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"The PLO has done relatively well to manage an ordered retreat". with the anti-imperialist BLOODY SUNDAY COMMEMORATION march: Sunday January 30, 1.30pm, Saville Park, Chapeltown Road, Leeds, Montay Tutscay Wednesday Thursday Sendaly Satanday Sunday ANALYSTS of the Palestinian revolution have often based themselves on the Vietnam experience. Israel being massively propped up by imperialism for strategic reasons, they have argued, it couldn't be crushed by one uprising of the masses from inside, but had to be fought by a prolonged civil war, with the main base of the revolutionary forces outside the country.

Thus the Palestinian left tried to turn a disaster into a virtue, using the dispersion of half the Palestinians as a lever to unify struggle of the Arab masses and get the needed bases to regain their stolen fatherland The alliance with the Lebanese National Movement and the civil war. in that country opened the way for Lebanon to become the Hanoi of the Palestinian revolution, Palestine itself being the "south"

But reaction in Lebanon was never defeated, and Israel and the US have now set out to fully instal reactionary rule there, rooting out any resistance or mass struggle organisation. Having no possibility of a "long march" - a retreat into the countryside - the PLO has done relatively well to manage an ordered retreat of most of its forces into Syria, and into Syriancontrolled north and northeast Lebanon.

Syria is an even more difficult Hanoi for the Palestinian revolutionaries. Its current support for their struggle is tactical and limited, stemming from a temporary antagonism of the Syrian • bourgeois regime to the imperialist order.

The weakest chain in the imperialist master-plan behind the Israeli invasion in the Lebanese reaction, supposed to form the main force in the "pacification" of Lebanon. The fascist Phalangist militia, with its thousands of soldiers equipped and trained by Israel, has disappointed its masters by showing no strength in the real fighting - its main role in the fighting was the Sabra-Chatila massacre.

Now, according to Israeli reports, the Phalangists are losing the battle to control the 200,000 Druzes of the Shouf mountain near Beirut.

THE WAVE of strikes in" French car factories against the Mitterrand government's pay freeze policy is spreading.

The paintshop at Renault Billancourt s returned to work on January 20 having won a 155F (§15) increase in monthly bonus. But the Labour Movement Campaign for Palestine public meeting:

THE FIGHT FOR PALESTINE Speakers: Tariq Ali, Brown MP (Leith), Jeremy Corbyn, and speakers from Women for Palestine and Lebanese National Movement.

Wednesday February 8pm at County Hall, London SE1.

LABOLR Commitree on Ireland: annual geberal meetiag 1923 mill be on MEd á Rans i be I fortar TIL DE •EDENDRI DORTE The Phalangists were brought in behind Israeli tanks, but Israel did not want to do the fighting in the villages, having a Druze component in its own army. (Some Druze reservists the Israeli army are said to have joined. the Socialist Party militias in the Shouf, to fight the Phalangists).

When fighting broke out between local militias in Lebanon's second city Farablus, in the north, the Phalangist president Gemayel tried to utilise the situation to send in the "official" army - but both fighting sides in Tarablus united against the army, and it had to retreat quickly.

In Beirut itself Gemayel rules on American and French bayonets.

This week, when Americans, Israelis and Phalangists met in Khalda, just south of Beirut, for negonext day Billancourt was stopped again by other departments demanding a similar increase. . At Renault Flins, where the movement started, the paintshop is still out, and half the works laid off. The strikers have been out on the streets, particularly at ing of the LCI National Council on January 22.

Hand-printed silk-screened T-shirts: • Socialist Organiser: paper masthead with option of local group's name added at 20p per T-shirt extra. • Solidarnose logo, red on white. • Labour against the witch• Red star on white background. • $2.50 each except SO T-shirts, £3. Postage 50p. T shirts come in white or yellow, please state preference. Also individual designs undertaken, cost $6. must hare detaits of design and idea. Allor 14 days for deSires. Send orders Lei Gre " R tiations on their 'new order" for Lebanon, shells begaun to fall, wounding Lebanese. soldiers and almost hitting the hotel where the negotiations were about to start.

Israeli tanks surrounded Khalda, and threatened to shell Druze populafion centres. The US Sixth Fleet, just off shore, completed the stage for the installation of this new version of 'Lebanese independence"

The death in the last week of six Israeli soldiers, three of them senior officers, and daily incidents of firing at Israeli army vehicles, both keep up pressure for Israeli withdrawal and show that there are forces in Lebanon that without the massive external military presence' could yet change the whole situation. immigrant workers' hostels, campaigning for support.

And four other factories have been hit by similar strikes over pay and conditions: Chausson , and Peugeot at Gennevilliers, Citroën at Levallois-Perret, and Unic (Fiat) at Trappes. THE HARD-pressed Siles Zuazo government in Bolivia faces even further trouble.

Ministers belonging to the MIR (Movement of the Revolutionary Left) have resigned from the government, condemning its austerity policies. The MIR is reported to be the fastest growing party in the country, and the move must reflect growing discontent with the government among workers and peasants.

Siles took office in Oxtober last year after a general strike threat had forced the Bolivian military to hand over to civilian rule. But alongside some reforms he has introduced measures designed to placate the IMF and belp Bolivia meet its obligations to the international bankers.

The parties now left in the government are Siles" own Left Revolutionary National Movement, the Christian Democracy and the Bolivian Communist Party.

* We made a mistake in S0 115, writing that "In Miles CP members blocked sempes to occupy toe polio beadquarters IF ON MEN THII = * " I I IT

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