Such efforts have been thwarted by the combativity of the Palestinians, who have steadfastly refused to reconcile themselves to their permanent dispossession by colonial-settler Israel. New reports from the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip indicate a deepening of actions and determination to fight, especially by younger generations of the Palestinian population.

In a case of the tail wagging the dog, the Israeli government continues to escalate its attacks, in defiance of Washington’s calls for "restraint." On April 29 Israeli tanks rolled into Hebron, the only West Bank town that was spared the earlier sweeping military incursions. The latest Israeli assault has taken at least nine Palestinian lives, while 150 Palestinians have been arrested.

In spite of an Israeli cover-up, facts continue to emerge on the extent of the battle waged by Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp against the tank- and bulldozer-equipped Israeli armed forces. Israeli soldiers, 23 of whom were killed in the fighting, have "expressed grudging admiration for a mostly unseen enemy that had meticulously planned for the assault, stockpiling ammunition, food and medical supplies as well as crude but effective bombs," reported the April 26 Washington Post.

One reservist told the Post that the Israeli troops were told to "put a bullet in each [Palestinian] window." The big-business paper reported "a lack of preparation by Israeli reservists. They were hastily mustered from civilian life less than two weeks before, and were told to expect a Palestinian surrender within three days." One reservist said, "We were told specifically that once the Palestinians see the tanks, they’ll give up."

Another soldier admitted that "I can’t be contemptuous of them. Somebody there had thought very much what to do and how to fight and succeeded for 10 or 11 days against a very big army."  
 
Protests throughout region
Working people and youth in nearly every country in the region, inspired by the Palestinian resistance in the occupied territories, have taken to the streets in solidarity. In a number of countries, such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia, marchers have defied police assaults and standing prohibitions on demonstrations.

Palestinians have also taken to the streets in many other countries, including the United States, where they led off protests of some 75,000 on April 20 in Washington and 20,000 in San Francisco, the largest-ever such mobilizations in U.S. history. Protests have been reported in Indonesia, many European countries, Canada, New Zealand, and elsewhere.

The impact of the deepening Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the Middle East, and the solidarity it is winning among workers and farmers of the region, is also registered in other ways. In late April a group of 120 Saudi scholars and writers issued an open letter condemning U.S. and Israeli policy, and calling on the Saudi government to "make the American administration feel that its huge interests in the Arab region are also threatened." As the London-based Economist magazine commented, "That is about as direct a call as is possible in the kingdom for the closure of America’s military bases there." The Pentagon maintains a dozen bases and 30,000 troops in the Arab-Persian Gulf. The U.S. air force alone operates from bases in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

In the Syrian capital of Damascus, where hundreds of thousands of people have mounted daily demonstrations against Israeli and U.S. policy, the U.S. Consul was banned from one upmarket restaurant. The owner told him, "your presence does not honor us as a representative of the American government that adopts pro-Israeli positions. You are persona non grata and you should leave."

Fearful of the unrest and destabilizing impact of the protests by working people, representatives of Middle Eastern governments have expressed concerns at the openly pro-Israeli stance of the U.S. government, and have appealed to Washington to use its influence to "settle" the conflict. With young people giving their lives to battle the Israeli regime, the capitalist governments in the Mideast are having an increasingly hard time justifying their own inaction to workers and farmers.

"Where is the pressure from the U.S. on [Israeli prime minister Ariel] Sharon?" said Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League, on April 30. "Why should the Arabs put pressure on [Palestinian Authority leader Yasir] Arafat without equal pressure being put on Sharon?"

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak used his May Day speech to criticize the Bush administration for legitimizing Tel Aviv’s "comparison between the U.S. war on terrorism in Afghanistan and Israel’s war against unarmed Palestinians who are resisting occupation." The New York Times noted that the leaders of Egypt and Jordan have "resorted to lowering their public profiles" in the face of growing criticism of the "peace treaties" they have signed with Israel.  
 
Visit by Saudi Arabian officials
This was the context for the April 25 talks between U.S. president George Bush and a Saudi delegation that included Abdullah, the country’s crown prince. Abdullah reportedly warned of "grave consequences" if Washington failed to curb the ongoing Israeli military campaign in the Palestinian territories. Failure to accomplish this, he said, according to the Times, would mean "an intense spiral of violence that would result in a complete collapse of security and stability in the region"--code words for the regimes’ inability to keep working people under control.

The meeting followed discussions by Bush over the previous week with the kings of Jordan and Morocco, and the prime minister of Lebanon.

