WW News Service Digest #230
1) Coming Next: Battle of Quebec
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
2) Walking Across U.S. for Welfare Moms, Homeless
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
3) Jazz: The Real Roots
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
4) Israeli Election: War Criminal Wins
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
5) Pentagon Arrogance at the Helm
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 22, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
MOVEMENT VS. CAPITALIST GLOBALIZATION: COMING NEXT:
BATTLE OF QUEBEC--
April 20-22 Actions Planned in Canada, Mexico and U.S.
By Sarah Sloan
In April 2001--one year after protests rocked the meetings
of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in
Washington--activists from the anti-globalization movement
will again rise up in protest outside a meeting of
capitalist vultures.
This time it's the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City,
Canada--a meeting of heads of state and trade ministers
representing every country in the Western Hemisphere except
socialist Cuba. There they will discuss the Free Trade Area
of the Americas.
While all of the countries to be represented are capitalist
countries, most are also oppressed nations dominated by the
United States and other imperialist powers.
What is the FTAA?
Like NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the
FTAA is a plan to facilitate the expansion of finance
capital, especially by the United States. The FTAA is meant
to expand the NAFTA model to all 34 countries in Western
Hemisphere except Cuba, opening them to greater degrees of
exploitation by U.S. banks and corporations.
NAFTA has meant more sweatshops and more poverty for the
people of Mexico. Many small farmers have been driven off
their land as a result of U.S. agribusiness flooding the
market with goods there. It has also meant layoffs for
workers in the U.S. and Canada, and more companies have
moved factories to Mexico to exploit cheaper labor.
The April 20-22 Summit of the Americas is the third meeting
to discuss the FTAA, which is scheduled to be finalized in
2005. This program will go beyond NAFTA, expanding on some
of its features, such as the right of corporations to sue
governments over laws that infringe upon their profits and
their ability to increase the privatization of health care,
education and other services.
In response, activists will converge in several locations.
QUEBEC CITY
Major protests are planned in Quebec City April 20-21.
Groups organizing include Summit of the Americas Welcoming
Committee (CASA) in Quebec, and the Montreal-based groups
Anti-Capitalist Convergence (CLAC) and Operation SalAMI.
Workers World spoke to Josina Dunkel, a student at McGill
University in Montreal. She said students there expect the
demonstrations to be massive.
"There is a whole climate around these demonstrations,"
Dunkel said. "The momentum for them is huge."
She reported that the Canadian Federation of Students--the
more leftist of the two student unions there--was organizing
50 buses to Quebec. Students at Concordia University are
allowed to defer their final exams so they can participate
in the protests.
A protest is planned at McGill on March 7 to demand academic
amnesty so that students there can also defer their exams.
"The anti-globalization movement is strong in Canada,"
Dunkel told WW. "It actually predates the events in Seattle.
There was a huge demonstration in Vancouver [against an Asia-
Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in 1998], which is on
the border with Seattle, before the November 1999 World
Trade Organization demonstration. It was attacked by cops
and followed up with nationwide student organizing.
"Campus groups started forming at the beginning of the year
to work on the anti-FTAA protests," she added.
Activists from Canada will protest as close to the meetings
as possible. Many from the U.S. will also head for Quebec,
though some are making the decision to concentrate their
efforts at the U.S.-Canada border.
FROM BUFFALO, N.Y., TO TIJUANA, MEXICO
Since a group of Buffalo college students flew to Seattle to
attend the anti-WTO protests, various progressive groups in
the area have formed the Buffalo Activist Network. Their
next focus is organizing regionally for a series of actions
beginning April 19 and culminating in a major action on
April 22 at the Peace Bridge on the U.S.-Canada border.
Groups from New York, Cleveland and many other cities plan
to participate. Organizers expect thousands to join in
various actions.
Activists from New England, meanwhile, will head towards
Vermont. There protesters will try to go to Quebec City as
well as have actions at the border.
Border actions are also planned for the U.S.-Mexico border.
A major demonstration is planned for the Tijuana, Mexico,
and San Diego border area. A legal demonstration is planned
to facilitate participation by immigrants and undocumented
workers.
Organizers are hoping for major mobilizations from the U.S.
West Coast and Mexico.
LABOR ON BOARD
Many Canadian labor unions are gearing up for the protests.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees--a huge, militant
union of public-sector workers--is mobilizing.
>From the U.S., AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, Teamsters
President James P. Hoffa, and Steel Workers President George
Becker have all issued statements opposing the FTAA.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union passed a
resolution in December that "supports the efforts to
organize protests against the FTAA in Quebec next April and
encourages its members who can attend to do so."
The ILWU resolution states in part: "The globalizing
policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank have already extended the harm of the free market to
some of the farthest corners of the world. But instead of
satisfying international capital's greed, it has only
whetted its appetite for more."
NAFTA's result, the ILWU said, was the loss of 400,000 jobs
from the U.S. and a decline in living standards for Mexican
workers.
The United Electrical Workers passed a resolution supporting
anti-FTAA protests. "Their plan promises to benefit
multinational corporations, while destroying good jobs,
weakening unions, devastating national economies, sending
people into deeper poverty and destroying the environment,"
said the resolution.
It continued: "The trade ministers of the FTAA fear an
interruption in the negotiations could halt the entire
process.
"Tens of thousands of working people and their allies in the
student, farm, environmental and human-rights movements
succeeded [in disrupting the WTO in Seattle]. We do have the
power to stop the FTAA."
POST-SEATTLE REPRESSION
For U.S. activists, the Quebec City demonstration presents a
logistical challenge. Border police have wide discretion to
stop entry into Canada.
