Contradictory international forces are converging to break the Palestinian resistance movement.
The Soviet Union intervenes in the Arab world through the states over which it exercises some control—principally Egypt—and holds back all expansion of the resistance movement. This policy is illustrated by the Soviet Union's proposal of a peace plan, supported by Egypt. Nasser's hypocritical policy of acting on both sides—namely support for the resistance and the search for peace—has just been demonstrated once again. The Lebanese events [are] the highest stage in the revolutionary process; Nasser's proposals for negotiations which put the Palestinian resistance movement and the Lebanese army on the same footing show how much this same Nasser, who contributed to the rebirth of the Palestinian resistance movement, is bankrupt. Mediating between the fedayeen and the Arab bourgeoisie, Nasser strives to stop the revolutionary process. He clearly represents a half-way stage between revolutionary dynamism and pro-imperialist conservatism. He can continue playing this game only with the help of the Soviet bureaucracy, without which he would be nobody today.
On the other hand, in keeping with their habitual counter-revolutionary role, the imperialist forces wanted to make themselves felt by forcing the Lebanese army to act. This policy was publicly endorsed by an American representative, Sisco, when he declared his support for the Lebanese government. The American Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean is ready to intervene, as it was in 1958, to put the ruling classes back on their feet if necessary. But the state of Israel which is within the American sphere of influence is the only element which refuses to sign the peace. As a result, the East and West, whose talks were supposed to freeze the situation in the Middle East, now find themselves obliged to control and hold back the activity of the belligerents. The Soviet Union and Egypt are incapable of blocking the resistance movement. The Americans and the English are at present incapable of making Israel accept the peace. The British Minister for Foreign Affairs has stated that Israel must hand over the occupied territories. The peace plan is taking form around a pseudo-solution which would consist of taking into account the situation following June 1967 only and not since 1948. The aim of this approach would be to remove the general problem by concentrating on some of its particular aspects. The objective would be to force Israel to give up the occupied territories in exchange for the recognition of the state of Israel by the Arab states. Thus the Zionist state would achieve what it has been striving for for 20 years and what the Arab states have refused.
As a result of this, the situation in Lebanon has been transformed. As in the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan, the Palestinian commandos are almost completely outside the control of the official institutions such as the army; and are building a parallel military and administrative network. As in Jordan previously, the growth of the resistance in Lebanon has stirred up a mobilisation of the masses and a general politicisation of the young and militant people among the Palestinian refugees. The fusing of the Palestinian refugees and the Lebanese population, as previously with the Jordanian population, has started a process of the involvement of more and more of the Arab masses in support for the resistance.
Because support for the Palestine resistance movement came originally from the people and drew its strength and determination from the exploited masses, it assumed a class character and objectively opened a period of class struggle against the Arab regimes, such as that of Lebanon, which have unmasked themselves openly as counter-revolutionary by trying to stab the Palestinian resistance movement in the back.
Today, the situation is reversed: Israel does not want to sign the peace and the Arab states are waiting together with the "Big Four". Making peace would be dangerous for the Zionists today. They cannot keep up their massive collecting of funds in the imperialist homelands except by shouting about the dangers of "war" and "genocide" that threaten the Jewish people. The Zionist leaders create this situation deliberately. This attempt at peace on the part of the Arab states and the "Big Four" is a dangerous undertaking and everything indicates that on the basis of the present situation, peace is impossible unless there is a massive repression of the Palestinian resistance movement or a capitulation by its leaderships. The expansionist and militarist internal logic of the state of Israel is a stumbling block to this policy and objectively benefits the Palestinian resistance movement, who have understood how to use it.
The Lebanese crisis highlights the rapid spread of the Palestinian revolutionary enthusiasm among the Arab states which border Israel and which are thus most directly affected by the resistance. It confirms the highly revolutionary role played in the Arab world by the dynamics of the Palestinian revolution. The organisations of resistance constitute collectively the present motor of the Arab revolution, even if this is unconscious on the part of some components, since certain resistance movements do not pose the development and outcome of the resistance in terms of socialist and international revolution. The Palestinian insurrectionary spirit is spreading, today in Lebanon, soon elsewhere in the Arab world; it threatens the bourgeois class and its parasite element, the "compradors", and worries American imperialism, for which Lebanon occupies a decisive strategic and economic position in the Middle East.
But with the events in Lebanon, the resistance has reached a further step in the struggle. The Palestinian liberation struggle has assumed a new dimension—internationally and socially—since the Lebanese crisis. In this sense, the liberation struggle turned into a conflict with the pro-imperialist Lebanese government which assumed the social form of a class struggle for which the resistance was not yet prepared. The Lebanese crisis represents a revolutionary awakening of the masses in Lebanon in an international framework which reveals the true nature of the Arab revolution.
The Cairo agreement between Arafat and Bustani, the commander of the Lebanese army, is a compromise between the resistance and the Lebanese government, the consequence of which remains still limited in time, given the nature of the Lebanese government and army. Sooner or later, the counter-revolutionary manoeuvres of these supporters of imperialism will be resumed—and it will doubtless be sooner. From attempts at corruption to armed threats, American imperialism is now going to increase its pressure. In the next period we are going to witness the preparation for new conflicts between the revolutionary forces of the resistance and the Arab and imperialist counter-revolution.
Thus the Palestinian resistance movement assumes a tremendous responsibility in the development of the Arab revolution of which it is the vanguard. Nothing has really been settled in Cairo; the so-called progressive Arab states, Nasser in particular, have done no more than procrastinate and have given themselves a bit more rope by playing the reconciliation game.