Tremors rattle Middle East
U.S. client regimes fear mass uprising
By Joyce
Chediac
A great wave of anti-imperialist protest is sweeping the
Middle East, changing the relationship of forces, and
propelling the struggle into a new pan-Arab, pan-Islamic
phase.
The depth and breadth of the rage of the oppressed Arabs
and other Middle Eastern peoples at the sight of Israeli
rockets and helicopter gunships mowing down Palestinians
armed with slingshots and stones has already loosened
Washington's grip on the area and threatens to sweep away
U.S. client regimes.
In mid-October, "angry crowds across the Arab world took
to the streets, demanding open borders for a war against
[Israel]," according to the Oct. 15 Beirut Daily Star. The
daily demonstrations, spearheaded by workers and students,
have spread to all economic classes of society.
The entire Arab population has joined the new Palestinian
Intifada. This gives new hope to workers and oppressed people
worldwide, who suffer so much under the heel of Wall Street's
globalization.
This strong progressive Arab nationalism and inter-Arab
solidarity has not been seen since the 1960s. "For the first
time in a long, long time," wrote Marwan Asmar, a staff
writer for the Jordanian English-language weekly The Star,
"people are expressing their true selves, reaching for a
pan-Arab idea that until now has been blocked by the creation
of states, statism, geography and boundaries."
'U.S. interests' at stake, says official
The protests have so strongly targeted the United States
that Washington closed all of its diplomatic offices in the
Middle East. An unnamed U.S. official explained that the
Clinton administration was no longer focused just on
salvaging the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. Now it was
trying to save "U.S. interests in the region." (New York
Times, Oct. 9)
The apparent bombing of the USS Cole by a suicide squad in
Yemen is symbolic of the rising anti-imperialist
sentiment.
Enraged crowds have marched throughout virtually the
entire Arab world, including those countries with the most
repressive and pro-U.S. regimes. Reactionary Arab
governments--bound by their long-standing relationships with
Washington, new diplomatic relations with Israel and
impoverished, repressed populations--see the protests as
threats to their own rule.
In the current period, these regimes have used large, U.S.
supplied repressive apparatuses to stop or contain most
demonstrations. But they are reluctant to repress crowds
outraged over such volatile issues as the Palestinian cause
and the status of Jerusalem.
At the same time, these governments fear that grassroots
anger at their regimes for not doing enough to support the
Palestinians could easily turn to anger over economic and
social woes at home.
''This is an historical event we are witnessing, and it
will be a turning point for the region,'' said Hussein Amin,
a writer on Islamic affairs and former Egyptian ambassador to
Algeria. ''This may well prove to be the beginning of an
uprising in this country [Egypt] and elsewhere in the
region,'' he said.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the largest recipients of U.S.
military hardware in the world outside of Israel, are
especially vulnerable. Being lynchpins of imperialist
domination in the region has brought little to the youths of
these countries who, like other oppressed youths around the
word, see no economic future for themselves in the age of
capitalist globalization.
'Yawning gap between gov'ts, people'
In an attempt to take the focus off themselves, some Arab
officials have joined worker-student propelled protests or
made gestures towards the Palestinians.
However, as commentator Habib Youssef el-Sayegh wrote in
al-Khaleej, the leading Arabic newspaper in the United Arab
Emirates: "The real pulse of the Arab street was highlighted
in the past few days in the form of protests, chants and
writings. They showed the yawning gap between governments and
the people.''
The wave of demonstrations has already swept away the
wedge that Washington drove between Arab governments during
the 1991 Gulf War. Arab regimes have begun to separate
themselves from Washington's anti-Iraq stand by defying
sanctions and the ban on flights to Iraq.
The crisis has propelled heads of state to call a rare
Arab summit meeting in Cairo on Oct. 21 and 22 to back the
Palestinians. Iraq, which has not attended an Arab summit
since before the Gulf War, will attend. Kuwait, rocked by
demonstrations, has agreed to attend without raising
objections to Iraq's presence.
In an attempt to undermine the Arab summit, Washington
called a new round of "peace" talks in Egypt's Sharm al-Sheik
beginning Oct. 16, just days before the Arab conference.
However, the U.S.-sponsored talks sparked a new round of
protests from the West Bank to Egypt to Lebanon.
An emergency meeting of 200 representatives from both the
Arab nationalist and religious movements in Beirut, Lebanon,
warned that "the U.S. sponsored summit ... would only serve
to 'abort' the newly rising Intifada in Palestine."
The Oct. 16 Beirut Daily Star reported, "The participants
spent the day discussing a plan aimed at mobilizing support
behind the Palestinian people," and will present "a
memorandum of demands" to the Arab summit delegates.
One participant in this meeting, Jordanian opposition
official Laith Shbeilat, said, "The struggling Palestinian
people don't need words, they need true solidarity."
On Oct. 17 a ceasefire agreement between Israel and the
Palestinian Authority was brokered by the U.S. at a summit
meeting in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt. The Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist organization that calls
for a democratic, secular Palestine, immediately issued a
statement calling for the Intifada to continue until Israel
ends its occupation. Another left group, the Democratic Front
for the Liberation of Palestine, also urged the Palestinians
to continue the uprising.
The 'peace process' fraud
"Peace process" has become a hated phrase in the Middle
East--synonymous with attempts to force yet another
humiliating defeat upon the Arab people. Arabs who
participated in these negotiations are now viewed with
suspicion.
"The peace campaign is really isolated now," said Hani
Hurrani, director of New Jordan, a nongovernmental research
center in Amman that reports on social and economic trends.
"We feel that we have to go underground."
Of much more interest to Arab workers and students is the
example of Lebanon. In May, a mass movement in this country
of 3 million forced the powerful Israeli military apparatus
out of southern Lebanon. This armed people's movement, rooted
deeply in the population, did what no regular Arab army had
been able to do in 52 years--inflict a defeat on Israel and
its U.S. backers.
From Ramallah to Riyadh, from Morocco to Muscat, Arab
workers and students are turning away from talks, and looking
to Lebanon for inspiration for their struggle.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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