), Amrit Wilson, Candy Udwin, and Begin's home.

There were people from the 'Committee Against the War' , as well as 'Peace Now? and some MP's from the Israeli Labour Party. The police called on the protestors to withdraw, and the 'Labour' MP's were taking their people away as the police attacked the demonstrators who were not ready to go; first arresting some and, after the arrests were fiercely resisted, firing tear gas.

A demonstration by a few hundreds that same evening in Tel-Aviv, organised by the 'Committee Against the War'; was dispersed by the police, who also beat passers-by and detained some 50 people. Throughout that week small demonstrations in the Jewish population continued, inciuding some Kibbutz people, some soldiers' groups, and even some religious groups..

The "Peace Now' demonstration on Saturday night, in the centre of Tel-Aviv, was the biggest ever in • the history of Israel, with hundreds of thousands of people.

The Begin government was forced to nominate a juridical committee of inquiryinto the Sabra-Shatila massacre. But the facts about the massacre are already very well known, including the direct Israeli involvement in sending the Lebanese fascists into the camp and actively helping them for three dayswhen they knew of the mass slaughter taking place.

The inquiry is a ploy to distact attention and postpone any eal for the resignation of those responsible in the government.

But if Sharon or even Begin falls, it will be because of the deadlock in Lebanon and their loss ofUS favour, rather thanthe protests here. The Likud government party still has the support of the majority of Jews, and this majority is not impressed by the Labour' protest, identified with the pro-American well-to-do layers.. As long as the US pays for the war, and the war business is booming; any working class political action is made hardly possible by divisions between the super-oppressed Arab workers and the relatively privileged upper layers.

All this is not enough to make even Likud supporters want to die in Lebanon. Sharon himself admitted that the soldiers by and large want to come home. He disclosed that propaganda against the war had prevented the mobilisation of a whole brigade. More than. a thousand soldiers nave have signed a request, left, not to be sent to Lebanon.

It is typical of the tribal pressure of the Jewish community that even most of the soldiers who refused to go to Lebanon and were sent to prison, didn't want their names to be published.

The 'Israeli Labour' oppposition is no alternative to Begin. Up to the day of the massacre in Sabra and Shatila, 'Labour' leader Perez was going around boasting of being the creator of Israel's Falangist organisation.

General Sharon, anxious to silence criticism of his part in past war crimes, disclosed that Israeli officers under Labour visited Falangist command posts during their onslaught on Tel-elLa aias in 1976 which led to the massacre of many thousands of Palestinian civilians, after the fighters surrendered.

'Labour* couldn't deny they supplied the Falangists during and after that massacre so the responded by accusing Sharon of exposing security secrets.

In all their demonstrations there has not been a single word about justice for the victims of the massacre -the Palestinian refugees. They stress that their protest will help Israel' public rel ations in the world and prevent the collapse of imperialist support. They say their readiness to cooperate with the Reagan plan and King Hussein is the best way to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestintan state.

The main aim of the war, to stabilise a new fascist order in Lebanon, is not yet secure, and the price of the war; in Arab and worid public opinion and in mounting crisis in the rule of Zionism in Palestine, may lead to the American, and the Israeli command losing their • nerve. They could unleash more fierce attacks, OI they could call some withdrawal.

This new phase of open crisis means great dangers, great responsibilities and also some chances for us.

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young woman worker was the strike, they didn't know

Labour Committee conference