interim peace...
permanent capitulation by JON ROTHSCHILD
16-
MER MEDITERRANEE
AMIETTE
PORT-SAID
Golfe a Final
AL DE SUE:
E
ISMAILIA
ÉGYPTE
5 le
Diesel Aleka
Port-Tes
Desert do Tih
O.N.U.
Abou Rodel
*
O.N.U.
1. Position of American surveillance station between Giddi and Mitla Passes. 2. Israeli surveillance station. 3. Egyptian surveillance station. 4. Limited forces zones. 5. Zone under Egyptian civilian administration.
(From the official map of the accords, as reproduced in Le Mande. ONU: United Nations.)
According to the terms of the interim accord, all
Egyptian troops will be stationed west of line E.
The area between lines F and E is the Egyptian limited-forces zone. Line A indicates the position of the old Egyptian front line. All Israeli troops will be stationed east of line J and its southern extension, line M. The area between lines J and
K is the Israeli limited-forces zone. The area between lines E and J is the buffer zone occupied by the troops of the United Nations.
The latest Egyptian-Israeli "interim agreement" wos initialled September 2 in Alexandria by representatives of the Egyptian government; the Israelis had initialled it the day before. After the signing, and in the presence of Henry Kissinger, Egyptian President Anwar elSadat made a little speech. After reciting a few of the platitudes that are expected of statesmen on such occasions ("After twenty-seven years of blood, hate, and war, the essential thing is to establish a new atmosphere, " and so on), Sadat made a rare, to-thepoint remark: "The United States, " he said, "holds 99 percent of the cards in this conflict. Because of that, and because it is a superpower, the United States is responsible for peace in the Middle East. " That is an accurate commentary on the content and meaning of the agreement. The terms of the accord place U.S. imperialism in charge of the "peace process" in the Arab East. The secret aspects of the agreement, contained in a number of "memoranda" exchanged among the various parties, provide for major new steps in Egypt's evolution into the orbit of U.S. imperialism, In a speech to the leadership of the Arab Socialist Union, Egypt's sole legal political party, Sadat alleged that through a diplomatic strategy that he was duty-bound to characterize as brilliant he had succeeded in transforming the United States from a partipant to a referee in the "Arab-Israeli conflict." It would be more accurate to say that U.S. Imperialism had transformed itself from the partisan and guarantor of one side into the mentor and supervisor of both sides. An examination of the accord demonstrates that the Sadat regime thoroughly capitulated to the demands of U.S. imperialism. Militarily and politically, Sadat conceded on every important point. The agreement represents another step toward the imposition of the Pax Americana that has been sought for more than four years now by the Egyptian ruling class, American imperialism, and the Israeli ruling class. Whether such a "peace" will actually be established in the region, however, remains an open question. There are other interested parties aside from the three proponents of Pax AmeriTerms of the accord From the purely military standpoint, Israel made no important concessions in the accord. The Egyptian front lines will advance eastward only about 10 kilometers. The Israeli front lines will retreat some 20-50 kilometers, depending on the sector. The "buffer-zone" occupied by the 4,000-odd troops of the United Nations Emergency Forces will thus be wider than before, It is true that the Israeli army will now be stationed east of the Mitla and Giddi passes, the strategic posses through which the Egyptian army would have to move if it attempted to advance eastward. But the Israelis will be posted near the eastern outlets of the posses and will continue to dominate the high ground around the passes. It is thus simply false to claim (as has been done by the far right in Israel and by some U.S. military experts) that the Zionist army is in a weaker position than before to respond to an Egyptian attack of the sort that opened the October War. Even if there were no UN buffer zone and no limitation on the troops
17
