Israel aims to destroy
Palestinian society . . .

By TOM MORRIS

For the first time since Israeli troops invaded Lebanon
on June 6 there appears to be a tentative agreement
which includes the withdrawal of some 7,000 Palestine
Liberation Organization fighters from encircled West
Beirut under the umbrella of French, Italian and U.S.
forces.

Whatever results from this latest series of political and
military moves in West Beirut itself the effects of Israel’s
barbaric savagery in Lebanon will remain — as will the
key problem of the rights of the Palestinian people.

Some immediate conclusions are possible.

Long Range Aims

The first is that Israel’s massive onslaught into Leba-
non was a well-planned move with long-reaching aims. It
had nothing whatever to do with its claims of retaliation
for an attack against Israel’s London ambassador, nor its
claims of PLO artillery attacks from Lebanon into Israel,
nor to Israel’s earlier insistence it was aiming at a 40
kilometre ‘buffer zone’’ along the Lebanese-Israeli bor-
der.

Israel had made it clear since July, 1981 it will attack
Lebanon and pretext was found. Its reading of Arab
disunity plus Tel Aviv’s assurance that the United States
would turn a blind eye to an invasion (despite public
statements of regret) ensured its military occupation of
southern Lebanon.

* Eretz Israel

In an outline of events, the Palestine Information
Office (PIO) points out that Israel has both an ideological
and material need for part of Lebanon. ‘‘Ideologically,
the Herut Party, of which Begin remains chairman, de-
fines ancient ‘Eretz Israel’ as extending well into Leba-
non.”’ The outline explains that materially, Israel re-
quires more water and is eyeing the lower Litani River in
southern Lebanon.

To imagine that the PLO is a military threat to the
well-oiled and well-supplied Israeli war machine and to

the survival of the Jewish state is ridiculous, though that —°

argument has been enthusiastically raised by supporters
of Israel’s invasion.

The PLO, however, is a political threat to Zionist
expansion plans and to Begin’s dream of a greater Israel
which claims not only territory belonging to Syria, Jor-
dan and Lebanon, but to:'the West Bank and Gaza.

Control and Absorbtion

Time magazine, in an unusually candid appraisal,
writes in its Aug. 23 issue: “* . . . one of the Israeli aims in
the invasion was to destroy the PLO’s influence
throughout the region, thereby allowing (it) to negotiate a

Backgrounder

watered-down autonomy agreement with ‘moderate’
Palestinian elements in the West Bank and Gaza. That,
according to the Begin-Sharon strategy, would curb de-
mands for a Palestinian state and allow Israel to maintain
its military control over the occupied territories.
“‘Begin’s aim is not just to enhance Israel’s security
but to make irreversible the absorption of the West Bank

and Gaza into his vision of Eretz Yisrael, or the biblical.

land of Israel. That goal, backed up by Begin’s aggres-
sive settlements policy, has long been one of the main
obstacles to the peace process.”’

The problem, of course, isn’t (and hasn’t been) a PLO
military or “‘terrorist’’ threat — it is and remains that the
Palestinian people under their elected PLO leadership
have refused to “‘disappear”’ from their lands to fulfill the
Zionist dream.

The Israeli assault on Lebanon and its extreme bar-
barity surprised and shocked even previous supporters
of the concept of a beleaguered Jewish state struggling to
survive surrounded by hostile Arab nations. An
AP-NBC poll in the U.S. discovered only 7% agreed that
level of force was needed. What is being talked about are
an estimated 20,000 dead, 30-40,000 wounded, hun-
dreds of thousands homeless and whole regions laid
waste.

The ‘Final Solution’

And, lest anyone attribute the nazi-like attack and
subsequent mass brutality to an overzealous Israeli De-
fence Minister, the reason is far more calculated and
ternble in its concept.

The strategy is not only to dislodge some 7,000 PLO
fighters from Beirut — it is to destroy forever the infra-
structure of the Palestinian people.

“Israel must bomb and destroy civilian centres if it
wishes to destroy the PLO’’, PIO writes; “‘because over
the past 17 years the PLO has rebuilt Palestinian society.

‘The very quintessence of the PLO is a popular,
mass-based organization. Its activities include the
largest and most efficient health and welfare program in
the.Arab world. Its schools, orphanages and medical
services are also open to the Lebanese poor. Its fac-
tories, daycare centres, shops, research facilities, daily
and weekly newspapers and magazines offer places to
work and study.”

The PLO is, in fact, a state structure without a state.
Its mass women’s, youth and trade union organizations
mobilize its people. Its public representatives in oc-

cupied areas are elected with overwhelming majorities
PIO continues: ‘‘Israel is not fighting only the PLO
military arm — it is attempting to destroy PLO educ#
tion, health and welfare services and with them thé
PLO’s political, economic, military and cultural orn
izations — in effect Palestinian society . :
This, and not Sharon’s ‘‘overkill’’ explains the feroc-
ity of the attack and repressive nature of the occupation.

