The Zionist state has unleashed a new war of aggression against Lebanon aimed at crushing the Palestinian resistance. [Prime Minister Menachem] Begin and [Defense Minister Ariel] Sharon have not hesitated to resort to the most powerful means of destruction and the most criminal methods. They have savagely attacked and bombed Palestinians and Lebanese without making any distinction between civilian and military targets. This war has already claimed thousands upon thousands of victims, and the cost mounts every day. Hundreds of thousands of people have had to abandon their homes and jobs to swell the already enormous mass of refugees. Material destruction has been vast in both the cities and countryside. Palestinian targets have been hit with unprecedented violence by an army that, according to Begin’s and Sharon’s plan, is supposed to impose a “final solution.” The Israeli attack was long premeditated. They were only waiting for a favorable occasion to unleash it. In 1978, Israel launched a similar operation, which by hindsight seems to have been a dress rehearsal for the present one. At that time, the Palestinian resistance was able to maintain the bulk of its positions, and they were not breached either by the smallerscale operations that ensued. Thus the problem that the Palestinian resistance poses for the Zionists continued to exist on the military level also. Despite the advantages the Zionists gained as a result of the Camp David agreements, this question was not solved politically. That was what the Zionist establishment could not accept. Another cause of concern for the Zionist leaders was the evolution of the situation in the occupied territories, most of all the upsurge on the West Bank, where the Zionists were confronted with growing mass opposition, and the determined struggle of the Golan Arabs who have remained on a protest strike for months. The rise of the Arab masses was all the more worrying because it was having an impact on layers of the Israeli population itself, as shown by the March 27 demonstration in Tel Aviv. The effects of the economic situation were also a serious pressure. For the first time, the standard of living of the Israeli masses fell. In such a context, there was a growing feeling of insecurity and pessimism about the future, an increasing awareness that the country was caught in a blind alley. To meet these problems, Begin needed to July 5, 1982 pull off some spectacular stroke that could create a new situation, and lend some solidity to his propaganda about “a new 1948,” that is, the opening up of a new phase of growth for the Israeli state.
The main objective of the military offensive was to deal the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] the hardest blow in its history and thereby deal a political setback to the mass resistance in the occupied territories.
At the same time, Begin sought to weaken Syria both militarily and politically and force it to withdraw from Lebanon. This would prepare the way for a restructuring of the Lebanese state, “freed” from Palestinian influence, which would be handed over to the most conservative and reactionary forces, those elements prepared to accept a “Pax Israeliana” under the tutelage of imperialism. It would mean a shift in the balance of forces between the Arab states as a whole and Israel in favor of the latter.
Begin thought that there were a number of favorable conditions for launching this operation now. They included the prolonged neutralization of Egypt resulting from the Camp David agreements; the breakdown of the Lebanese state; the weakening of the Lebanese left; the impossibility of any action by the Iraqis; and the internal problems of the Syrian regime, which made it unable to run the risk of a major military confrontation.
Begin knew very well that the American imperialists would make only formal objections, since they also have an interest in seeing the PLO crushed, Syria weakened, and Israel strengthened. He knew also that the West European bourgeoisies would not do anything concrete to stop him.
Begin wanted as well to show that the Israeli state is not comparable to the shah’s Iran, that it had a considerable military strength, great political cohesiveness and represented the only solid underpinning for a counterrrevolutionary strategy in the region.
His calculations proved correct. The U.S. even opposed the adoption of a resolution condemning the attack on the United Nations. The West European states, including “socialist” France, did nothing more than issue condemnations as empty as they were hypocritical. The USSR maneuvered behind the scenes, interested mainly in rescuing its ally in Damascus. It has not in any way come to the aid of the Palestinian resistance. The UN force in no respect fulfilled its assigned task of serving as a buffer.
The Arab Deterrent Force — in effect, the Syrian army — did everything possible to avoid fighting. The Arab states remained passive.
Within Israel itself, the Labor opposition gave blank-check approval to the aggression, and the antiwar demonstrations drew only a few hundreds of participants, who were brutally attacked by advocates of Jewish national unity.
The ceasefire agreement concluded separately between Israel and Syria was promoted by the U.S., which feared that Begin would go too far and touch off upsets in the region whose consequences could not be predicted. Iran’s decision to send forces to aid the Palestinian resistance was the first alarm signal.
The PLO regarded the initial ceasefire as a betrayal, another indication that the Syrian regime was much more concerned with its own fate than the vital interests of the Palestinian people. Under the pressure of this maneuver, it in turn accepted a ceasefire, which seems extremely precarious. Begin has already violated it several times and undoubtedly will violate it any time he thinks that he has something to gain.
The successes scored in Israel’s new blitzkrieg make it possible for the Zionist state to base itself on a position of strength in the negotiations now going on, and which will continue in an intense way, regardless of the vicissitudes of the military confrontation.
Begin will be able to count on substantial aid from the imperialists and on the more or less direct complicity of the reactionary forces in the region.
Nonetheless, the Zionist leaders’ hope of opening a new phase in the history of their state and its domination in the region are in great danger of being dashed. The main objective of the war was not achieved. The PLO suffered very severe blows, lost positions, had to accept very painful losses, but the Israelis could not destroy it.
The PLO’s guerrillas fought and continue to fight heroically, and their centers of resistance have not been eliminated even in the cities subjected to the enemy’s worst attacks.
The hesitation that Begin began to show as soon as his army reached the outskirts of Beirut in itself reveals the blind alley in which Israel remains caught.
In the Lebanese capital and its suburbs, there are about 200,000 Palestinians who are determined to defend themselves to the last. To crush the Palestinian resistance and its organization, the PLO, which is not a “gang of terrorists,” but the expression of the national aspirations of a people fighting for independence and survival, the Zionists would have to unleash a massacre bordering on genocide. And after that they would have to envisage massive population transfers toward uncertain destinations.
Moreover, the Lebanese reactionary forces, which have not overcome their own divisions, are scarcely in a position to impose a strong regime of any stability whatever.
Building a puppet Arab militia like that led by [Col. Saad] Haddad in the southern Lebanon border area is possibly only in a limited and 597 relatively thinly populated area. In any case, such an operation could not make it possible to avoid the costs of a prolonged intervention of the Israeli armed forces.
The internal situation in Israel could change as the precariousness of the successes made by the offensive become clear and as the losses suffered by the aggressors come to be known. These losses are quite modest compared with those suffered by the Palestinians and Lebanese, but they will seem grave to the Israelis, who are not prepared to pay a high cost in blood for victories.
It is essential for the workers movement to mobilize throughout the world to force an immediate halt to the criminal aggression by the Zionist state, and to assure full solidarity with the Palestinian resistance. Demands must be raised that the Israeli army withdraw from all of Lebanon and that all the repressive and occupation forces be withdrawn from the occupied territories; that Lebanese sovereignty be restored; and that the Palestinians keep their positions, their armed forces, and their organizations.
It is necessary to denounce the complicity of the U.S. with Begin, and the hypocrisy of the West European states, which have adopted economic sanctions against Argentina in the Malvinas conflict, and are loath to take any concrete action against the Israeli aggression. The workers states have to be called on to offer economic and military aid to the Palestinian resistance and to all the Lebanese forces fighting alongside the Palestinians against the Zionists.
Stop Zionist aggression!
Israeli troops out of Lebanon now!
Solidarity with the Palestinian resistance!