Palestinians hit back at imperialist troops

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Durin the week in Lebanon the inevitable conflict has developed between liberation forces in the area and the UN troops sent there to enforce the status quo following the Zionist invasion of South Lebanon in March.

Un the night of 30 April near the town of Tyre, a section of French paratroopers, from the same force responsible for unspeakable tortures in Algeria and the imperialist exploitation of Vietnam, shot dead two Lebanese militiamen, allies of the Palestinian liberation fighters.

Retaliation Before a large funeral could gather to commemorate these martyrs, liberation forces took a number of retaliatory actions against the UN soldiers.

Since that time, rejectionist Palestinian and leftist guerrillas have been moving south towards the Israeli invaders, and journalists reported by the weekend, seeing targe numbers digging in well behind the UN lines.

Another journalist was told by the cómmander of a Palestinian unit at Tyre on Wednesday:

"The French are not here as a peace force, but as a force of intimidation. Those of us who attempt to go back to the south are shot or stopped.

"The French never shoot to cripple, they shoot to kill.

"Nothing will stop us continuing the fight against Israel"

In contrast to such clear determination was the attitude of PLO leader Yasser Arafat, who denounced the attacks on the UN troops.

At the same time an interview with him was published in the New York Times in which he announced support for ghettoised Palestine state.

Nothing to fear

Israel, he said, 'would have nothing to fear' from such a creature, which would have problems of its own.

Perhaps the greatest of these problems would be to restrain the Palestinian movement from the complete defeat of Zionism.

Such a view of the Palestinian revolution in stages constantly breaks down in the dynamic of the liberation struggle but is always returned to by Arafat and the PLO-Fatah leadership.

This view denies the ultimate and necessary link between the Palestinian struggle and the battles of workers and peasants in the Arab world as a whole.

Meanwhile Israeli premier Begin wanders aroud the United States with his begging bowl for the Zionist lobby, knowing he does not need to worry too much.

Celebrations

The celebrations of the third decade of the racist Israeli state were accompanied by this statement from imperialist-in chief President Carter:

"We may have differences, but we'll never waver in our absolute commitment to Israel's security. I can say without reservation, we will continue to do so, not for 30 years, but forever"

Such a statement shows clearly the deep-seated ink between the imperialist system and the Zionist state. This state, however, will not last forever, any more than imperialism itself.

The contradictions within Zionism itself, however, were shown by the May Day demonstrations in Israel run by the corporatist Histadrut trade union body, at which the most popular slogan was 'Shalom archar' or "peace now"

Pressures against the Zionists compelled the dismissal of the Zionist military governor of the West Bank state Brigadier General David Hagoel, for lying about an incident in which schoolchildren who demonstrated against the Israeli invasion of South Lebanon were locked in a classroom and gassed with tear gas grenades.

Atrocities

What this particular Zionist soldier did was not just to remind the world once again of the fascist atrocities committed against the Jews themselves. He seems to have committed an even more unpardonable crime by lying about it and then getting found out.

The growing resistance movement will need more than gas cannisters to hold it back, especially if there is a fight within it for socialist policies to link the fight against colonialism with a struggle in the Arab states against the pro-imperialist policies of Sadat and the other bourgeois Arab leaders. officers who took the lead. The coup was for a brief time a violent one and Daoud, along with many members of

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Last week's military coup has brought to power in one of the world's most remote and