U.S. calls the shots

With some public relations changes, the existence of@
powerful Israeli presence in the Mideast also serves U.
aims. Arab disunity helps create the conditions for. aired!
American involvement in the crucial region which fits
neatly into Washington’s entire global strategy °
confrontation with the socialist world and genuine na
tional liberation movements.

The speed with which Reagan shut down the severest
Israeli bombardment of Beirut Aug. 11 with a simple
phone ‘call to Begin illustrates where the real powe!
behind the onslaught lies. Washington’s efforts to toné
down United Nations’ condemnation of the aggression
also played its part in exposing the real nature of the
attack and- where the power lies:

Many questions remain at this writing — including the |
fate of Lebanon itself. The withdrawal of PLO fighte®
from West Beirut, however, will not for one moment
stop the struggle of the Palestinian people to win theif
self-determination and statehood.

As Time magazine remarked somewhat regretfully;
Israel has won the battle of Beirut, but may have lost thé
political war.

International Focus

‘The leg burned

unhumane weapons and a 1980
UN convention prohibiting use

1970s for ‘‘strictly defensive’
use, according to the Inter-

right-wing military regimes in
EI Salvador, Honduras and

for 10 hours...’

Phosphorus and cluster
bombs are inhuman, illegal
anti-personnel weapons de-
vised years ago to punish civi-
lian victims.

of incendiary weapons against
civilian areas.

Cluster bombs (CBUs) are
another product of Vietnam
war technology and were wide-
ly used there. CBUs are also

In a horrifying story trom
Beirut, United Press Inter-
national describes the results
of phosphorus bombs dropped
by Israeli warplanes on the
civilian population. Listen to
this:

‘*‘When we took a big piece
of shrapnel out of one man’s
ankle, we opened the bandages
_... and smoke came out. The
man was wounded 10 hours be-
fore. The leg had burned for 10
hours«<."?

The doctors who told news-
men his story, told others,
equally ternble, equally damn-
ing. They said every Israeli
raid produces civilian phos-
phorus casualties.

UPI also said the use of
phosphorus and cluster bombs

Strictly anti-people terror
weapons and 22,000 of them
were supplied to Israel in the

are in contravention of a 1977
protocol banning the use of

PACIFIC TRIBUNE— AUGUST 27, 1982—Page 6

Inhumane weapons and the
targets.

national Herald Tribune.
These have also been shower-
ed on the helpless civilians in
southern Lebanon and en-
circled Beirut.

No: sais: . ‘ands — or
‘‘buts’’. This is wanton
genocide committed by the
Begin government. In its de-
tailed description of the effects
of phosphorus on Lebanese
and Palestinian civilians, UPI
gracefully omitted mention-
ing that all this materié] comes
from the good old, nairepnont
loving USA.

A easy tae view
of social liberation

A secret report issued in

June by the U.S. State
Department claims Wash-
ington’s policies in Cen-
tral America have halted the
drift to the left in the region.

It outlines country by coun-

try what the Reagan administ-
ration would like to see: that

Guatemala are “‘willing to co-

Nicaraguan campaign. The re-
port gloats that ‘‘the situation
has deteriorated”’ in Nicaragua

ferment arises from ‘‘outside
agitators’’ and not from deep-
seated economic and political
inequities — from abject pov-
erty which is the legacy of
colonialism.

This U.S. administration of

in the  anti-

and, by contrast, ‘‘improved”’
in El Salvador following the
March 28 vote and installation
of the fascist Arena Party in
control.

The document counsels
“keeping the pressure’ on
both Cuba and Nicaragua and
is critical of Mexico’s ‘‘unhelp-
ful role’ in opposing U.S. sup-
port for right-wing: govern-

‘ments in the area.

Two immediate thoughts
come to. mind: the first is the
utter stupidity of an administ-
tation which can actually be-
lieve it has stamped out the
struggle for national and social
liberation in Central America
by force of arms and military
puppet governments.

The second is that, based on
such a_ policy paper,
Washington is determined to
act on its theory that social

Neanderthal louts is prepared —
to kill every El Salvadorean
to bring ‘‘democracy”’ to that
land. It will starve every
Guatemalan and Honduran —
child to ‘‘stop the spread of
communism’’.

It appears prepared to try to
Strangle the Nicaraguan and
Cuban revolutions for not ac-
cepting “‘our way of life’’

a way of life those peoples
have had the pleasure of enjoy-
ing for decades.

Latin America’s march to- —
ward national liberation began
long before Ronald Reagan —

_ was an insignificant, gee whiz

sportcaster somewhere in the
Midwest. It will continue its
inexorable path after he leaves

the White House: Nothing
- short of the nuclear annihila-

tion of humankind can prevent
its victory. |