People's Democracy

AS one of the key elements of US imperialist drive to hegemonise the world, the US-backed Israeli attacks on the Palestinian people have brought the situation in West Asia to a flashpoint. Never were the dangerous repercussions of a unipolar world so clear as they are today.

The point is simple. It is not that the US is trying to intervene in the Middle East only today. The fact is that imperialist powers have always been trying to keep the region under their control. There was a time when all the Middle East countries were under the direct or indirect control of the erstwhile colonial powers like Great Britain and France. But when the mighty wave of national liberation movements swept the globe, these countries too got their independence. It was quite natural that these countries strove to guard their sovereignty by all means and bring their resources under their own control.

But this was precisely what the imperialist powers could not reconcile themselves to. This became clear in a most dramatic manner when Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal. Then the British and French imperialists did their best to browbeat Egypt into submission by threatening to declare a war against her. But then the world also saw how the newly liberated countries, the people of the still unliberated colonies and all progressive forces around the world closed their ranks and forced the British and French to beat a hasty and ignominious retreat. The support extended by the socialist bloc to the Middle East countries, like other newly liberated countries, also proved crucial, enabling them to withstand the imperialist pressure, threats and blackmail.

However, this was also the period when the USA tried to step into the shoes of the erstwhile colonial powers that had to run away in face of the rising tide of national liberation movements. Just as the US sought to occupy the position vacated by France in Vietnam, it successfully replaced the Spaniards in Morocco and the British in some countries. Though its manoeuvres did not succeed in case of some countries, most notably Egypt, it did not give up its attempts to intervene in the region on one pretext or another.

The reason was obvious. Particularly after the first world war, the whole world come to know that the sandy Middle East deserts have beneath their surface an enormous amount of crude oil reserves. Very soon the European countries, the US and Japan came to rely heavily on the Middle East oil for their energy needs. In fact it was with a view to exploiting these oil reserves that imperialist powers had once, in the inter-war period, planned the creation of a Berlin-Baghdad rail line.

To what extent the US imperialists, now a superpower, could go to establish their control over the Middle East oil resources, became clear when the CIA successfully engineered the assassination of Iranian leader Mosaddiq and installed the Raza Shah Pehlavi regime in the country. Though the US never tires singing its solo song of human rights, it preferred to keep its lips tight when the Shah regime most brutally violated the human rights of the Iranian people, illegally killing, maiming and torturing lakhs of them. Moreover, even after the Shah was forced to run away in early 1979, the US left no stone unturned to topple the new regime. The US resorted to similar manoeuvres and/or direct attacks in case of other Middle East countries as well.

The Zionists of Israel proved the most valuable ally of the US in this region. Even though the state of Israel was a progeny of British colonialism in the region, very soon it developed into a vehicle of US imperialist policy in the Middle East. After the end of the second world war, even though the United Nations had voted in favour of creation of a Jewish and a Palestinian state along the Jordan river, the imperialists saw to it that no Palestinian state came into existence. At the same time, the US provided all sorts of assistance to Israel that still receives the biggest chunk of US financial aid and military hardware too. Moreover, it was only because of the USA’s diplomatic backing that Israel has violated all the Security Council resolutions with impunity during the 54 years of its existence. The US-Israel combination has suffered several defeats in the UN General Assembly, but they are still adamantly trying to prevent the Palestinians from having a homeland of their own.

The absence of a countervailing force after the USSR’s disintegration has further emboldened the US imperialists and their Zionist lackeys. It was because of the changed situation that the PLO had had to sign the Oslo accord that represented a climb-down from the Palestinian demand of a homeland. But the Zionists are not willing to implement even this accord in full; on the contrary, they are trying to snatch back whatever concessions they had had to give to the Palestinians under the accord.

The situation has worsened in the last two years or so. During his presidency, Clinton tried to have both the Palestinians and Israelis by the US side and hence he attempted to give the impression that some amount of justice would be ensured for the Palestinians. He took initiative to somehow patch up a Camp David type accord between the two sides. But since Bush Jr assumed office, the US imperialists have given up even that pretense. Bush is extending all support to the government of Ariel Sharon who will go down in history as the "butcher of Sabra and Shatilla."

Emboldened by such naked, unashamed support from the US, the Sharon regime has now crossed all limits of civilisation. PLO chairman and Palestine president, Yasser Arafat, is under the Israeli army siege for the last two weeks, and the world community is not sure when the Zionists will get him killed. Israeli action is perfectly in accord with the USA’s hegemonistic design to get Arafat replaced by somebody more pliable, as the PLO chairman.

While the US has brought the situation in Palestinian territories to a flashpoint through the agency of its Zionist lackeys, it is trying to open yet another front soon after its war against Afghanistan --- this time against Iraq. The "axis of evil" theory propounded by Bush has named in particular Iraq, Iran and DRR Korea as the "evil" powers and hence the most probable targets of US war machine in near future.

Iraq, that is known to have one of the biggest oil reserves in the world, has a coveted place in the USA’s geo-political designs. The most brutal US-UK war launched against Iraq in the name of the United Nations in 1991, the imposition of two no-fly zones by brute force in the northern and southern parts of Iraq and the institution of a barbaric sanctions regime against the country, again in the name of a hijacked UN, are now known to every student of world politics. Equally known is that this brutal sanctions regime has so far claimed at least 1.5 million innocent Iraqi lives, mostly the infants and the aged, by totally blocking the food and medicine supplies to the country. Obviously, innocent lives have no value, no sanctity for the imperialist powers. It is the inhuman face of imperialism that these sanctions have once again exposed.