ARAB EAST and weaponry that can be stationed on the front lines, the new Israeli positions would be equally as "defensible" as the old. But the Israeli position is further strengthened by the clauses of the accord limiting the forces that can be committed to the front. The published protocol imposes the following limits on troops and weapons within the areas designated "limited-forces zones": eight normal infantry battalions; sixty-five tanks; seventy-five arfillery pieces, including heavy mortar, the range of which is not to exceed 12 kilometers; in addition, the total number of troops is to be less than 8, 000; neither side will introduce into the limited-forces zones any weapons capable of reaching the front lines of the other side; neither side will construct fortifications in the limited-forces zones capable of accommodating more than the indicated number of troops and weapons. Further, there are limitations on weaponry even outside the limited-forces zones: Neither side will install any weapons capable of bringing the front lines of the other side within range; neither side will place antiaircraft missiles within a sector 10 kilometers east and west of the borders of the limited-forces zones. In sum, not only are the new Israeli lines eosily defensible against any Egyptian attempt at eastward advance, but in addition the Egyption army is barred from moving sufficient troops and weapors east of the Suez Canal to threaten the Isroeli lines, to wage a war of attrition, or even to conduct any of the small-scale military octions that had occasionally been engaged in by the Egyptian regime in the past. Three intelligence stations equipped with the most modern electronic devices will be set up in the buffer zone to make sure that both sides respect the terms of the agreement. One will be staffed by Egyptians, one by Israelis, and one by Americans. The Americans will have free access to the stations staffed by the Egyptians and Israelis. United Nations forces will remain in the buffer zone, and their mandate will be renewed on a yearly basis, instead of a quarterly basis as in the past. It has been widely reported that in one of the secret clauses of the accord Sadat promised to renew the mandate of the UN forces for at least three consecutive years. If the military aspects of the Sinai accord are implemented - and there is not the slightest sign that they will not be - the Egyptian-Israeli front will be effectively frozen. It will be virtually impossible for the Egyptian army to engage in combat with the Israelis, for to do so would involve breaking the agreement and facing a direct confrontation both with U.S. imperialism and with the UN troops in the buffer zone. And this confrontation would have to take place before any clashes with the Israeli army, which, as we shall see, not only retains an excellent strategic position, but will also expand its military capacities at a much faster pace than Egypt.
But even more important than the military arrangements are the political concessions the Sadat regime has made. Article I of the agreement opens by stating: "The conflict between them (Egypt and Israel) and in the Middie East shall not be resolved by military force but by peaceful means." Article Il states: "The parties hereby undertake not to resort to the threat or use of force or military blockade against each other. " Article VIl states: "Nonmilitary cargoes destined for or coming from Israel shall be permitted through the Suez Canal." Article IX states: "This agreement shall enter into force upon signature of the protocol and remain in force until superceded by a new agreement." The statement of nonbelligerency is unprecedented since the establishment of the state of Israel. In making it, the Sadat regime promises not to wage war on the Israeli state. The actions taken by the Egyptian government that led up to the October War would be prohibited by the current agreement. And the renunciotion of violence is unconditional and virtually definitive, for the agreement is to remain in effect until a new accord is signed and there is no provision for unilateral renunciation of the agreement. Also renounced by Egypt is any attempt to blockade Isroeli passage through the Bab el-Mandab (the southern entrance to the Red Seo) and the Gulf of Aqaba (the approach to the Israeli port of Elat). Israeli-bound cargoes have never been permitted to pass through the Suez Canal; even last March, during Kissinger's previous attempt to negotiate a Sinai agreement, Sadat refused to make that concession. Taken together, all these provisions amount to the establishment of a separate peace between Egypt and srael
That much is open and clear from the text of the accord itself. But there is more yet. In a memorandum that is to be kept secret, Sadat offered Washington a series of "assurances, "which are widely reported to include a promise not to intervene in the event of a war between Israel and Syria, a promise to moderate anti-Zionist propaganda emanating from Egyption territory, and a promise to ease the boycott in Egypt of U.S. companies that do business in Israel. (There is no provision for a similar odjustment in the cases of European companies that deal with Israel.)
Into the U.S. orbit
The capitulationist accord is merely the latest of Sadat's steps toward the tutelage of U.S. imperialism.
