Election No Respite for Zionists

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ment at home and abroad, coupled with continued oppression engendering strong resistance from the Palestinians under occupation.

The recent report issued from the World Jewish Congress has rejected the once sacred Zionist premise that Jews abroad should refuse to publicly criticise Israel.

It has repudiated the necessity of Jews emigrating to Israel and condemned the West Bank settlement policy.

This schism between Israel and world Jewry is extremely damaging to the Zionist myth that anti-Jewish racism can only be combatted by retreating to Israel and that one can directly equate being Jewish with being Zionist.

The election will almost certainly return Labour government which may be prepared to withdraw from some parts of the West Bank in order to divide the Arabs.

Such a deal would attempt a cheap economic, pro-imperialist 'solution' to the Palestinian problem and the Israeli defence budget.

Such deals, without regard to the Palestinians' just claim for national self-determination, are a hallmark of the Zionist 'flexibility' of the Israeli Labour Party. Apart from the past responsibility for oppression in Israel and the West Bank, British socialists should recognise a further rightward thrust in the December 1980 Israeli Labour Party manifesto.

Their programme for a Palestinian autonomous zone in the West Bank is built around the 'Allon Plan' involving Israeli withdrawal from the heavily populated Arab areas of the West Bank whilst retaining the security settlements along the Jordan Valley, east Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the Latrun salient..

The Palestinian zone would be demilitarized and completely surrounded by Zionist forces linked only by road to Jordan.

All settlements in the areas to be annexed by Israel will be protected as the manifesto clearly states that: 'They are essential for Israel's security. Like all other Zionist settlements they constitute educational, social and pioneering achievements and valuable assets in the political struggle for the achievement of peaceful borders. Israel's Labour government will consolidate and develop them."

At a time when the main issue for the bankrupt Begin block is to force through more settlements, prior to July, to prevent any West Bank autonomy the full reactionary force of this manifesto is evident. In line with its policy the Labour Party voted last week in favour of the establishment of two new Israeli settlements -CeKoa Beth and Mitzpali Govrin in the interests of 'security' There is no hint in the manifesto of the much boasted legitimate rights of the Palestinians allowed for in the BeginSadat agreements under Carter's administr ton.

• It refuses to recognise thie Palestinians as a natiu•... - ;a whole represents a further shift to the right.

Begin's ruling block look set for a smear election campaign ridiculously suggesting that the Labour Party manifesto represents a sell out to the PLO. Linked to this, the Settlement Minister Sharon has claimed that any attempt to settle by giving up West Bank territory will be resisted and will bring 200,000 Israelis on to the Whilst it is difficult to assess the seriousness of this claim, the militant Zionist Gush Emunim and Kach settler movements have previously mounted massive 30,000 strong prosettlement demonstrations.

The Likud government of Begin, as part of its expansionist vision of a 'greater Ísrael' has constantly funded, supported and armed these movements.

The army also may well side against any attempt to remove settlers. Soldiers who last week surrounded 100 Zionist settlers who had seized a hilltop north Zionist soldier with PLO prisoners of Jerusalem, issued a statement to the settlers that they would protect them, not eject them.

The latest storm in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, is over a report that the government has been negotiating a deal with three private building companies involving the exchange of state land in Jerusalem in return for the construction of permanent new houses in the settlements free of charge. Sharon has made similar offers in South Africa provided firms build before the July elections.

Right wing Zionists recognise the dangers that even such a powerless autonomy plan presents, recognising as it does, the nationhood of the Palestinians.

After all, it Hebron and Nablus are recognised as Palestinian, then why not Jaffa or Haifa or Nazareth?

The often quoted Jordanian Option really amounts to a series of versions of the Allon Plan which would be designed to attract King Hussein of Jordan into the peace' process and suppress the Palestinian struggle under his pro-imperialist monarchy allied to the reactionary upper class Palestinian "notables'.

Recognition

Divisions are evident within the PLO from their base in Lebanon. Although Al Fateh still officially call for a secular democratic state in the whole of Palestine they are prepared to make a deal with the US and Israel for an independent statelet in return for their recognition of the Zionist state. To this end they hope for talks and US recognition.

The popular front politics of the Stalinised PDFLP have resulted in their close collusion with Fateh. The PFLP, the group behind many of the 1970s hijackings and one which rejects deals with the US and Israel is incapable of recognising the necessity for a class struggle perspective based on the Arab and Israeli working class.

The Israeli CP, Rakah, openly recognise the Zionist state of Israel and see an independent Palestinian statelet as the solution.

These weaknesses highlight the desperate crisis of leadership within the Middle East, a need which can only be met by the growth of Trotskyist influence and programme within the Palestinian and Israeli masses.

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PRESS, Wednesday 4 February