Not content with all this, however, US imperialists have enacted a so-called "Iraq Liberation Act" to allow themselves freedom to engage in all sorts of overt and covert activities against Iraq. And the fact is that whenever they talk of "liberation" of Iraq, it plainly means toppling of President Saddam Hussain and his replacement by some pliable lackey in Baghdad, so that the US multinationals get an opportunity to exploit the Iraqi oil resources unhindered. It is under this so-called "Iraq Liberation Act" that US imperialists have been helping with arms, training and money a group of mercenaries who are masquerading as the Iraqi National Congress. Now, Bush's project to militarily target Iraq shows that the US has failed to achieve what it wanted to achieve through these mercenaries.

But the greater the injustice, the more intense is the resistance that it generates. The US-backed Israeli depredations against the Palestinians, who are fighting their second intifada mainly with stones and bricks, against an enemy that is armed to the teeth with the most sophisticated weapons, have aroused the freedom-loving people all over the world. Just as the imperialist moves to economically subjugate the third world countries evoked intense reactions from Seattle to Prague to Genoa to Doha, the US hegemonistic drive too is bound to meet its Waterloo sooner or later. The growing resistance on the question of Palestine and Iraq is a pointer in that very direction.

During the last one week, almost all Arab countries from Mauritania in the west to Oman in the east have witnessed militant demonstrations against the Israeli war of aggression in Palestine and the US threat to Iraq. On April 7, more than one million people staged demonstrations in Syria and an equal number in Morocco. These actions came as a sequel to similar actions in all major cities of Iraq in which an estimated two million people participated.

On April 5, there was a 20,000-strong demonstration in Bahrain when the US embassy was heavily stoned and a fire was ignited inside the building. The demonstrators also hoisted the Palestinian flag on the building. One demonstrator was killed. This action is of special importance as Bahrain is the base of the USA’s Fifth Fleet.

On the same day, Saudi Arabia too witnessed militant demonstrations despite preventive orders. Here too, the US embassy was attacked. About 80 demonstrators got injured.

Demonstrations are continuing to take place in Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Algeria, Tunisia and several other Arab countries.

All this constitutes a new phenomenon that started since the US war against Iraq in 1991. Arab countries had never before witnessed such spontaneous and simultaneous demonstrations.

Total stoppage of oil supply to the US and cutting of diplomatic ties with Israel are among the important demands being raised in the region. These demonstrations are also highlighting the fact that while the US imperialists hypocritically talk of fighting terrorism, they are backing the naked Israeli state terrorism against the Palestinians. That the sanctions against Iraq represent another facet of the US terrorism, is also a point being highlighted.

But protest actions are not confined to the Arab world. As The Hindu reported on April 8, over 20,000 people clogged the streets of Paris a day before. Provincial towns too witnessed similar actions. The People’s Square in Rome witnessed an anti-Israeli demonstration by some 50,000 Italians. The Japanese Communist Party and some other parties organised protest actions in Tokyo and other prefectural headquarters. News of rallies and processions have come from several other parts of the world, including New York.

New Delhi witnessed an angry demonstration in front of Israeli embassy. Powerful demonstrations have taken place all through West Bengal and Kerala, including one in front of the US Consulate in Kolkata.

But a sad part of the story is that, having once expressed verbal sympathy with the Palestinians, the Vajpayee government has again assumed a stoic silence on the question of Israeli depredations. But there is nothing surprising about it, as the RSS-BJP’s love for the Israeli Zionists against the Palestinians (Muslims!) has been well known all along. In their hatred for the Muslims, the RSS has even been resorting to plain untruths; it has for example been propagating that it was the Muslims who displaced the Jews from their homeland and that the Jews are now paying the Muslim Palestinians in the same coin. What a blatant lie this propaganda is, is evident from the fact that it was the Roman empire that displaced the Jews from their hearth and home, and that no Islam and therefore no Muslims existed at the time.

The BJP government’s attempt to forge closer ties with Israel is also a part of its sinister design to kill our time-tested foreign policy of non-alignment, independence, anti-imperialism, peace and comprehensive disarmament. In the last four years, this government has proved to be the most shamelessly pro-imperialist government since independence. It has forged close military cooperation with the US, derecognised the SADR, given up our stance on nuclear arms and has even entered arms deals with Israel. This way, it has blemished India’s image in the third world where we were regarded as a leader not very long ago.

The government’s stance on Palestine is apiece with its pro-US thinking. As we know, India always supported the just cause of the Palestinian people for a homeland. But no more now. This entails a divergence between the GoI and the Indian people. While our people still stand for Palestine’s independence, the government is not prepared even to demand that Israel stop its terror in occupied territories. It remained unmoved even after Arafat’s envoy met Indian leaders with an appeal to do something towards cessation of Israeli violence.

This situation brooks no tolerance. The Left and democratic forces, who have always stood by their Palestinian brethren, must have to bring all pressure upon the government to see that it reiterates the traditional Indian stand on Palestine. Stop to the Jewish settlement drive in occupied territories, permission to all Palestinian refugees living in other countries to return and creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital are some of the important demands to be pressed. At the immediate moment, the GoI has to see that Israel stops its terror in the region and that Arafat’s life is saved. The least the GoI can do in this direction is to recall its envoy from Tel Aviv till Israel mends its way and pays heed to the world public opinion.