Dead End at Geneva

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Israeli and Arab ministers traipsing to Washington for frenzied consultations with American President Carter and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.

At issue is the reconvening of the Geneva conference to achieve a "peaceful" settlement in the Middle East, satisfactory to international imperialism and providing a secure basis for the Zionist state.

Dayan The major sticking point has been the composition of the Arab delegation, behind which lies the question of two and a half million Palestinians denied a homeland.

The Zionists, with their new ultra right wing government, have been adamant in their refusal to negotiate with the Palestine Literatior Orgaria:.:

Foreig This incursion, complete with bombers, gunboats facing the harbour of Tyre, and a substantial array of tanks, carried a particularly public message to Carter.

It backfired. Although Israel is a majors client of US imperialism in the Middle East, it is not the only one; nor are the Zionists proving reliable servants of American interests.

Carter is seeking a compromise whereby the governments of the major Arabs states would line up behind a proposal for a Palestinian mini-state on the West Bank. In pursuit of that aim he is clearly willing to tread on Zionist toes.

By the end of his Washington trip Dayan had changed his tune.

A major pressure point was the joint statement issued by the US and Soviet Union on October 2 in favour of 'insuring the rights of the Palestinian people.

This helped push the Zionists into accepting a compromise formula involving a single Arat delegation (rather than by countries), which would include mildly disguised representatives of the PLO, probably in the persons of the West Bank mayors.

Another effect of Carter's position was to enable Egypt and Jordan to retreat from their earlier insistence on separate PLOurepresentation at Geneva.

The chances of reconvening the Geneva talks by the year's end now seem fairly high. But the chance of such talks offering any way forward to the Palestinian people are precisely zero.

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apartheid, is an attempt to divert the struggle against apartheid from the path of struggle against all capitalist exploitation and oppression:

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