First Published: The Call, Vol. 5, No. 12, July 19, 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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At a time when the Palestinian and other Arab peoples are working hard to forge unity in the struggle against Zionism and imperialism, an opportunist organization in the U.S. called Workers Viewpoint (WVO), is trying its best to undermine support for that crucial struggle.
Posing as Marxist-Leninists, the leadership of WVO has a long history of traitorous activity in undermining internationalism and support for the genuine national liberation struggles. Their past activities include chauvinist attacks on the Vietnamese struggle when they were part of the leadership of the neo-Trotskyite Progressive Labor Party. More recently, as a grouping within the so-called “Revolutionary Wing,” they tried to sabotage support for the movements of the third world against the two superpowers.
Now following WVO’s expulsion from the “Wing” they have launched a new bar-age of lies and slanders directed primarily against the Palestinian and Arab peoples’ struggle.
WVO borrows its main splitting and wrecking tactic from the Soviet revisionists. They spread the lie through their propaganda mill that the leaders of the Palestinian movement are “agents” of the CIA. Without any documentation, they claimed in their journal last year that PLO leader Yasser Arafat was placed in leadership position by the U.S. imperialists themselves. Now in the June, 1976 issue of Workers Viewpoint newspaper, they assert openly that Arafat is “a vacillator,” and is in league with imperialism to sell out the Palestinian claim to its homeland in occupied Palestine (Israel).
These slanders, especially at a time when the PLO has won recognition as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, serve only to undermine support for the Palestinian cause here in the U.S. where the Zionist propaganda runs the deepest.
WVO’s second splitting tactic is to play one Arab country against the other, declaring one government to be “revolutionary” and others “reactionary.” This is also a favorite trick of Soviet social-imperialism in its splitting activities around the world. The Soviet revisionists used it to divide the Angolan liberation movement by giving aid to only those groups it declared to be revolutionary—meaning, those who would carry out their policies while launching armed aggression against all others.
The same divisive logic is used to analyze the Arab countries. “The correct policy,” says the June Workers Viewpoint, “toward the Arab nationalist regimes should be one of unity and struggle: unite with the consistent nationalist, anti-imperialist regimes such as Syria, Iraq, and Algeria;, win over the vacillating nationalist regimes such as Egypt; and isolate the reactionaries such as King Hussein of Jordan, Faisal of Saudi Arabia and the Shah of Iran.”
What is the basis for this analysis of “consistent,” “vacillating,” and “reactionary” Arab governments? WVO never says, but a closer look may give some indication to the readers. The attack on Egypt as a “vacillator” for example, comes at a time when that country has broken its treaty with the Soviet Union and delivered a major blow to Soviet hegemony in the area.
Egypt has also been playing a role of great importance in pushing Arab unity forward and in calling for a just settlement in the Lebanon situation. Egypt has also rendered valuable support to the Palestinian cause.
Only those countries with closer ties to the Soviet Union are placed into the camp of “consistent” Arab nationalists by WVO, while in the camp of the “reactionaries,” WVO places at least one country (Iran) which isn’t even Arab and has taken significant steps to defend its sovereignty against the superpowers.
The crux of the matter is that the long struggle of the Arab people proves that Arab unity is the only sure guarantee of victory against the Israeli Zionists and the two superpowers. In the Middle East war of 1973, the Arab peoples fought together against Israeli aggression. The armies and peoples of Egypt, Syria and Palestine coordinated their struggle on two fronts, won a smashing victory and exposed the myth of Israeli “invincibility.”
In the complex situation currently in Lebanon, the superpowers are once again trying their best to smash Arab unity. But the governments of Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait held a conference on June 23 and issued a joint communique showing once again that unity is the common desire of the Arab people and no force on earth can suppress it.
A recent article from China’s Hsinhua News Agency (June 26) states: “It is only natural that there are different views and approaches to certain problems and events among Arab countries because of their different circumstances. But there is no fundamental conflict of interests among the countries of the third world to which all Arab states belong.”
This statement reflects the stand that all real internationalists must have at this juncture in history. Those who engage in the splitting activities and rumor-mongering like Workers Viewpoint can only be doing the work of one or the other superpower.
The present situation in the Middle East is excellent and the revolutionary struggle of the Palestinian and other Arab peoples is developing steadily towards victory. With the support of the world’s peoples, the struggle is invincible.