Palestine onferenc May 19
Socialist Organiser1984 1984-02-02Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 7 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 7
ONE of the factors that allowed Yasser Arafat's recent trip to Cairo and the possibility of the PLO being brought into a pro-imperialist Arab alliance is that the labour movement internationally has failed to act in support of the Palestinian people.
The British Labour Party has long been regarded as one of the strongest bedrocks of pro-Israeli Zionist support outside of the state of Israel itself.
But in 1982 the Labour Party switched virtually overnight from slavish support for Israel to condemnation of it and support for the Palestinians and the idea of a democratic, secular state. This was an important step forward. It showed it is possible to challenge the grip of Zionist or pro-Zionist ideas in the labour movement.
The national conference of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign on Saturday January 28 voted overwhelmingly to follow up this victory by making campaigning in the Labour Party and trade unions a major priority.
The conference also supported a resolution which opposed the settling of political differences within the PLO by military means and criticised Arafat's visit to Cairo.
The motion was passed by a majorÃty of about 2-1, but unfortunately discussion on it was crammed into the last ten minutes of the conference.
In fact the conference was not run as well as it might have been. A lot of time was devoted to the secretary and treasurer reading out reports that had already been circulated and thus unnecessarily cutting down the time available for political discussion. And on a couple of occasions. discussion was already underway on a resolution when the chairperson ruled it out of order.
It is also a pity that some of the political resolutions to the conference were not duplicated for circulation, which led to confusion on several occasions.
But the conference made some important decisions. Part of the concentration on labour movement work will be to build the labour movement conference on May 19 at County Hall. in London. The conference is being sponsored by the PSC, and the Labour Movement Campaign for Palestine and is backed by the PLO. It will focus on the issue of Palestinian workers. generally neglected in solidarity work.
It is important that the PSC and the LMCfP work closely together to make this conference a success.
AFRICAN REPUBLIC Both Goukouni and Habre Facts &e inflation, and earnings are ahead of settlements.
One of the government's objectives in the wages arena -has been partially realised, after