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The United States remains 'wholly and unsaid Secretary of State Cyrus Vance before his Good Friday press conference.

He spoke also about the sharp differences which have arisen in US-Zionist relations since the latest land-grabbing invasion of Lebanon by the Israelis.

What the United States and Israel have fallen out over is not about the "right" of the Zionist settlers to have a racially-exclusive state.

Nor indeed are they opposed to the herding of dispossessed Palestinians into refugee camps and the occupation of large tracts of territory by the Zionists.

They have no disagreement with the Zionists then using this territory as a bargaining counter with the bourgeois Arab states.

But the US imperialists want above all a 'peace' settlement that will satisfy the pro-imperialist Arab leaders-notably Egyptian President Sadat.

This, they are convinced is the best means to hold back the Palestinian liberation struggle and the movements of the Arab masses that might otherwise disrupt imperialist interests in this part of the world so crucial to oil supplies.

The invasion of Southern Lebanon by Zionist forces has now reached the Litani River-with the exception of the port of Tyre.

The Zionists have been enthusiastically welcomed by Lebanese fascists, and harassed by attacks from Palestinian Liberation forces.

OU As thousands of refugees have hurried North to Sidon and Beirut the United Nations has been brought in to defend the new "border" set up by the Zionist invaders.

Despite all the claims of "impartiality" made by imperialists and Stalinists alike (Rumanian troops are to be a part of the "peace keeping" force) it must be stressed that the UN forces are there to enforce the new Zionistarranged borders, and to hold back the Palestinian guerrilla fighters.

It is no part of the UN's purpose to defend or support the oppressed Palestinians in the area.

Those Palestinians who greeted the UN forces may well have seen them as providing a respite from the murderous Israeli invasion.

Determined

But the UN as an instrument of imperialism has never at any time sought to enforce even its own restrictions on the Zionists, ever since, in 1948, Zionist forces crossed the borders drawn up for them by this international body.

The major imperialist powers today are making determined efforts to secure a settlement on the basis of the famous UN resolution 242 passed after the 1967 war and partly drafted by then Labour Foreign Secretary George Brown.

But Begin's sudden announcement that this resolution involves no concessions from the Zionists has infuriated Carter and the US administration.

They know that Sadat and their other reactionary Arab bourgeois friends cannot sell a "peace settlement" which does not at least propose some kind of puppet nest Bank statelet for the Palestinians.

The harsh words exchanged in Washington between Carter and Begin was nothing to do with opposition to the barbaric invasion of South Lebanon.

Carter's anger was aimed at Begin's bizarre notion that the borders of Israel are settled by courtesy of Moses and God rather than President Carter and the material imperialist might of Uncle Sam-to the tune last year of weapons worth $875 million.

Imperialism

The US would obviously be much happier to see a government in Israel led by more realistic politicians like Defence Minister Weitzman and "Labour" leaders like Perez and Eban.

Such leaders would be more ready to accept the dictates of imperialism rather than those of the Bible.

Imperialist ears pricked up last week, therefore, when they heard Weitzman call for a government of "national unity"

Statements in many capitalist newspapers show that sections of imperialism would prefer to ditch the gangster Begin in favour of more pliable leaders.

For the Palestinians developments pose great dangers. Their struggle can only be successful through the independent mobilisation of the Arab masses-in conflict with their own bourgeois leaders.

Yet no leadership has yet developed within the Palestinian movement that is prepared to spell out such a political line. The PLO itself is tied to the Arab bourgeois heads of state. These reactionaries have stood back with folded arms while the Zionists invaded Lebanon sooner than risk mobilising a movement against imperialism amongst the workers and peasants which they know could flow over into the overthrow of capitalism in their own countries.

Within Israel itself the problem is similarly one of independent leadership for the working class-Arab and Jewish workers alike.

It was no coincidence that the invasion took place at the high point of a strike wave in Israel that centred on working class resistance to falling living standards.

The traditional Zionist answer to the internal class struggle and economic contradictions within Israel is to launch a further predatory war, with its associated pleas for 'national unity" enforced sacrifice from Jewish workers and sharpened hostility against the Arab working class held captive within Israel's borders.

The only answer to this is the construction of a Trotskyist leadership capable of mobilising Arab and Jewish workers in struggle for the destruction of the racist, Zionist state, fighting for a secular Palestine in which religious and racial discrimination is ended.

«That members with long line Three disputes involving Fleet Street print workers have led to cries of "anarchy" from 'Times" managing director M. Hussey and a call from Sir Richard Marsh, Chairman of the Newspaper Publishers Association for members taking unofficial action to be expelled from the union.

A go-slow by NGA members caused the loss last week of 200,000 copies of the Sunday Telegraph while the continuing dispute of SOGAT members over rates for distributing late London editions of national newspapers resulted in the loss of 250,000 copies of the Daily Telegraph and 360,000 copies of the Daily Express.

20% claim Now AUE W members at the Times and Sunday Times are in dispute over a 20c wage claim in order to bring their wages up to the levels earned on other Fleet Street papers. The complete edition (13 million copies) of this week': Sunday Times was lost and the Times and London editions of the Guardian are not being printed while the dispute lasts as Times management claim that the AUE W members have "dismissed themselves"

FoC John Osbourne claimed that the men had been locked out because they refused to do the extra work necessary for the record 72page Easter edition of the Sunday Times.

Lower wages, he explained had led many of their members to move to other papers where they could earn £70-£80 a week more.

Understaffed

This meant that they were understaffed and unable to handle the extra work asked of them.

Meanwhile the NPA were expected to discuss the deteriorating situation at a meeting yesterday.

On Monday, interviewed on BBC radio, Sir Richard Marsh, former Labour minister and now head oi

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equivocally committed to the security of Israel'