In Lebanon a battle within the Middle East great war

The "Italian" Communist Left defined as "revolution to the bottom" the constitution of the Jewish nation, because it happened in a "social tabula rasa" context, made by setting up pure capitalism in a geographic area where neither the feudalism arrived, and then there was no need to fight against its residues. In 1948, when its State was founded, the Jewish bourgeoisie conquered, by terror (and support of the USA), a large part of the region. Six Arabian countries counterattacked with their regular armies, recognizing actually by a war’s act the existence of an enemy State. Moreover the USSR had already recognized Israel and only at the beginning of the 50s it broke up the diplomatic relations with the Jewish state; while UNO already in 1947 recommended the "building" of two separate nations by sharing the region. But just one nation was there, the other didn’t exist yet and it was impossible to "create" it; actually, if the unity of the Jewish bourgeois community had millenary reasons, the tribal Arabian separatism had reasons as ancient as the first. The Washington’s imperialists were able to prize the Jewish unity; the Moscow’s imperialists didn’t avoid the Arabian separatism. The first one are still operative, more than ever murderous, while until now the second one have no influence upon the region (moreover some of their ex-allies moved to the enemy side). In the meantime, the war provoked the expulsion of 900,000 Palestinians and the annexation of the 80% of the region designated as Palestinian territory (under the British Mandate) by Jordan. This is the premise to analyze any other subsequent event in that area, but unfortunately the general habit is to adopt the point of view of either of the two imperialist countries, which, half century ago, confronted their strength in Middle East.

The less or more official thesis of the country involved (Israel, US, Palestinian Authority, Arabian countries) to explain the present war in Lebanon and Gaza mirror the attempt to hide an impotence, which nobody has the will to admit in front of a situation looking as a dangerous cul de sac. The automatic mechanism of the perpetual war seems to have the upper hand of any foolish ambition to reach a negotiated or military solution. If, as we saw, the heart of the matter is not to be found in the immediate interests of the nations which at present are involved in the war, but in the anomalous creation of the Jewish nation within the context of imperialistic clashes, it would be absurd to take up the old reasons of the cold war to explain the day’s events, when the USSR doesn’t exist anymore and USA are engaged, according to the neocons, even to redraw the world. In the outlined context a "Palestinian problem" born, then; it was already untied from the real interests of both the Arabians and the Jewish; today is even worse. Shaped for fifty years on the wild foreign politics of USA and USSR, the day’s situation is consequence of it: it won’t be possible to solve two "national problems" in the same claimed region if it won’t question the premises. Even from the point of view of the local bourgeoisies it doesn’t make sense the survival of a politics promoted half a century ago to by the imperialistic countries and remained unaltered as if an entire era hasn’t passed away. In theory, Israel, the Palestinians and some Islamic forces evoked by the conflict could find an exit from the cul de sac in which they are, just if they stop being partisans of any global or local power; but for sure, imperialism is not the kingdom of free choice in foreign politics, and, today more than ever, "neutrality" is an empty word.

There are only two possible solutions for the "Palestinian problem", classic solutions, historically already defined by the communist movement: or the proletarian revolution (in that particular area the bourgeois revolution is done, as we said above, and it had the mark of Israel) that allows the unification of the nationalities in a transition phase (obviously to eliminate the national problem to the root); or a total war that redraws the whole map of the Middle East and reaches the same aim by a top-imposition. The dying Sharon, when he was general of the Jewish army, seemed to cherish a similar idea, with the support of French and British secret services (the project was unofficial, but it was known wherever like "Jordan is Palestine", with reference to the annexation of the Trans-Jordan in 1948). We have no fear to assert that to give Jordan to Palestinians could be a more revolutionary solution, in place of the bloody marsh of today. The trouble is that also the self-styled revolutionary milieu simply inherited and made use of the secondary political products of the soviet line-up, according to the best tradition of the partisanism: opting for the national clash, it proves its partisanism, without any regard of the suffering of populations fated, in this way, to a perpetual butchery.

The situation is getting very complicated for the people who are become just pawns in someone else’s game, without no strength to be protagonist; this because, since the beginning of the post war period, the United States were able to use Israel to undermine the position of France and UK in the area and the USSR tried to find his own partisans in the Arabian field, taking advantage of the Nasserian nationalism. Since then, Jews and Arabs were involved in a chronic war, which unrolls not so much between the direct antagonists as on the plan of the international interests of various countries that are fighting each other in proxy wars. War has always a complex preparation and it’s fool to dissert, in an "x moment", who is the attacker and who is the attacked; this is just useful as a justification for taking sides with one of the two rivals. In the proxy wars this is even more stupid, because the compellence game - that is to provoke an aggression just like the wolf did with the lamb in the Aesop’s fable - is more complicated. It doesn’t matter if the first to shoot was the Zionist terror groups or the Arabian pseudo-nations drawn by the imperialism with its English tool. The situation having become embittered, they are absolutely real both the need of "safety" displayed by the Zionists and the need of a land where a Palestinian nation could shape. But these are antithetical and incompatible needs, if they are displayed on the same territory.

