Beirut: the Bloody Reality Wsnoz:0

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¡elf of course children in the notorious zer to cold Deir Yassin massacre of g. It was his 1948. Sharon, too, led a ›rists who similar raid on the village of 143 sleeping Qibya, killing 75 unarmed £6000 fund At last the fund has started to pick up!

THE TGWU Executive has called on fellow to draw lots to see whose body should be TUC unions to join in a boycott of all Israeli ships and aircraft until such time as troops are We've had £5 from a Leeds supporter, £35 from Sheffield SO group, £10 from Leicester and £85.50 from Brent supporters.

This important step should be welcomed This amount from Brent is a healthy boost to London's and taken up in every trade union and Labour target: but London still lags behind, bottom of the league.

Party. But urgency should be added to the call by implementing action at once by We've also had the news that We've also had the news that our gallant 'Merseyside Three TGWU members in docks and airports. have broken all the known rules Boycott the Israeli war machine! endurance, and have all com Merseyside Marathon. So if y your own feat of utmost human THE barefaced lies of Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon, denying their complicity in the hideous Beirut massacre, have been submerged in an avalanche of evidence of their guilt.

With crowds of up to 400,000 on the streets of Tel Aviv demanding his resignation, Begin has been forced to concede an inquiry into the bloody events at the Sabra-Chatila camps.

There is no doubt what an honest inquiry could reveal. We know now for certain from the British press not only that the Israelis armed, equipped and transported the squads of fascist killers to the camps, but that they fired flares throughout the night to provide light for the murderers and gave them food rations to speed their work along.

We know that Israeli soldiers watched the Begin !

slaughter from observation posts through night vision telescopes, and reported back to Israel on the scale of the killings by 11pm on the Thursday night - though nothing was done to stop them until Saturday. We know that the Israeli forces decided not to send a liaison officer with their fascist friends because they were told irregular conduct' would take place inside the camps.

We know that when in came £159.40! cash.

Lane, that was sent in comprised forces from the Phalangist militia run by the murdered President Bashir Gemayel, together with some from the Israeli-financed Southern militia of Major Saad Haddad. We know that the Phalangist leader was Elias 'Eli' Habaika, one of the right hand men of the so-called 'peace-maker" Gemayel.

Small We know that at least one Phalangist officer has admitted going in with orders to shoot every male over the age of 12, and arguing in self-justification that:

"You must kill Palestinians while they're still small."

And we know that even after the full horror of the massacre perpetrated by these fascist 'friends of Israel' was known, the Begin government has lied, stonewalled and tried every possible means to deny responsibility and block an investigation.

our gallant of medical pleted the ›u sponsore endurance, Fund total. £3819.52 *Only £2180.48 to go "You must kill Begin hims no strang blooded killing Irgun terrc slaughtered 2 Palestinian mer 'Merseyside Three' science and human 26 miles of the d them, please do and send them the 63% Rush do nation tocialist O ganise ?8, Middle Lane, LONDON N8 8PL Palestinians while they're still small"

1, women and civilians.

i nece early santer formed the base of terror upon which the Zionist state of Israel has rested since its foundation: they have since been multiplied many times by the institutional terror of the Israeli military machine.

Only through sheer intimidation of the oppressed peoples of the Middle East can the Zionist state, built through the physiral diceneseccion the IvaL LIN Palestinian people from their homeland, maintain its existence as the guardian of imperialist interests in the Middle East.

Israeli Labour leader Shimon Peres may shed crocodile tears for the dead of Sabra and Chatila, but tht same Labour Party also shares a squalid record of intimidation, repression and slaughter of the Palestinian people.

The barbarism of Begin's invasion of Lebanon 17,000 killed, 30,000 maimed, countless people driven from their homes - is no accidental feature of Zionism. And Israel's chief military sponsors, the USA, realise this.

Side

That is why Reagan's government has stood side by side with Begin in the onslaught on Lebanon; and it is why even now, with the massacre having disrupted Reagan's own "peace plan" for the Middle East and • prompted international outrage at Begin and Israel, no steps have been taken to cut the flow of US arms supplies or cash aid.

Perhaps surprisingly Begin's rickety coalition, with its wafer-thin majority in the Knesset, is still standing. Plainly concern for their own prospects in a general election moulds the thinking of government ministers more than any professed concern over the massacre.

But it is far from certain that under the stresses and strains of popular revulsion at the Beirut slaughter Begin and Sharon will successfully resist the demands for their removal.

removed from Lebanon.

Meanwhile in Beirut, the so-called "peace-keeping" force sent in by Italy, France and the USA takes up the positions vacated by the Israeli troops in West Beirut. They are notionally protecting the now disarmed and defenceless Palestinians and Muslim left wingers from the Phalangists, but in fact obstructing any moves by these communities to organise their own armed defence against a ruthless and heavily armed enemy.

Yet significantly, PLO leader Arafat, far from exposing the fraud of this "peace keeping" mission, has blamed neither the Phalangists nor the Zionists but the USA, France and Italy for the massacre. By condemning the 'premature' do withdrawal of the "peacekeeping' forces, he is in effect calling for a longterm imperialist presence in In this, Arafat, like the leaders of the Lebanese left who have sought a peaceful coexistence with Bashir and now Amin Gemayel, is in practice drawing from the defeats and setbacks the conclusion that the struggle against Zionism is hopeless, and that the best that can be hoped for is wheeling and dealing with the imperialists and their right wing proteges.

But for the downtrodden and dispossessed people of Palestine and Lebanon such a policy opens up real dangers of further suffering, further massacres.

The answer lies not in supplicating appeals to the imperialist leaders of Europe or the USA. Nor does it lie in the reactionary Arab rulers - but in the struggle to mobilise the Arab working masses against those rulers and in the struggle, alongside the best elements of the Jewish working class, for the destruction of the oppressive and exclusive Zionist state and the establishment of a Socialist United States of the Middle East.

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by Harry Sloan