Socialist Action /April 2001
NYC Forum -
Peace and Justice in the Middle East:
How Can they be Achieved?
By MARILYN VOGT-DOWNEY
NEW YORK-An audience of close to 70 people attended
a forum on the subject of "Peace and Justice in the Middle East: How
Can They Be Achieved?" on March 22.
The event was held in the auditorium of AFSCME
District Council 1707 and sponsored by Socialist Action together with Jews
Against the Occupation and the Palestine Right of Return Coalition.
The forum featured a panel of three experts on
Middle East affairs: Roan Carey, copy chief at The Nation magazine; attorney
Abdeen Jabara, former president of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination
Committee; and Gerry Foley, international affairs editor of Socialist Action
newspaper.
Roan Carey reviewed some of the events that led
to the September 2000 uprising of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation
and the subsequent escalation of Israeli violence and repression against
the Palestinians. Carey is also the editor of a volume of writings on Palestine
scheduled for publication in September by Verso Publishers called "The
New Intifada," and he referred to relevant materials that will appear
in this book to buttress his arguments.
Carey spoke out against any illusions that a two-state
solution could be the solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The
"state" that Palestinians would be allowed to have would be no
more than a Middle East version of the "homelands" to which Blacks
were consigned by South Africa's apartheid regime.
Peace and justice in the Middle East will require
intensive and extensive grassroots organizing here in the United States,
he stressed, to stop U.S. military and economic aid upon which Israel depends
and to undermine the vast and powerful pro-Zionist propaganda machine that
the U.S. media sustains. This will take another movement like the one that
ended U.S. military aggression against Vietnam.
Abdeen Jabara reviewed the history of the so-called
peace accords in the Middle East since the first of the Camp David Accords,
stressing that each did no more than prepare the way for further retreats
by the Palestinians and advances for the Israeli occupation. None of them
brought peace, nor were they intended to.
The Israeli government violated all of them as
it continued to expand the areas of occupation and isolate and strangle
the Palestinian people. The collapse of the Soviet Union dealt a body blow
to the Palestinian cause, he said, which meant that the PLO had no recourse
but to go along with the Oslo Accords even though these accords paved the
way for the current Israeli aggression.
Jabara recently helped organize a fact-finding
team the National Lawyers Guild sent to Palestine, the report of which will
soon be released. Its findings document the criminal behavior of the Israeli
government against the Palestinians and should help galvanize more widespread
opposition to the U.S. government's aid to the Zionist regime. Peace and
justice in the Middle East, Abdeen emphasized, require that the Zionist
state be dismantled.
Gerry Foley examined the dynamic whereby the masses,
by their unremitting struggle against injustice, keep pressure on petty-bourgeois
leaderships like the PLO and tend to destroy the deals these leaderships
have made with oppressors. This is what the current uprising of the Palestinians
represents.
He disagreed with Jabara that the collapse of the
Soviet Union was a setback for the Palestinian struggle. The role of Stalinism
in Palestine was no different than anywhere else-that is, to use struggles
of the oppressed as diplomatic pawns in deals with imperialism. In fact,
the collapse of Stalinism clears away a political obstacle to successful
struggle.
The new Palestinian uprising is inspiring masses
throughout the Middle East, as is evidenced by mass demonstrations in countries
like Syria and Egypt. The repressive Arab governments, however, rightfully
feel threatened by these demonstrations because even though pro-Palestinian
demonstrations are tolerated, there is always the possibility that these
could transform themselves into mass rebellions against the Arab governments
themselves.
Foley agreed with the other speakers that the only
solution is a democratic, secular Palestine. But he added that this could
only survive as part of a socialist federation encompassing the entire region,
something that the mass demonstrations in support of the Palestinians could
pave the way for.
The presentations gave rise to a spirited discussion,
in part sparked by the visit that week to Washington by the butcher of Sabra-Shatilla,
new Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, during which he consolidated Israeli
links with the U.S. ruling-class military, political, and intelligence institutions.
Socialist Action /April 2001 |