The October War was launched precisely in order to force American imperialism to intervene in the Arab East to impose a settlement on Israel that would provide for an Israeli withdrawal from most of the territory occupied in the 1967 war in exchange for Arab recognition of Israel, the entire arrangement to be concluded at the expense of the Palestinian Arabs, who might possibly be thrown the crumb of a Bantustanlike ministate on the West Bank of Jordan. At the
same time, the deepening social and economic crisis in Egypt required that the bourgeois Egyptian regime seek massive aid from the imperialist powers, primarily the United States. This in turn required that two adjustments be made in Egyptian policy: First, that Israel be recognized and a settlement be reached that would leave the Zionist state and its army as the most powerful counterrevolutionary force in the Arab East. Second, that the Egyptian economy be denationalized, that restrictions on foreign investment be lifted, and that the country be drawn more closely into the American orbit politically, economically, and diplomatically. From that standpoint, the Sinai accord makes perfect sense. Sadat will try to claim that a great victory has been won because Egypt has forced Israel to withdraw from the Mitla and Giddi passes and has regained possession of the Abu Rudeis oil fields, from which the Israelis will withdraw as part of the new agreement. That much is for internal consumption. For the rest, Sadat will achieve a series of economic advantages for the Egyption ruling closs: The United States will offer Egypt a $650 million aid package for the current fiscal year; the state treasury will be boosted by the income from the Abu Rudeis oil fields; with the Suez Canal out of range of Israeli artillery, traffie through the canal should increase, and with it the state revenue derived from tolls; the increased confidence in the durability of "peace" will stimulate investment by imperialist capital, with has hitherto been reluctant to commit itself to an unstable situation; the freezing of the Sinai front for o period of at least three years will allow the government to shift credits from military expenditures to investment in economic development. There is little doubt that the sequels to the Sinai agreement will provide important benefits both to American imperialist capital and to the Egyptian bourgeoisie and state bureaucracy. But there is equally little doubt that the infusion of imperialist capital will be unable to solve the Egyptian economic crisis, which is marked by inflation, unemployment, and a constantly declining standard of living for the workers and peasants. (See the manifesto of the Egyption Trotskyists of the Mustafa Khamis Revolutionary Communist Group in INPRECOR, No. 14/15, December 12, 1974.) The social and political measures the Sadat regime will have to take in order to realize the potential advantages of the Sinai accord will only intensify the Egyptian social crisis even further. And the intensification of that crisis will in turn continue to fuel the new rise of the Egyptian workers movement. Sadat and the Egyptian bourgeoisie may have achieved a modicum of peace with the Zionist state, although at the price of capitulation. They will not, however, capitulate to the Egyptian workers and peasants, and on that front they will find no peace, but an escalation of struggle, as the Egyptian workers movement reasserts its role as vanguard of the Arab revolution.
The Israeli objective The results of the October War of 1973 created a new objective situation within which Zionist policy had to function. From the standpoint of the Israeli ruling class, the main elements of this new situation were these: 1) U.S. imperialism, realizing that its new penetration into the Arab world would require some concessions to the Arab ruling classes, had decided that these concessions would be made not by the United States but by the Zionist state; that is, the costs of the American operation would be borne by Israel in the form of territorial concessions to the Arab states, primarily Egypt. 2) Israel's life-and-death dependence on American arms supplies, both revealed and exacerbated by the October War, had strengthened Israel's dependence on the United States and thus reduced Tel Aviv's ability to resist U.S. pressure. 3) Israel's international isolation on the diplomatic field had worsened, with the European imperialist powers and many states in the semicolonial world withdrawing diplomatic support for Israel in such bodies as the United Nations. 4) The Israeli army's failure to annihilate the Arab forces in the war generated a domestic political crisis (generally known as "the earthquake") and shifted the relationship of forces between Israel and the Arab states to the benefit of the latter. (This occurred despite the fact that in the purely military sense, the October War was a clear victory for Israel. See INPRECOR No.3, July 4, 1974.) The Zionist ruling class recognized that this new objective situation would inevitably compel some territorial concessions. There was simply no way to resist effectively. One of the basic objectives of the Israeli rulers then become to force U.S. imperialism to pay heavy compensation for any Israeli territorial concessions, that is, to shift the burden of the costs of the American offensive in the Arab world back onto the shoulders of U.S. imperialism itself. Specifically, this meant: 1) Make the United States pick up the tab for the Israeli economic crisis. 2) Extract sufficient new military aid to once agoin widen the gap in military capacity between Israel and the Arab states. 3)Extract U.S. guarantees against a deepening of israel's international isolation. 4) Yield as little territory as possible. A corollary of the fourth point was that whatever territory had to be given up should be yielded on the Egyption front. There were a number of reasons for this. For one thing, the Sinai is the least valuable of the occupied territories. It is virtually uninhabited; no Israeli civilian settlements have been erected there; with the exception of the Gaza Strip (which Israel has shown every intention of holding onto), there are no Palestinions in the Sinai, and the ceding of territory there avoids raising the "Palestinian problem," which is to say, the Zionist denial of the rights of the Palestinian part of the Arab nation. Examined in the light of those overall aims, the Egyptian-Israeli agreement is a clear success for the Zionist state. When the negotiations for the accord were in the early
