[Marxism] Arab quislings to meet

["acpollack2@xxxxxxxx" <acpollack2@xxxxxxxx>]

If the description in the first article below is accurate, heads of various 
Arab regimes and of Iran will meet to help the US continue its domination of 
Iraq -- when they should be meeting to organize support for the resistance. 
That of course won't happen as these are thoroughly neocolonial regimes 
dependent on Washington for protection against their own masses.

Below the NY Times article is an LA Times article quoting refugees praising 
Arafat for never having given up their right to return.

The connection? Arafat, himself a bourgeois politician, nonetheless tried to 
mediate between the masses and the Palestinian ruling class, trying to be both 
Nasser and Sadat. The new PA heads which Washington is so eager to meet with 
want to be plain old quisling Sadats (which is why a struggle over the 
succession by Barghouti et al. can only be welcomed).

The continuing resistance to imperialism and Zionism is likely to pick up in 
coming months, presenting an opportunity to challenge regimes throughout the 
region -- not for power, we're way too far from that, but a challenge in the 
sense of building a regionwide force which can resist a new Camp David as well 
as the kind of plotting coming up in Tehran.

http://nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iran-Iraqs-Neighbors.html?pagewanted=print&position=
 The New York Times
November 13, 2004
Iraq's Neighboring States to Meet in Iran
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 7:55 p.m. ET

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Interior ministers of Iraq's neighboring states plus Egypt 
are to convene for a two-day meeting in Tehran on Nov. 30, Iran's official news 
agency reported Saturday.

Such a meeting was agreed to in July, but no date was set. The ministers are 
expected to be accompanied by senior security officials who can share 
intelligence on militants and other people suspected of being linked to the 
insurgency in Iraq.

Egypt and Syria have said their interior ministers will attend, the Islamic 
Republic News Agency reported.

Analysts say Iran hopes that by hosting the meeting, it will send a signal, 
particularly to the United States, that it recognizes the threat the al-Qaida 
terror group poses both to Iraq and to itself. Al-Qaida, which is led by Osama 
bin Laden, has strong ties to the major Iraqi insurgency group led by Abu Musab 
al-Zarqawi.

``Iran wants to show that it is willing to have a better and more positive 
position on Iraq,'' said Iranian political analyst Saeed Laylaz.

There have been several meetings of Iraq's neighbors, plus regional heavyweight 
Egypt, since the overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in April 2003. Most 
recently, Egypt hosted a meeting of the neighbors' foreign ministers in Cairo 
in July.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press | Home | Privacy Policy | Search |

latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-refugees13nov13,0,2411359.story?coll=la-home-world
THE WORLD
Refugees Say Arafat Did His Best for Them
By Tracy Wilkinson
Times Staff Writer

November 13, 2004

JABALIYA REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip ? For lifelong refugees such as Ahmed 
Abdullah, the death of Yasser Arafat is a bittersweet moment.

No one fought harder for them than Arafat did, the 58-year-old said admiringly 
Friday as he watched the funeral on TV. And yet the refugees are 
flesh-and-blood reminders of one of the late leader's greatest failures.

More than 4 million Palestinians are registered as refugees, nearly a quarter 
of them in the narrow, congested Gaza Strip. They or their parents or 
grandparents fled or were expelled from their homes when Israel became a state 
in 1948.

"Arafat tried, and when others wanted to sacrifice us, he tried more," said 
Abdullah, the principal at a Jabaliya camp school. "True, we are still 
refugees. But because of Arafat, our issue is still alive."

"He was fighting alone, and it was the best he could do," said Abdullah's 
daughter Faten, 30, an English teacher. "I feel very sorry for him."

Arafat always insisted that any resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 
would have to respect Palestinians' "right of return" to ancestral homes. But 
Israel always argued that the influx of refugees and their descendants would 
constitute the end of the Jewish state.

Negotiators at the 2000 Camp David summit worked on compromises for the 
refugees, including a plan in which a set number of refugees would be allowed 
to return to homes in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, but larger numbers would 
receive payment instead.

Arafat balked, saying later he could not tell refugees that they would not be 
going home, and the summit collapsed. Many observers see his refusal as a huge 
mistake, because Israel's offer was its most generous ever and included limited 
Palestinian sovereignty over most of the West Bank and Gaza.

Abdullah said compensation for his land was unthinkable.

"You don't know what being a refugee is like," he said, seated on cushions on 
the floor of his living room, as wild scenes from the West Bank city of 
Ramallah, where Arafat was being buried, flashed on the television screen.

"I have a strong link to the land where my father and grandfather are buried," 
he said, referring to his native village, which has been replaced by a town of 
Israeli Jews, many of them from other parts of the Middle East.

Arafat's critics often accused him of using the refugees as pawns, of keeping 
them in camps to dramatize their plight rather than settling them in more 
suitable housing.

Palestinian refugees have been refugees for so long that even the word "camp" 
is a misnomer now. Most of the refugee camps have become sprawling slums. They 
are also fertile breeding grounds for radicalism that produce many of the 
militants fighting Israel.

Izzidin al-Qassam, an armed wing of the militant Islamic movement Hamas, holds 
sway in much of the Jabaliya camp. Israeli forces launched a massive invasion 
of Jabaliya over the summer after militants fired rockets into Israel. Two of 
Abdullah's teenage pupils were among dozens killed.

The Palestinian leadership never took steps to prepare refugees for the 
possibility that they might never go home. Many refugees say they harbor 
dreams, however unrealistic, that the day of return will come. They live in 
cramped quarters, without parks or playgrounds for their children, longing for 
the large tracts of farmland their families once owned.

Like many refugees, Abdullah keeps a key to the house in his village and the 
British Mandate deeds to the property. His village was about eight miles from 
the ramshackle camp where he has lived since it was built by the United Nations 
in 1953.

He said he fled the village with his mother and seven siblings when Jewish 
troops attacked in 1948. His brothers and sisters were killed in the fighting, 
Abdullah said, and he bears the scars of wounds he received.

"I teach my children that we have land and the Jews took it, and that we should 
fight until the Jews leave," daughter Faten said. "It's still in my head, this 
idea of returning to the village. But I know it's impossible, so I make my life 
here."

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