Israel:
Palestinian anger grows

The new Israeli premier Ehud Barak stopped off in London to brief Tony 
Blair after holding talks with US President Bill Clinton. Barak outlined 
Tel Aviv's latest ideas, including a "framework agreement" with Syria, 
Palestine and significantly, Libya. But Western reports that Syrian vice-
president Abdel Halim Khaddam had informed several Palestinian and Lebanese 
resistance movements based in Damascus that his government was ready to 
settle with Israel and wanted them "to drop armed struggle, form political 
parties and work on social issues" have been strongly denied in Damascus by 
the movements concerned.

"This report is totally incorrect", said Fadhl Sharouro, a leading 
Palestinian resistance militant. "Syria did not ask us to drop our 
weapons", he declared.

There's no doubt that the West is making a new drive to break the impasse 
in the Middle East following Barak's victory on a peace pledge platform. 
But there's plenty of doubt in the Middle East about what is going to be 
put on the table in return.

The position of Syria and Lebanon is quite straight-forward — a complete 
Israeli withdrawal from Syria's Golan Heights and occupied southern 
Lebanon.

Israel wants out of Lebanon. Tel Aviv is paying the price for the folly of 
past governments — including Barak's Labour predecessors — in clinging on 
to the "security zone" across the frontier.

The puppet "South Lebanon Army" has all but collapsed. The few hundred who 
have not deserted all live in Israel and the resistance takes a regular 
toll of Israeli lives and materiel in the struggle to drive the occupiers 
out.

The return of the Golan Heights would mean either dismantling the Zionist 
settlements in the hills or reaching an agreement for their continuation 
under Syrian rule.

Most of the settlers are in fact Labour supporters and many of them would 
take compensation and go if the price was right.

In relation to the Palestinians, Barak can agree to the US-brokered Wye 
River peace agreement — after all Netanyahu did even though he never 
carried it out — because it only provides for a further withdrawal from 
Palestinian villages in the West Bank. What comes after is another matter.

The Israeli leader has said that Arab East Jerusalem and a huge chunk of 
the West Bank that Israel calls "Greater Jerusalem" will be kept as part of 
Israel, whatever happens.

About half the Zionist settlements are in this zone — the rest are 
scattered across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and there's no sign that 
the new government is ready or willing to dismantle them. Most importantly 
of all, nothing is said about the right to return of millions of 
Palestinian refugees whose homes are now in Israel proper.

Now Washington and Tel Aviv are talking about a "final settlement", and 
what the Palestinians fear, and this includes President Arafat, is that 
they're going to get an imposed settlement which leaves them with little 
more than the "autonomous" zones they've already got.

Palestinian anger is growing. Last month nine Palestinians were hurt during 
clashes with Israeli troops in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli troops fired rubber bullets and tear-gas shells at a group of 
demonstrators demanding the release of Palestinian political prisoners.

The protest was organised by Yasser Arafat's own Fatah movement, the 
backbone of the Palestinian administration.

* * *

New Worker