The Zionist state has unleashed a new war of aggression against southern Lebanon. It has bombed Palestinian refugee camps and Lebanese cities and villages. It has used the most barbaric weapons employed by American imperialism in Vietnam. It has massacred hundreds of men, women, and children. It has caused a tragic exodus of people driven from their land and stripped of all means of support. It has launched a wave of repression in the territories already under occupation. Once again, it bears the responsibility for creating a situation with the potential to lead to a war that might have fearful consequences for the entire world.
Cloaking its move with false pretexts, Jerusalem hoped to inflict on the Palestinian resistance one of the heaviest blows it has ever taken. It seeks to establish control over southern Lebanon—which includes collaborating with Lebanese reactionaries—in order to ease the way for establishing a “peace” accord based on denying the Palestinian people their most elementary rights, and on preserving all the territorial conquests of Zionist expansionism.
At the urging of the U.S. government, which wants to enable the Arab ruling classes to save face, the United Nations has adopted a hypocritical resolution that avoids explicitly condemning the invasion of Lebanon in any way, and calls for a fresh dispatch of “blue helmets.” Their job can only be to protect the new status quo from the Palestinian movement, once the Zionist army has carried out its “mopping up” operation.
Once again, the Arab states have revealed their basic aims. The so-called steadfastness front remained immobile, thereby proving that its resounding declarations were nothing more than demagogy.
The Egyptian government fears the outbreak of a crisis for its regime as a result of the pitiful bankruptcy of Sadat’s “peace” diplomacy. Syria, which oversees the “Arab peacekeeping force,” was hardly about to rush to the aid of the Palestinians. In fact, all of the Arab ruling classes proved by their attitude that they do not wish to take any risk in order to defend the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. 410
They are looking forward with cynical complacency to the weakening of the Palestinian resistance, which is now tragically isolated.
The Zionist authorities seized on the terrorist action in Tel Aviv to try to justify the invasion of southern Lebanon, with the support of the world press.
The truth is that this military operation had been planned for some time. They were only waiting for an excuse. The disastrous action by the Fatah commandos unfortunately provided them with one. Alone and desperate, the fedayeen put up a fierce resistance to the Israeli blitzkrieg. Abandoned by the Arab states, and driven into a blind alley by the strategic orientation of the Palestine Liberation Organization leadership, the courageous fighters of the Palestinian resistance are more than ever in need of the broadest international solidarity.
Working-class organizations the world over must mobilize in opposition to the genocide committed by the Zionist government. They must demand immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon and condemn the deployment of UN troops, moving in behind the Israeli tanks. They must protest the closing down of PLO offices, which some governments are contemplating.
We should support the Palestinian movement in its heroic struggle for existence and for its legitimate rights.
Israel out of Lebanon!
No to UN intervention!