10
ARAB EAST stages, Israel reportedly requested $2, 500 million in American aid os compensation for the agreement. The "slogan" in Israel, as the American weekly Time put it, was "You ask for a lot and hope for a little." As it turned out, however, Israel got the full $2, 500 million and will very likely get even more before the game is finished. "After all, " one unidentified official in Jerusalem was quoted as saying, "Rabin (the Israeli premier) is taking this ugly bride called Miss Interim Agreement. If he doesn't get a nice dowry from Papa Washington, he is going to be in trouble." The dowry is certainly adequate, Israel has given up 20-50 kilometers of empty desert that has not the slightest value to the Israeli state. The only real material concession is the Israeli evacuation of the Abu Rude is oil field in the southwest Sinal. There are about a hundred wells in the Abu Rudeis fields. Total production as of 1972 was 5, 400,000 tons. Israeli experts estimate that the fields will be exhausted by 1980 in any case. Production of the wells had covered 55-60 percent of Israel's consumption needs, which stands at about 7,000,000 tons. As compensation for the Abu Rude is fields, the United States has agreed to pay Israel 5300350 million a year to buy oil on the international market. Further, Washington has undertaken to guarantee Israel's oil needs in the event that Tel Aviv has trouble finding international sources. So the ceding of the oil fields is no loss. In addition to the compensation for Abu Rudeis, the U.S. will shell out $150 million to pay for dismantling Israel's current front line and establishing the new one. Of the rest of the aid package, S1, 500 million is said to be for military equipment. "Our negotiating position at this point, " an Israeli politician said, better be described as a shopping list." The August 25 issue of Time reported that the shopping list included the following items: at least two squadrons (thirty-six planes) of the U.S. F-15 Eagle fighter; several squadrons of the latest U.S. "remotely powered vehicle, " an unmanned jet aircraft that con be used either in combat or for reconnaissance; new versions of the U.S. M-60 tank; "smart bombs, " the laser-guided bombs used by the U.S. air force against the Indochinese people; electronic "black boxes, *which jam enemy radar and antiaircraft missile guidance systems; a helicopter launcher for antitank missiles; and last, but far from least, an undisclosed number of Lance surfaceto-surface missiles. The Lance has a range of seventy miles and can deliver conventional or nuclear warheads; it is supposed to be five-times as effective as the Soviet "Scud-B" surface-to-surface missiles in Egypt and Syria. It has also been reported (Washington Post, September 15, 1975) that the United States has promised to supply Israel with the Pershing surface-to-surface missile, which has a range of 460 miles (about 735 kilometers) and con be armed with nuclear warheads of up to 400 kiloton strength. (The American bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki were rated at about 20 kilotons.) The big increase in military aid, the stationing 20 of Americans in the UN buffer zone, the U.S. sponsorship of the agreement, and the various political promises made by Washington to Tel Aviv amount to a de facto security pact between Israel and the United States, as was remarked by a high Israeli official. On the diplomatic field, the United States has promised Israel to use its influence to prevent moves to expel Israel from the UN. Moreover, Kissinger seems to have gotten Sadat's agreement to cooperate in this endeavor, and it can be assumed that in the future Egypt will also throw its weight behind American attempts to ward off such moves. It is clear, then, that the Israeli ruling class achieved all its major objectives and then some. With the Egypfion front stabilized indefinitely and with its military supremacy assured for years to come, the Israeli ruling class can now afford to move to a position of extreme intransigence with regard to its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights and the West Bank of the Jordan River, Immediately ofter the agreement was signed, Sadat claimed that Kissinger had pledged that the United States would put pressure on Israel to negotiate a similar accord with Syria. But the Israeli regime was not long in indicating its unwillingness to do so. On September 6 Israeli Premier Rabin said in on interview: "There is virtually no possibility of an interim accord between Israel and Syria." And he listed the reasons why. First of all, the existence of Israeli civilion settlements on the heights: "These population centers were not established in order to be evacuated, " he said, an implicit admission that Israel intends to occupy Golan permanently. Second, "because of the topographical situation in Golan, because of the extremism of the Boath party in power in Damascus, and because of the strength of the Syrian armed forces, there is hardly any "maneuvering room" for an interim accord in the Golan Heights, unless you want to talk about 100 or 200 meters in this or that sector. "Asked what he would do if the United States asked him to open negotiations with Syria, he replied: "We will wait two or three months and see what they propose, then the cabinet will have to make a decision."
