[Fears of the revival of the smouldering embers…]

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Fears of the revival of the smouldering embers of civil war have continued to stalk the streets of Beirut in the days since the establishment of a new ultra right wing government for Lebanon on July 1st.

After weeks of bitter fighting which left more than 1,000 dead, the new regime can be nothing more than a stopgap in all the feverish meanderings of Middle East politics.

Lebanon is a nation state created artificially by imperialism and bolstered by the fact that it provides the main Arab trading link with the outside world and the only alternative to the settler colonialists of Israel on its southern border. Since 1943 Lebanon has had a constitution based on elaborate compromises between the right-wing leaders of the Christian and Moslem communities.

This arrangement has constantly been threatened by the storms of Middle East politics and not least by the Lebanese Palestinian masses. In 1958 there was an outbreak of civil war when the US sent in the marines to "restore order".

Since then, US imperialists have continued to take an active interest in the maintenance of this state as a buffer between Zionism and its opponents in their current efforts to get Egyptian President Sadat to bring other Arab regimes into line in supporting a 'peace plan' that will sell out the Palestinians. The Americans have moved an individual by the name of McMurtrie Godley from service in Indo-Chinese embassies to 'combat' duties in the Middle East as ambassador to Lebanon.

This is a situation where the extreme right-wing Lebanese Falangists murdered 27 Palestinians in cold blood. The struggle of Palestinians against this provocation led to calls for "strong government" and on 23rd May a military regime was set up. This was answered by the establishment.

of barricades in all the Palestinian areas and among sections of Lebanese workers. This challenge ended the military regime within 3 days.

The new phase of right-wing provoked terror during June brought about a further political crisis. 'Once again the Falangists East Cauldron had acquired a great deal of military hardware which they were using at the edges of refugee camps and working class areas. The Palestinian guerrillas were joined opposing these attacks by left-wing Lebanese para-military groups.

After 1,000 deaths the ultra-conservative leaders of Moslem and Christian communities decided that they had had enough and on July Ist felt able to sink their differences enough to set up a The new Prime Minister is Raschid Karamid, traditionalist leader of the Sunni Moslem community, and the Minister of the Interior is Kamil Chamoun, Maronite Christian and veteran right-wing politician who is already threatening draconian measures to restore order.

The new government poses great dangers fo the Palestinian and Lebanese masses. Despite their exclusion from it, it appears to have at least the acquiescence of the Falangists Kamil Jumblatt, leader of Lebanon's largest Socialist party, together with his Stalinist allies, being prepared to accept the new regime on the tenuous grounds that "the Falange have been excluded"

There are great dangers also in the position of the bourgeois nationalists in the Palestinian resistance movement Leaders of Fateh the largest group, together with the pro-Syrian Saika and the Iraqi supported Democratic Front have pledged support for the new government and agreed to restore order in the refugee camps. Increasingly in recent weeks their forces have been absent from the struggle against Falangist provocations.

The main fighting has been carried on by members of the "Rejection Front" of Palestinian resistance groups of which the best known is the Popular Front of George Habash.

There could be no clearer illustration of the inseparable link between the struggle to defeat