If, from a communist and revolutionary point of view, any solution lies outside national aims, for the majority who lives in that area is not like this, and the right to a country is felt like primary need, which sparks hate and violence to be satisfied. But, as in any case in which a right clashes with another right, the strength decides. Clearly who has more power wins, in this case the Israeli-American block against the Arabian people, scattered around many states that don’t match with the nations inside and which are, most of them, nowadays allied with USA. Obviously, in a permanent war situation, the life of a nation which succeeds in its shaping and wins is hung by a thread. And it becomes, like Israel, a fictitious country, without a real economy, sustained by dollars, a kind of permanent mercenary in the pay of the imperialist country that pulls the strings, with a half of its population in the army and the other half ready to be recalled in every moment.

The theory of a permanent safety space in south Lebanon was taken by the American neocons of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. During the 80s, at the time of the Israeli military occupation of that area, lasted 22 years, they elaborated a document, proposed to the prime minister of that time Netanyahu, in which they clearly explain how Israel had extreme necessity "to secure its northern border" and this could succeed not only with the military occupation of an interdiction area, but by eliminating the Syrian infrastructures in Lebanon and declaring the Damask’s territory as not inviolable. As well they were not inviolable the Syrian Golan rises, today occupied and practically annexed by Israel. The document also contained the project of a strategic "natural axis" among Turkey, Israel, Jordan and Iraq (neocons had for years planned the invasion of Iraq, later achieved), which would redraw the Middle East map to the detriment of Syria (and today of Iran too). For sure that scrape wasn’t up to the limited but realistic plan of the general Sharon; so the prime minister Sharon turned into another road, withdrawing one sidely from the South Lebanon that was occupied for years, evacuating the Hebrew colonies in Gaza, pushing for the creation of a new party for national unity against the inconclusiveness of the Labour Party and the fundamentalist fanaticism.

It’s in such a situation that the usual spark bursts, bringing it all up for discussion again. Moreover it bursts while Hamas and Fatah, the main Palestinian political forces, opponents each other, reach an agreement in which they show the will to implicitly recognize Israel. Actually Rabin and Sharon, certainly not pacifists, laid the basis for a transversal Jewish party to use the war like an instrument to resolve any problems and to smooth the future, while now the anonymous war-for-itself party seems to win. In fact, now when that party is born with the name of Kadima (Forward), here forces are rising to shelve the old, strong puppets in favour of war-continuators both stutterer and helpful. As a result, the Hebraic State has now three front lines (Lebanon, Gaza and Cis-Jordan); and a war like this - soldiers know it – can’t be won, on the contrary it chafes more who sets it off and attacks than who undergoes it and defends. If Syria and Iran decided to increase their support to the Hezbollah and Palestinians, an escalation should be unavoidable. But Israel can just engage in blitzkrieg and police operations, not in enduring campaigns for military control of a region with many front lines (the 22 years of occupation of the south Lebanon was just relative to a narrow stripe along the border). The preventive attack for the danger of an extension of the war becomes a unavoidable choice, a military copybook move, but the same attack can recoil on the one who set it off, like a trap, if it was intentionally provoked.

We can make different hypothesis about the "disproportionate" Israeli military action. The present war could be a plan of destabilisation made by the United States and the Jewish fundamentalists linked to the 240 billions of dollars (evaluated in 2001) received by Israel in the last 30 years, but could be also a campaign began in the Arabian world (and Islamic in general) to engage on many front lines both the Americans and the Israelis (in this way they would be short of troops for more extensive operations than now). It’s not for accident that, with USA permission, a party to send interdiction troops (neither American nor Israeli) is coagulating in the UNO. Anyway, more and more openly, also the "allies" show intolerance for the American friend, not skimping stabs in the back. Thus the sequence of troops’ withdrawing from Iraq could be the preparation of their resettlement in the Lebanese-Palestinian area and, eventually, not always passively into service of Washington.

The Hezbollah’s missiles don’t scare really the strong Israeli military machinery. But they are falling in thousands on the cities and villages on the border, destroying not as much the urban structures as the normal life’s course. They are made in Russia, China and Iran, and this is enough to permit to track them on the weapons’ market, together with the necessary capitals to buy them. Above all, the question is no more about the old Katiuscia and the home-made Kassam, but about stronger and less primitive weapons. For now, they don’t talk about it but, also if it’s improbable to find the real or presumed "rogue" State which provides the artillery, it’s sure that many States begin to have enough of the grim but ineffectual American unilateralism. This is a classical context: at present everyone swears allegiance to United States and bows in front of their residual power; but underneath, from Afghanistan to South America passing through Middle East, the first shots of another artillery, less noisy but maybe more efficient, are firing. At least because the proxy war is evolving toward a more direct war, between real enemies: USA, Europe, Russia, China…

July 28^th 2006