Sadat (left), Chase's David Rockefeller
On September 10 an official Israeli communiqué declared that no negotiations with Syria could take place until a cabinet decision had been made; no such decision was expected for several months. The real reasons for Israel's reluctance to reach an accord with Syria (apart from the general determination to hold onto the occupied Syrian territory, of which the civilion settlements are a symbol) relate to the weakened position that the Syrian regime now finds itself in. With the Egyptian front frozen, the Damascus regime is deprived of any serious option of reopening military activity to bring pressure to bear against Israel. There is little doubt that if the Syrian army initiated any actions, the Egyptian armed forces would be ordered to stay out of the fighting. That is part of the Egyptian-Israeli deal, and Sodat has no reason to break it. And Syria is simply incapable of waging war against Israel without aid from Egypt, even if the Syrian government were inclined to take such a step. Thus, unless the internal situation in Syria becomes so critical that the survival of the regime is threatened, the Boathist regime will have no choice but to restrict its efforts to the diplomatic terrain. And since Israel has no desire to seize more Syrian territory of the present time, the Zionist ruling class has no interest in trying to provoke Damascus into any hasty action. Consequently, Tel Aviv will simply sit and wait, refusing to make any concessions on the Golan Heights until Washington comes across with some serious incentives. The agreement with Egypt has thus significantly strengthened Israel's bargaining position on the Syrian front. Syrian opposition Recognition of that fact is whot accounts for the Syrion government's opposition to the agreement. The ruling Boath party officially condemned the accord on September 3, calling it a "grave defeat for the Arab cause. " Several demonstrations were orgonized at the Egyptian embassy in Damascus to denounce the agreement. Zuhair Mohsen, the leader of el-Saiga, the pro-Syrian-Baath Palestinian organization, was outspoken in his denunciation of the accord. For the Boothist regime, however, the rhetoric about defeats for the Arab cause is simply left cover for the real complaint: that Sadat had made a separate peace with Israel, thus leaving the Syrian regime no leverage to work out a capitulationist agreement Bf its own. In an exclusive interview with Newsweek senior editor Arnaud de Borchgrave (published in the September 15 International Herald Tribune), Syrian President Hafez el-Assad took a rather different tone. Asked why he had characterized the Egyptian-Syrian agreement as "jeopardizing" peace in the Middle East, el-Assad replied, "Because the agreement is a step backward from peace and will precipitate the next crisis. It closes the doors which might otherwise have led to real peace. " El-Assad expressed a good deal of bitterness at the conduct of the Sadat government. "Egypt says negotiations for a new Golan agreement will start within one month and that all parties know this, " de Borchgrave said, "Israel says this is not so and that there is no commitment to do anything beyond Sinai. Who's right?" To which el-Assad replied: "There is no agreement with anybody to start any negotiations," "Did Egypt make a commitment to Syrio that there would be Assad no second-stage in Sinai unless it was directly linked to another withdrawal on Golan and some progress on the Palestinian issue?" de Borchgrave asked. Assad answered: "When I met President Sadat in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), we agreed that we would not take any steps without close coordination among ourselves. Coordination means an exchange of opinions and reaching a joint position. On this understanding we formed a coordinating committee. Its brief was to study every major topic and submit its conclusions to the two presidents. We were also to meet whenever necessary. However, the committee did not discuss anything relating to the Sinai agreement. There was no exchange of opinion, no common position on the agreement. In other words, no coordination." The Boathist regime is not concerned about any "defeat for the Arab cause," What it is concerned about is that it has been left out of the deal by Egypt and that it has thus been put in an extremely weak position. Despite all the rhetoric, however, the Baathist regime hos little alternative but to continue its previous policy, which is not substantially different from the Egyptian one. El-Assad will play the U.S. card as well. He will offer political and economic concessions to U.S. Imperialism in exchange for Washington's putting pressure on Israel to make some concession to Damascus. But el-Assad will not find it easy to achieve success in such a policy. He is subject to pressure from the Palestinian movement and from his own population much more than Sadat; he has less to offer American imperialism in the way of economic benefits than does Sadat, and, most important, the position of the Israeli regime toward Syria will remain far more intransigent than it was toward Egypt. Consequently, there is little prospect for an early agreement on the Golan Heights. At the very least, the Israeli regime will stall until the new front lines in the Sinai are established (probably around February 1976) before moving seriously to discuss with Syria.
