< Severe Fare 3) THY be tS e* # e Rok. a : 2500 Jews and Arabs marched through Jerusalem, August, . residents to return to border villages. » UPI 1972, to protest Israel’s refusal to permit dispossessed Arab For a just peace in the CIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1973—PAGE 4 Middle East By Hyman Lumer 2 - Yassir Arafat ve Dz the past year the situation in the Middle - has become increasingly critical. Tensions © mounted, hostilities have continued to harden, a) danger of a new flareup of warfare has grown. Mort® more, the focus of the danger of war is shifting 17 area. The primary sources of this growing war dangy the increasingly open policy of annexation and 48>) sion pursued by the Israeli government. The proces ‘accomplished facts” is being accelerated and brazenly carried out. Conversion of Jerusalem int Jewish city is far advanced. There are now 50 or 4 Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and number is steadily growing. In the Gaza Strip mas> 4 tions of Arab families are continuing with the 2! «andl aim of populating the territory with Israelis an@ 7g porating it into the State of Israel. The economy i occupied territories is being increasingly integratell that of Israel, based on a colonialist pattern 9 7g these areas provide Israeli capital with lucrativé ah kets and a source of cheap labor. More and more wa of concealment is being lifted and it is being open mitted that the policy of Israel’s ruling circles 18 nex all of the occupied territories, in pursuit of Ue of a Jewish state embracing all of Palestine.. att The Meir government no longer gives even Up ice to United Nations Security Council Resolulit iy Indeed, says Golda Meir, peace is a virtually DO cause in view of the Arab obsession with destroyitig | rael. In a recent article in Foreign Affairs (April : she says: ‘‘Simply put, the root issue is the Ara to Israel’s very existence and security... Th refusal of the Arab leaders to discuss with us" ’ of a peace settlement must raise the question as to 3 er they are really prepared to live in peace W! ei: is the crux of the conflict.” Yet her article nol much as mentions the fact that Egypt and the F")) rael’s Arab neighbors have agreed, in keeping ver : UN resolution, to recognize Israel’s right t0 afte) peace and security and that the Egyptian 50 st! 4 has even offered to sign a peace treaty with rf, provided that the Israeli government will, 10 bs up in keeping with the UN resolution, agree to an ev conquered territories. None of this is mention reject it. Instead, we are again presented wi iely credited myth that the Arabs are motivat 07 psychopathic desire to annihilate Israel. sk the’) This glaring omission only serves to unma>” atl nexationist aims of Israel’s rulers — aims whic jock tated the 1967 war and are now the chief roadb pst} peace settlement. It is this policy whic past Aa changed if there is to be peace in the Middle the withdrawal from the occupied territories 1 any serious advance in this direction. ; A second basic prerequisite to peace 1S o of the right of the Palestinian people to self Golda tion. This Israel’s rulers seek to deny, W! pale and others denying even the existence of 4 Arab people. At the same time they carry mest invasions of Syria and Lebanon in a drive ie en Palestinian liberation movement, a drive — such outrages as assassinations of Palesti® | qi leaders. This aggressive, chauvinist policy: , abandoned. jrcles ip The persistence of the Israeli ruling: er policies is made possible only by the aid 2 iw U.S. imperialism. The U.S. supplies star quantities of arms. The U.S. government ot Israel’s refusal to withdraw from the occ nee! ies. And it is maneuvering to circumvent © tots lution and to initiate Egyptian-Israel nego ogtt : open the Suez Canal with Secretary of Stat se At ing as an ‘‘honest broker’ — negotiations be! wi is to wring major concessions from /8JF ” ‘Jaid‘and support:the present Israeli policiet continued for even a day. The key to ane: lies also in forcing the Nixon Administra East from its aggressive policy in the Middle forced to do in Vietnam. sicies A growing opposition to the Meir P rity lizing in Israel. It is still very much a minO™ A pe ly fragmented. But it is steadily mounting © more unified. In the United States, too, there are tions of shifting views among ep