Zionist Labour Party. Nothing to Do with Socialism

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extremist parties Agudat Yisrael and the National Religious Party sufficient to maintain the desperate grip of the Likud block on state power.

The Israeli Labour Party (ILP) • under Peres may gain the largest number of seats but fail to regain office by a small overall margin.

The Daily Mirror comments as follows:

"The result of Israel's election looks like being the worst one possible. Bad for Israel. Bad for the Middle East. Bad for world peace."

We are told that a Begin victory will "send a shudder through the world."

The real concern of the Mirror editor expressed the usual squalid editorial can be guaged by the totak failure to even mention the dispossessed Palestinians from start to finish!

The above comments reflect a feeling of some annoyance on the part of imperialism and their backers that Begin will continue to make their job difficult in explaining away and • excusing the repeated atrocities of the Zionist state of Israel.

Repression. costs money, and many western govern ments had hoped that an ILP-led government could have stitched together some kind of deal for a Jordanian-Palestinian state i which would have been attractive enough to buy at least a section of the Arab bourgeoisie, thus weakening the resistance to Israeli rule.

Socialist Press has consistently argued the need for British workers to support the Palestinians.

Prior to the election, the Labour Friends of Israel circulated Labour Party branches in Britain requesting speaking time to argue the case for British Labour Party support for the ILP.

It is necessary to reaffirm that the ILP has nothing in differentiate it from Begin's Illegal West Bank settlement Likud coalition.

Peres has earned the description of 'moderate' from a series of press interviews.

History however tells a different tale.

It must be asked how the ILP which created and per petuated the Palestinian tragedy can be considered a force to contribute to its solution. It was Peres who became minister responsible for the Zionists' economic expansion in the 1967 occupied territories.

Peres, not Begin, set the pattern of settlement in the period 1967-77 with over 60 settlements established, Jerusalem annexed, army protection for Gush Emunim thugs and the demolition of over 15,000 Palestinian houses.

Labour also initiated collective puishments in the occupied territoriès. Labour has controlled Israel from 1948 to 1977.

A brief look at the 1981 Election Manifesto makes clear the real face of Labour Zionism. Article 18 calls for the liquidation of the PLO the chosen representatives of the Palestinian people.

Recognising that the physical liquidation of the PLO cannot be achieved within the borders of Israel, requiring attacks on bases in Lebanon and Syria, Article 27 states:

*Israel shall uphold her right to active defence and prevention of sabotage and terror even when they orig inate beyond her borders.

The raid on Iraq's nuclear plant holds no horrors for the ILP!

Article 29 refers to the West Bank settlement policy as follows:

"It constitutes, like any Zionist pioneering project, an educational, social and pioneering value; and it is designed to prove valuable in the political struggle for shaping the borders of peace. The government of Israel led by the Labour Alignment will work for its consolidation and development."

Leaving aside the lack of Palestinian enthusiasm for 'pioneering educational values' basic support for massive expropriation and expulsion of the West Bank Arabs is clearly stated.

An ILP election advert Ma'ariv (2 June) criticises Likud's 10od settlement record!

"The Likud government has spent millions on the production of mere dots, most of which are bogus settlements . . . far from establishing and planking many new settlements the Likud is actually evacuating existing settlements in the Rafah: Approaches. Painting dots on maps in newspaper ads does not make one into a settlement party-Vote Central to many arguments supporting the ILP is the vague notion that it supports the establishment of some form of Palestinian state, the ever present hint of liberalism supposed by eager bourgeois political commentators and carefully encouraged by vague interviews given by Peres.

Such a state was never envisaged by the ILP as the Manifesto makes clear. As mentioned Article 18 calls for the liquidation of the PLO.

Having thus disposed of the people's chosen representatives, Article 17 talks of an alternative in the form of:

"authorised representatives of the inhabitants of the negotiations on realisation of the Autonomy and in the peace negotiations with Jozdan.

state is totally rejected in Article 13:

"Israel rejects the establishment of an additional Palestinian State in the territory between Israel and Jordan which would be a source of danger and hostiity • . . The Palestinian problem cannot be solved in a separate State without the territory and population of Jordan...

Article 14 demands that "Territory of the Jordanian-Palestinian State is to be demilitarised A further price is the loss of Jerusalem under Article 5 which states: 'United Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty is the capital of the State of Israel."

Article 30 guarantees the abdication of the settlement zones:

"The government of Israel will insist that in peacetime the deployment The price required by the ILP makes it unlikely that Jordan will accept such a deal involving the signing away of Jerusalem and tracts violating the resolution of the e Raba designated the PLO as the sole legitimate representatiye of the Palestinian people, disrupting "Arab 'unity, defying Arab sentiment, assuming the onerous economic burden of a West BankGaza population robbed of its means of existence through the confiscation of nearly all the arable land, as well as the burden of rehabilitating the Palestinian refugees.

Still -the imperialist argument runs-a state has been offered!!

Under these conditions intransigence», about "Arab the old le can be dragged out to excuse further atrocities and annexation of the whole of Gaza and the West Bank.

The other aspect of the election which must be drawn out in Labour Party and trade union branches is the whole tone of the election campaign itself. Racism has been rife, violence an everyday occurance reflected in the Israeli press.

Al-Ha'mishmar (22 June) describes the wrecking of Labour Party offices by Likud thugs in Ramle:

"Not satisfied to have smashed the furniture and destroyed information material, the "burglars" smeared excrement all over the walls."

Ha'aretz (15 June) tells us. "A rioting mob in Petah Tiqva tried to break up a Labour Alignment election meeting addressed by Mr Shimon Peres... About 500 Likud supporters equipped with wooden boards, placards, bike chains and tomatoes rioted throughout the meeting."

Al-Ha 'mishmar (22 June) quotes:

"Jerusalem mayor Мг Teddy Kollek emphasised that the events he was now observing in Jersualem were familiar to him from his experiences in Europe of the 1930s. (He came to Israel in 1939 from Nazi-controlled Vienna)."

The naked racism involved in the campaign can be seen in this excerpt from an election advert for the Kach movement printed in Ma'ariv on 29 May.

The advert shows a picture of a Jewish girl and continues:

"This is a Jewish girl and your sister, daughter or grand daughter. But can you be sure she wil marry a Jew. You will see Arabs loitering in the streets of these Jewish towns and chasing Jewish girls. Their pockets are full of money because they do not serve in the army.

While we are defending the homeland they are getting rich ... In order to put an end to the defilement of our national honour we shall propose the following law: As a discouragement to those who want to seduce the daughters of Israel into assimilation, any, non-Jew engaging in • sexual relations with a Jewish woman will be punished by five years imprisonment... And this is only the beginning. Vote for Kach."

So much for the Zionist claim that Israel is a 'safe haven for the Jews'.

The election highlights Zionist bankruptcy and the anti-democratic, racist nature of Israeli society, lovingly referred to in last Thursday's Guardian editorial (2 July) as an • "intricate democratic system"

Begin boasts that he will rule for the next 4-5 years; in the real world the Israeli economy threatens to tame his arrogance.

Inflation still runs at over 130% and economic concessions designed to catch votes will soon rebound to blacken the picture further.

The ILP offers no alternative to the Arab or Jewish workers, promising as does continuing against the Palestinians.

Alliances must be built between Jewish and Arab workers to oppose Begin's war drive, oppose a Labour Party in office, defend the PLO as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinians and demand Israeli arms and influence out of Lebanon.

Begin

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