Syria wants to crush the PLO

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From back page all built up Arafat's stature. According to Abu Musa, Arafat was a law unto himself. There was no democratic decision-making within Fatah -nothing more than Arafat consulting, as and when be chose, with his closest confidants.

As long as the PLO's star was rising this kind of organisation might have maintained its unity. But with the bloody defeat at the hands of Israel in Lebanon last year, a challenge was inevitable. And yet -the immediate aftermath of the PLO's withdrawal from Beirut saw Arafat's leadership confirmed without open dissent.

Two events produced the open fracture. Firstly Arafat had pressed for an accommodation to the US plan according to which Hussein of Jordan would head a West Bank Palestinian statelet federated with Jordan.

Secondly. Arafat gave imporan: military positions to so Fields who had disgraced ===*i c sore before * * • be Israeli ship stood in the shadow of Syria. i was not a matter of choice. Rather, two dissimilar projects with opposite objectives had found a temporary unity.

Arguably Abu Musa didn't have much option. Without Syrian support and without the support of those Palestinian groups that are no more than agents of Syrian policy, Abu Musa's group might have been eliminated almost as soon as it broke away.

Now, Abu Musa, who accuses Arafat of accommodation to US imperialism, looks set to become the instrument through which Syria attempts it own accommodation to US imperialism.

When Syria first invaded Lebanon, President Assad though that the valuable service he was pertorming for imperialism would be recognised. Perhaps America would force Israel to deciare that the Golan Heights - annexed from Syria by Israel - were 'negotiable'. Perhaps a closer relationship with the US would force Moscow to be more generous.

No doubt Israel and the US would have liked Assad to wipe vut the Palestinians then, to go one better than the 'Black September' massacre of 1970 perpetrated by Hussein of Jordan.

But apar from anything else, Assad was aware that his trump card was control of the PLÒ. He wasn't against its destruction, but against playing his hand too soon.

Syria stood with the Christian Phalangists against the PLO and the Lebanese National Movement in 1976, providing the conditions for the massacre of Tel al Zaatar and other Palestinian camps.

But in the period after Sadat's 1977 visit to Jerusalem the Egypt/Israel Rapproachment Syria claimed the leadership of the front of steadfastness. Behind the scenes Syria sought to strengthen the forces sympathetic within the PLO.

Any independent Palestinian organisation was and is a threat to the ruling clique in Syria. Arafat's selling the pass to Hussein and acceptance of the mini-state idea was the worst of all possibilities, though, because it meant that once again imperialism could bypass them.

It was therefore expedient to keep the PLO, in some form or another, while either eliminating Arafat or forcing upon him a collective leadership, one in which Syria would have a considerable weight.

Arafat has consistently refused the demand of the Abu Musa group to establish a collective leadership.

What will happen if the forces loyal to Arafat are defeated?

The butcher of the Palestinians in 1970, Hussein, is the mantle of leader of the Palestinians. It is extremely unlikely that in the foreseeable future US imperialism, the decisive force in the region, will be prepared to boost Assad even if his trustees take over the PLO.

In any case, the Syrians cannot hold more than a rump PLO: the PLO's relations with the Palestine National Council will be fractured and new splits within the PLO will almost certainly emerge. There seems little likelihood that the Syrian workers will soon overthrow Assad. There were few protests in 1976 and there is no reason to think things will be different now. The Lebanese opposition is itself absorbed in its own war. The Palestinians -despite the meaningless protestations of every Muslim regime - are without allies.

The danger is that the smashing of the PLO will initiate another period like that following the defeat of 1948.

But while disorientation will certainly be the immediate outcome of the confrontation, this time the Palestinian people will have behind them the experience of a • decade and a half of political-military struggle which has raised their political consciousness enormously. Tuesday resolved to step up the action. This will include borough wide bans on overtime, no cover for unfilled posts, no working with agency staff, no use of cars on council business and no contact with councillors or MPs.

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