ARAB EAST The opposition of the PLO leadership to the Sinai accord is similar in nature to the opposition of the Syrian Boath. The political turn made by the PLO after the 1973 October War was aimed at participating in the settlement that has been sought since the war. (See INPRECOR, No. 13, November 28, 1974, No. 14/15, December 12, 1974, and No. 19, February 13, 1975) The apparatus of the PLO has become a state apparatus in search of a state, Having renounced in practice the armed struggle against the Zionist state, the PLO leaders have set their sights on the establishment of a Palestinion state in the West Bank after an Israeli withdrawal. But an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank - the most populated and economically most valuable of all the territories occupied during the 1967 wor -could be achieved, according to the PLO strategists, only through the combined pressure of Egypt, Syria, the other major Arab states, and U.S. imperialism. PLO chairman Yasir Arafat, like el-Assad, recognizes that given the stabilization of the Egyptian front and the de facto separate peace with Egypt, the Zionist rulers will not come under the diplomatic pressure required to force them to negotiate with the PLO, let alone withdraw from the West Bank. If the Sinai accord pushes back an accord on the Golan Heights for several months at least, it pushes the question of the West Bank state into the indefinite future. The PLO reacted quickly to the signing of the agreement. On September 2 it released a statement denouncing the accord, saying, "In spite of all the assurances provided by Egypt, the accord is in no way limited to military clauses but quite clearly constitutes a political document that explicitly puts an end to the belligerence that exists between the two countries. " On September 10 the Central Council of the PLO issued a communiqué saying: "The Egyptian-Israeli accord constitutes an offense to the dignity of the Egyptian people and their army as well as to the dignity of the Arab nation as a whole. This accord is a genuine political settlement, suspending the state of belligerence with the Zionist enemy on one front alone and opening the rood to collaboration with the enemy. " On September 6 the PLO launched a demonstration of about 1,000 people at the Egyptian embassy in Damas22 cus. But the demonstration, one of the slogans of which was "The Palestinian people proudly salute the attitude of General Hafez el-Assad, " was clearly intended more to bolster the position of the Syrian government than to actually mobilize Palestinians against the accord. The fact is that the PLO is in an extremely difficult position. Its own endorsement of the overal! "peace process" in the region has politically disarmed it in organizing against the Sinal accord. The PLO apparatus is far too closely linked to the Saudi Arabian regime to risk a direct confrontation with the Saudis, who quickly expressed their full support to the Sinai pact. In addition, the policy the PLO has consistently followed in separating the Palestinian struggle from the broader revolutionary struggle throughout the Arab world leaves it with little or no base in Egypt with which to confront Sadar, Sadat's response to the PLO's criticism of the agreement showed that he is aware of the relationship of forces. On September 4 he gave a speech strongly and openly denouncing the PLO. On September 11 the PLO radio station in Cairo, "Voice of Palestine, " was taken over by the Egyptian government. The name was changed to "Palestine Radio" and the personnel of "Voice of Palestine" were barred from entering the premises. The station has continued broadcasting on the same frequency and on the same schedule, but the speakers are Egyptian and the texts they read consist largely of Egyptian government communiqués and statements. At the same time, a counterattack against the PLO was launched in the Egyptian press. Given the existing relationship of forces on the diplomatic field, the only way the PLO could engage in a test of strength with Sadat and the Saudi regime would be to mobilize the worket, and peasants and Palestinian refugees throughout the Arab East in a mass struggle against the peaceful solution as a whole.
