[Hence Arrangements Com- explains the details and the…]

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Hence Arrangements Com- explains the details and the mittee has ruled out of procedural arguments. proposed by the Campaign resist a side-swipe at those for Labour Party Demo- of us on the CLPD Executcracy and supported by ive who disagreed with the several Constituency Lab- authors of the press release our Parties. on tactics.

Labour movement conference: September 1 Fight the Tories, not the Socialists!

At Wembley Conference Centre, London All bona fide labour movement organisation:

re entitled to send delegates (maximum 5 pe organisation), and are invited to sponsor the conference. Credentials fee £1 per delegate.

Credentials from Tony Saunois, 23 Ironside:

House, Homerton Road, London E9 5PW.

Cheques payable to Labour Movement John Bloxam comments THE Labour Party Conferorder two amendments Conference Fund The CLPD press release Unfortunately it cannot

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Organiser no.98 September 2 1982 Page 3 Rockets, bombs, bullets.... the war isn't over yet THERE ARE plenty of grey clouds with no silver lining. And for the people of the Middle East there is no bright side to the Israeli victory in Lebanon which has brought the evacuation of Palestinian fighters from West Beirut.

The withdrawal of the Palestinians does not mean that the Zionist troops have gone, or show any sign of leaving. They remain dug in by the tens of thousands around Beirut and within shelling distance of the Syrian capital of Damascus.

The conditions for a Zionist withdrawal have not been clearly spelled out. On the one head Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon have spoken of a withdrawal hinging on the prior withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanese soil: some demands however seem to go even further, apparently demanding the deportation of some left wing Lebanese militias from their homeland as a precondition for pulling out Israeli troops.

Meanwhile, by dint of the Israeli presence, the weakening of the Lebanese resistance as a result of the withdrawal of the Palestinians, and a campaign of terror and bribery, Phalangist militia leader Bachir Gemayel has secured election as the next President of Nazi Gemayel heads an armed force of upwards of 6,000, Not peace, but an onslaught from the Lebanese Right and the Israelis, is the prospect. Harry Sloan reports.

would therefore need to be certain that he had sufficient political and material forces at his disposal before embarking upon such an enterprise; and it is by no means certain that he could do so.

Crush.

On the other hand Gemayel's ambitions to crush the strength of the Lebanese Left have already been partly realised by the Zionist invaders. The withdrawal of the Palestinian forces has left the Lebanese Left militias isolated - and the fact that a large quantity of heavy armaments and equipment has been handed over by the PLO to them and not the Lebanese army will not compensate for the losses suffered and the bitter taste of defeat.

It seems clear from reports that the Zionist use of the "big stick' has indeed cowed a number of prominent leaders of the armed left wing opposition. Behind blustering statements refusDO:

community should seek reconciliation through negotiation - and urged Gemayel to take the initiative for talks.

Meanwhile the Zionists have suggested that they might press for one of the more hard-line groupings, the left-wing Sunni Muslim Murabitoun militia, to be removed from Beirut. civil war, we can expect Gemayel to take advantage of the situation.

But even there remain problems. The departure of the Palestinians from Beirut does not eliminate the PLO strength in Lebanon. PLO forces retain their strong foothold in alliance with Lebanese leftists further north in Tripoli. Will the Israelis seek to eliminate this pocket of resistance? Or will they leave the task to Gemayel, hoping his regime proves strong enough?

Nor is the challenge to central authority confined to the North. Even under Israeli occupation the Druze population of Lebanon has staged a one-day general strike, and guerilla action continues to defy Zionist repression in the shattered cities of Tyre and Sidon.

The south of Lebanon is also the home of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees, who are unlikely to submit without a struggle to Gemayel's threat to expel them from the country.

Additionally there is the question of the Syrian forces inside Lebanon. Around 50% of the Syrian army is still on Lebanese soil, though its initial mission - preserving a balance between the Phalangists and the Lebanese Lett and Palestinians - has now been superseded by events.

A formal withdrawal by Syria would be seen as a further major retreat before the Israeli army, and would open up the possibility of Zionist troops advancing unopposed up to the Syrian border.

A refusal to withdraw, on the other hand, could still produce a renewed military confrontation, possibly even all-out war between Israel and Syria, which the Syrians would be certain to lose.

It is not clear whether -or how strongly - the USA would regard such action as detrimental to its longer-term hopes that Zionist military terror will - as in the case of Egypt - bludgeon the Arab regimes as a whole into a submissive stance in which the USA in the guise of 'peacemaker' can establish alliances on its own terms.

One thing is certain: with the PLO leaders driven still further into the arms of reactionary Arab regimes, and reconciling themselves to a long-term existence as supplicants of US and European imperialism, and with the Lebanese Left preparing to compromise with their fascopponents, the tuture holds immense danger foi the workers and peasants of the Middle East.