Following the Saudi visit, the Times reported that a "division of labor" had been established, with U.S. officials talking to Israeli prime minister Sharon about "breaking the psychology of violence," while Arab officials would "do the same at a meeting with Yasir Arafat."

"Arab leaders," continued the report, "are expected to press Mr. Arafat to accept an unprecedented level of supervision, assistance and guidance in rebuilding the Palestinian Authority, whose security forces will be instructed to crack down on terrorists and cooperate with Israeli and Western intelligence in preventing terrorism."

Commenting on a proposal for a Washington-dominated international "peace conference" involving a number of imperialist powers, as well as Russia, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Morocco, Prince Sayud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, said that "good things are happening for a change." The Times claimed that the conference would aim to fulfill "the vision of a Palestinian state."

Two days earlier the White House had announced that the Israeli government had agreed to Arafat’s release from his Ramallah offices, where he has been trapped for a month. Tel Aviv agreed on condition that four members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) accused of assassinating Israel’s tourism minister would be held in a Palestinian prison with U.S. and British guards. A Palestinian Authority military court convicted the four of the killing.

"Chairman Arafat is now free to move around and free to lead, and we expect him to do so," said Bush.  
 
Dissent among Bush supporters
The White House’s deepening involvement in the Palestinian conflict has prompted growing criticism among prominent conservative and right-wing supporters of the administration and the Republican Party. A number argue that this course weakens the position of the Israeli rulers and undermines Washington’s preparations for an assault on Iraq. They express fear that the U.S. rulers’ "war on terror"--the banner attached to attacks on workers’ rights inside the United States and to military aggression abroad--has lost momentum.

"This is not the time for peace missions and negotiations," wrote Jeff Jacoby in the April 24 Conservative Chronicle. "The way to end the war in the West Bank is not to make Israel retreat but to let it fight its way to a decisive victory."

The Wall Street Journal editorialized on April 17 that "since Mr. Bush entered the Palestinian bazaar to restrain Israel two weeks ago, his own standing has fallen with all parties." Such efforts, argued the paper, would only be justified if they were able to "calm Palestine long enough to get on with the main business of Saddam."

Lamenting the administration’s "foray into peace-processing," the editors of the National Review stated May 6, "The administration has leaked away prestige and creditability with nearly every new statement, and has bent to the logic of the Arab world, which is that nothing can ever be done in the Middle East without bullying Israel first."

Saudi Arabia is "really almost an enemy at this stage," said New York Republican Congressman Peter King several days before Abdullah’s visit. "I think perhaps it’s time to consider actually stopping immigration from countries which harbor terrorists and countries which do not fully comply with us on terrorism," he said in a radio interview. "That would include most of the Arab states, quite frankly."

In a April 19 piece, published in townhall.com, entitled "U.S. should not take their eye off Iraq," longtime Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer described Washington’s involvement in the Mideast diplomacy as a "distraction."

"It muddies the very principles of the Bush Doctrine," he wrote, to call for Israeli withdrawal in the middle of its "decisive counterrattack."

"Time is running short" for an attack on Iraq," wrote Krauthammer. "This idea that we cannot fight Iraq without a consensus of Arab states behind us is absurd. We need two countries, Kuwait in the south and Turkey in the north."

Veteran New York Times columnist William Safire was also dismissive of attempts to construct a "coat-holding coalition of craven caliphs" in preparing to overthrow Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. "We have already had to begin abandoning our bases in Saudi Arabia. Joining us in liberating Iraq" --i.e. pulverizing the country and its people with imperialist airpower, tanks, and artillery--"will be Brits, Turks, and Kurds."  
 
Exhaustion of war fever
In also bemoaning the loss of momentum in the imperialist war drive at home and abroad, but speaking in defense of the White House’s current course, one administration official noted the exhaustion of the war fever whipped up by the U.S. rulers after September 11. "The lesson of the past month," said the functionary, "is that September 11 was so horrific that it made for easy choices, almost all of which are behind us. And everything ahead--Israel, the Palestinians, Iraq, even dealing with our fair-weather friends in Europe--doesn’t fit that template."

As part of administration efforts to answer the criticisms of its supporters, and to prepare public opinion for an offensive against Iraq, a Defense Department official told the April 28 Times that plans have been drawn up for a "heavy air and land assault" in 2003. The blueprint includes "rough numbers of troops, ranging from a minimum of about 70,000 to 100,000...to a top of 250,000.... Other than troops from Britain, no significant contribution of allied forces is anticipated."
 
 
Related articles:
Palestinians and fight for national liberation
Actions across globe back Palestinians’ fight  
 
 
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