There is no doubt that a mass base exists for such a campaign, as has been demonstrated by the response received by the organizations that compose the Polestinian "Front of Rejection" (among them the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Front-General Command). But the PLO leadership cannot wage such a campaign without renouncing its own political position and without breaking with the forces that subsidize the PLO bureaucracy. It is thus likely that the PLO will avoid a test of strength and eventually acquiesce in the Sinai agreement.
A temporary peace? Although the Sinal accord is aimed at establishing a separate peace between Egypt and Israel, it does not at all guarantee that peace will actually take hold.
If no accord is reached on the Syrion front and if the mobilizations of the Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese masses continue, the position of the Baathist regime in Damascus could become intolerable. In that event,
Damascus could be compelled to launch some military
action against the Israeli occupation in an effort to get the diplomatic process off dead center again. And in that event, the Sadat regime would face its deepest crisis ever. It is one thing to end the state of war with
Israel on the Egyptian front and allow the Zionist state to continue its occupation of more than 80 percent of the Sinal peninsula. It would be quite another thing, however, actually to stand by possively during a full- scale shooting war between Israel and Syria. Faced with such an eventuality, Sodat would have a choice between breaking the Sinai agreement, which would entail a direct clash with U.S. Imperialism and, very likely, another major military defeat of the hands of a vastly strengthened Isroeli army, or adhering to the agreement, which would almost certainly involve an and even the threat of a full-fledged revolutionary explosion. The choice would not be a happy one, either for Sadat or for American imperialism.
If, on the other hand, the Syrian front can be stabilized as thoroughly as the Egyptian front has been, the question of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank could be dealt with at leisure. With the threat of war with Egypt and Syria eliminated, the Zionist regime would be under no compulsion to make concessions and the PLO would be entirely marginalized. At that point, any long-term West Bank negotiations that did take place would be between Israel and the Hussein regime in Jordan, and not between Israel and the PLO.
It follows, then, that the next item on the agenda of
U.S. imperialism (and of el-Assad and of Sadat) is to arrange a new accord for the Golan Heights. As we have pointed out, because of the relationship of forces created by the Sinai accord, it will not be easy to achieve a Golan accord. But it con be safely predicted that the
Syrian regime will follow Sadat's path of copitulation. Most likely the accord will take the form of a partial or total demilitarization of the
Golan Heights, probably with the establishment of a larger UN buffer force, combined with a
Syrian renunciation of war along the lines of Sadat's.
The continuation of the
U.S.-orchestrated negotiations will entail a big increase in repression throughout the Arab East.
The Palestinian masses, the vanguard throughout the Arab East, and even the PLO leadership tself, will understand the stakes involved in the Pax Americana that is being negotiated. There will thus be resistance, and the regimes in Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt will meet that resistance with all the severity at their command. Closer coordination among the repression apparatuses of the various Arab countries has already begun (the case of the Arab Communist Organization, for example) and will undoubtedly intensify. The Israeli occupiers can be counted on to step up the repression in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. For all the Arab regimes concerned, capitulation to the Zionist state and to U.S. Imperialism inevitably requires repression of the Arab vanguard. Even apart from the specific question of the "settlement" of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the attempt to establish Pax Americana in the Arab Eost will entoil an increase in repression. The Sadat regime's attempt to solve the social and economic crisis in Egypt with massive injections of American capital has been a complete failure so far and will fare no better in the future. The problems of unemployment, inflation, and declining living standards in Egypt have already led to a reawakening of the Egyptian working class and to the re-emergence of a political vanguard based among this most decisive sector of the entire Arab proletariat. Even if there is no immediate mobilization in Egypt against Sadat's latest capitulation, the rise of workers struggles, some of which have taken on very advanced organizational forms, will continue. For several months now, Sadat has been waging a campaign of repression against the Egyptian vanguard, most recently arresting twenty revolutionary Marxist militants. (See INPRECOR, No.33, September 11, 1975.) Mobilization in defense of revolutionary militants in Egypt and the other countries of the Arab East therefore becomes a crucial task for revolutionaries throughout the Arab East and for the whole international workers movement. Defeating the repression is one of the keys to defeating the capitulationist settlement. September 19, 1975
the