Law against doubt

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THE SUNDAY Times of January 2 reported on another evil effect of the decay of US capitalism.

In a society constantly generating new technologies and scientific discoveries, the prejudices of a century ago are able to dictate what schoolchildren learn.

Mel and Norma Gabler would be unpleasant but harmless eccentrics, if it were not that these two elderly right-wing religious fundamentalists have been able to pressure the Texas board of education to reject several textbooks.

•There are a lot of things the Gablers do not want taught to American children. Top of the list is evolution. They have won a fierce battle to have creationism taught alongside evolution in biology classes, and publishers of science banks in Texas must now refer to evolution as theory. =o: fac: in a maths book that there are no absolutes, every value he's been taught is destroyed. And the next thing you know, the student turns to crime and drugs'."

"Also unacceptable in the world according to the Gablers is: • The women's rights movement - because it can only come if women 'abandon their highest profession - mothers moulding young lives' • The suggestion that America ranks only third in per capita income afte. Sweden and Switzerland - because it might lead children to believe that there are benefits to socialism. • Any teaching about the depression of the Thirties - because it will only suc. ceed in raising doubts about our system It will take a of c: egslatior. agairs: 1a:5irg doubts abou: our s!s.er. to stop such doubts arising mince of TeNErE

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nternational News International News International News Socialist Orguniser no 114 Jarao. cani impr= ISRAEL'S WIDENING WAR ISRAELI spokesmen keep tirelessly explaining to the Jewish public here about the need for a long and consistent war to root the PLO out of the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

The blitz invasion of Lebanon was supposed to be a massive blow in this war. Now it turns out to be another long and not at all easy war to subdue the Lebanese and Palestinians. There is talk about the 'Vietnamisation' of the war.

Killings

Mass killings continue to be the main weapon of both the Israelis and the pro-imperialist Lebanese. In their grand plan for a new IN ADDITION to the tens of thousands killed and wounded in the war and bombing, we now have mure details about the fate of many thousands of prisoners taken by the Israelis.

The main concentration camp is in Al-Ansar. The Israelis do not recognise the Palestinian and Lebanese freedom fighters as prisoners of war, and do not bring them to any trial, so the only authority in the military prisons is the 'Shin Beit' - the security services - and no international esuventions are recognised as applying.

The prisoners in AlAnsar continue to live in tents on the ground, with no beds or mattresses, only blankets. The winter in order in Lebanon, the most immediate target now is the villages on the Shouf mountain, just outside Beirut.

Druze

The mostly Druze population there was organised on a semi-feudal basis, and allied with the MuslimPalestinian Left in the civil war. In the Shouf mountain itself there were no Palestinian bases, and the local villages enjoyed autonomy at the time of the civil war; with no problems between the Druzes and the Christian minprity.

When the Israelis occupied the area, in June, there was almost no resistance. With them they brought the Falangists, Lebanon is cold, rainy and snowy. There is no sanitation in the camp, and rain water runs on the tent floor.

There have been some attempts at protest by the prisoners in Al-Ansar. On December 2 three prisoners were killed and more wounded by one of the guards. These prisoners do not 'only include fighters.

Worse still is the danger to the lives of an unknown number of prisoners held in "investigation" centres, both in occupied south Lebanon and inside occupied Palestine. It is estimated that thousands of prisoners have disappeared in these centres. Now some news has come out of one of them, Gelemi, situated near Kibbutz Yagur, on the Report from who had never dared to show themselves in the area before, and. a wave of kidnapping and killing started.

Apparently, the autonomy of the Shout was seen as an obstacle to the new "centralised' rule. The intention of the mass killings is to persuade the villagers to give up their arms and submit dutifully to the official Lebanese army. As that army has no real strength in itself, they try to make the situation unbearable for the people first.

It is more than half a year now atter the Israeli invasion, and the killings in the : Shouf continue to mount. There are now dozens each day.

Haifa-Nazareth road.

Within one month more than 14 prisoners there have died of torture, and a bigger number have lost their sanity because of what they have suffered and seen.

Atrocities

Prisoners have been beaten cruelly and thrown bleeding near the prison wall, where time and again the soldiers come and beat them to death. One prisoner was banned from drinking for a week. When he was then caught drinking, the soldiers pushed a water pipe down his thruat and pumped in water until the man was blown up from inside and died. Such atrociHit suda 20p0.a0 0 A new order in Lebanon? ties are performed beture the eyes of all the prisoners.

A guard in the Atlit military prison, where the Syrian soldiers are kept (and officially recognised as POWs) tells more horror stories. The prisoners are beaten daily and held in inhuman conditions. When the Red Cross comes to visit, everything is tidied up for the day.

All this massacre, terror and killing doesn't secure success for the Israeli invaders. Seventy cases of military resistance against the Israeli forces have been reported for Nuvember alone. There is no progress in the American negotiations for a plan that will ensure the retreat of the Syrian and PLO forces from the northern part of Lebanon, where the fascists cannot now enter.

The main reason for the stalemate in Lebanon now is the weakness of the Gemayel regime installed by Israeli bayonets.

Beirut

Sharon and Begin his debts.

He got his fame before the 1981 election when he announced that in a secret laboratory his scientists had found a new type of energy that will free the world of the need for Arab oil. This was later proven to be a fake by a crook well-known to the police.

Now he is 'responsible for aid to the civilian population'. Up to last month he stopped any rebuilding in the destroyed Many Israelis emit a sigh as they pass the Lod (Tel-Aviv) airport terminal on the Jerusalem-Haifa road. - "There is even a popular love-song for "terminala' But now El-Al, the state airline, has been closed by the government, and the airport declared a police arena' ', prohibiting the 5,000 workers from entering their former workplace. Some workers demonstrating elsewhere, near the company's headquarters, were dispersed by cruel police beating.

The whole El-Al affair developed through a series of open government provocations, designed to force the workers into confrontation and humiliating defeat, despite their agreement to severe pay cuts and lay-offs.

The problem for the government is the very reason, for its current popularity with the Jewish masses = the war boom. They can boast no unem.. Advertisement: ployment at a time of a world crisis, no fall in living standards, and an almost free villa on offer for every Jew ready to settle on the West Bank, half an hour drive from Tel-Aviv's centre.

All this financed by printing shekels, at the cost of inflation soaring above 170% and sure to set a new Israeli record this year ... and by American dollars.

The issue of American aid has brought a new political scandal. The part! of the (somewhat sober) well-to-do-buyers, the 'Labour Ma'arakh, is blamed for calling on the US to cut aid and topple the Begin government.

The war itself is losing popularity as it drags on. but 'Labour' is winning nothing from that. They supported it all along, and even now do not call for withdrawal from Lebanon.

Their gamble on the US seems to have gone wrong. as the American congress is discussing raising Begin s war royalties even farther.

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Haifa, Dec.5