Zionist Contempt for Camp David Deal

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Despite the apparent military invincibility of the Zionist state of Israel, the mounting resistance from the dispossessed Palestinian masses against the racist state is having a major impact.

This is shown by large numbers emigrating, particularly amongst skilled, educated Western people of the sort who provided the backbone of Zionist expansion in the 50s and 60s.

It is though that as many as 800,000 Israeli citizens (about 20% of the population) are now living abroad.

There are many reports now of what the Sunday Times on 15 June called "a pervasive feeling of forboding" within Israel. Reporters from that paper found as many others are now doing that "a corrosive blend of cynicism and despair is seeping through cvery level of (Israeli) society, touching • Israelis in almost every aspect of their lives".

This has produced explosive conflicts within Isracl. Uri Avnery, Knesset member and his has up Beigin with Carter persistent critic of the excesses of Zionism, has revealed the racist orders given to Isracli soldiers in the occupied areas.

For his pains the offices of party were wrecked and he now called for the setting of "socialist vigilante groups" to defend himself other critics of the regime.

The Begin government has grown increasingly weak in the face of all this. Recent public opinion polls have given it only 15% support amongst the electorate. The economic crisis has forced cuts even in military spending and this has led to more and more defections from the government since the much publicised departure of defence minister Ezerf Weitzman in Weitzman has not been replaced yet but he was very nearly joined in June by Finance Minister Yigael Hurvitz who boycotted one cabinet meeting in an effort to get the government cuts he considered necessary to combat inflation.

Wafer thin

Two other actual defections from members of the so-called 'Democratic Movement for Change' in the Knesset were announced on 23 June leaving Begin with a wafer thin majority of two.

Begin has responded to this by a characteristically ferocious diplomatic offensive.

The EEC statement of 13 June saying that the PLO should be part of a peace process did not even mention the possibility of the Palestinians having a state of their own.

Yet it was condemned by Begin in terms that compared the present European regimes to their fascist and Nazi predecessors.

In defiance of all internationally-agreed norms, Begin also proposed on 23 June to move his personal office to East Jerusalem.

Finally on 27 June it was revealed that the Israeli cabinet now has plans for the permanent military occupation of the occupied territories.

It is clear, therefore, that the Israelis intend to retain complete control over the areas called "autonomous" in the Camp David agreements and to use the new settlements as a means of effectively expanding their frontiers.

Aggression

These can only be used to jettison the new US-sponsored peace talks due to begin on 5 July Indeed a new Bill has just been carried through the Knesset by the extreme right wing Tehiya Party to assert Zionist sovereignty over Jerusalem. This flies in the face of a 16-0 vote on the Security Council to oppose any such stance by the Zionists.

It is plain that the Israelis are even less willing to compromise on this demand than on the West Bank question.

And Zionist aggression has continued with a savage raid on the Lebanese village of Eitanich north of Tyre, killing 11 people.

This underlines the fact that the Israelis seem now to have no interest in the Camp David agreements.

But in the face of this hard line the Palestinian organisation Fateh at its recent congress has begun to talk of the possibility of two separate states of Palestine.

Hospitalised Begin himself has now been hospitalised once more by what appears to have been his fourth heart attack on June 30.

On his sick bed however he was no doubt strengthened by the news that his government had survived a Knesset vote by 60-54.

The Israeli Labour Party which seems virtually certain to replace Begin in the near future first approved the West Bank settlements and then condemned the EEC Declaration.

Clearly the choices facing Zionism grow more narrow as the forces both internal and external that tend towards its destruction grow stronger.