For example, a van carrying New York activists to an
organizing meeting in Quebec City was recently stopped at
the border. The van was searched and political materials
were seized and copied. No one made it to the meeting.
This is consistent with the post-Seattle policing strategy
that involves not only repression at demonstrations, but
attempts to stop them from happening.
Organizers for the Jan. 20 protests at George W. Bush's
inauguration in Washington and the August 2000
demonstrations at the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles
fought and won battles against local police, who attempted
to keep demonstrators miles from their targets.
In late January, protesters in Davos, Switzerland, prevailed
against incredible hurdles set up by authorities, including
turning away hundreds at the border, suspension of train
service, and liquid cow manure mixed with freezing water
shot at them through fire hoses.
Police preparations for Quebec City are no less rigorous,
according to reports. Plans call for an approximately four-
kilometer-long wall to be erected around downtown, in what
is already a walled city.
SUBVERSIVE MOVEMENT
An Associated Press article by Tom Cohen, entitled "Quebec
Fortress Prepares for Summit," reads:
"The towers and walls built to repel invaders of centuries
past no longer suffice for protecting 34 heads of state
coming for the Summit of the Americas in April.
"So another wall will be built, this one of metal fencing
around several square miles of old Quebec City, says
[Normand] Houle of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
"Riot police will stand guard along the fence in an old-
fashioned show of force intended to prevent a burgeoning
protest movement from disrupting the three-day summit ... It
will be one of the largest security operations in Canadian
history...
"Houle insists security forces will be ready for anything,
even protesters trying to repeat the British tactic from
1759 of climbing the cliffs along the St. Lawrence to attack
the bastion of what was then called New France. 'If 2,000
people try to scale the cliff, we'll be there,' he says."
Media reports like that are part of a conscious scare
campaign to keep activists and other concerned people away
from the protests.
It also shows that the capitalist state sees this not just
as a "burgeoning protest movement" but as a subversive
movement.
These demonstrations are not simply protests about one issue
or another. They are manifestations of a movement that is
against the system itself--one that identifies capitalism as
the root cause of society's ills and as the enemy.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 22, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
KIM DENMARK & ROSE PATTON: WALKING ACROSS U.S.
FOR WELFARE MOTHERS AND HOMELESS
By Elijah Crane
New York
Kim Denmark is walking across the U.S. for welfare rights
with Rose Patton at her side. This dynamic duo from Dayton,
Ohio, set out on the road in 1998 and has walked all over
the eastern U.S. and part of the Midwest.
On Feb. 24, they will begin a 41-state trek by marching with
supporters across New York's George Washington Bridge. This
pedestrian journey is a dramatic call for the rights of
children, welfare mothers and the homeless.
Denmark told Workers World that as she moves through cities
and towns, she seeks out welfare mothers and homeless people
to talk with in order to gain a better understanding of
their needs and demands. Armed with that information, she is
better able to lend her voice to the struggle against the
hostile attack on welfare rights.
She also speaks at community meetings along her route,
encouraging the movement to fight for the rights of women,
children and families that are on welfare or homeless.
Denmark said, "In Ohio, I owned a business for seven years--
a temporary staffing service--and I was very successful. My
office was right across from the projects."
Like too many others in the U.S., Kim says, she did not have
a clear understanding of why people are on welfare, where
the problem comes from and what the best solution might be.
She was always told that welfare recipients themselves were
the problem when really they are the victims of the ravages
of capitalism like joblessness, homelessness and poverty.
Everything changed for Denmark one day after a young mother
from the housing project came into her staffing agency
seeking employment. The woman had brought her three young
children with her. Denmark described the situation to WW:
"She came over in desperation for a few hours work. At first
I thought 'how do you expect to get a job going on an
interview with kids?' But then the wall came down and the
façade dropped. Reality was that she didn't have a
babysitter. She was on welfare and she wanted off. She
wanted a few hours work, she could type. She said, 'I'm
tired. The welfare check is not enough.' It was draining her
self-esteem.
"She explained all the hoops she had to jump through when
she was in the welfare office; the problems if you miss an
appointment, having her case closed three times. This woman
became an educational tool for me. She was real life."
Denmark hired the woman immediately. She quickly gained a
reputation for running an agency friendly to people on
welfare among housing project residents. Hundreds of workers
were placed in jobs at a decent wage--without being
subjected to racist, discriminatory hiring practices that
are the norm for most employers.
In partnership with Patton, the two would guide the workers
through the employment process--preparing them for an office
environment, providing assistance with wardrobes, offering
transportation to and from work and more.
Denmark and Patton continued this service until it grew
beyond what they could manage without a line of credit. And
when they sought credit from banks in their area, despite
perfect records and a clean credit history, they were turned
away every time.
She experienced firsthand what she refers to as "red
lining," a practice whereby people of color and women are
denied credit and loans regardless of their credit history.
Drawing attention to this type of institutional racism is
also a component of Denmark's walk.
Without the credit or loans to support her growing business,
they were forced to shut their doors. Denmark fell ill and
was bedridden. After struggling through weeks of sickness,
Denmark felt motivated to begin her walk.
'IT'S TIME TO UNITE AND ORGANIZE!'
One of the primary goals for Denmark's walk is to encourage
mass opposition to the Welfare Reform Act signed by Clinton
in 1996. Further, Denmark and Patton hope to bring thousands
to Washington around August in a mass demonstration for
welfare rights when this vicious legislation is up for
renewal.
"My goal is to take all the welfare people and homeless, low
paid and poverty stricken communities on the road with me,
on my shoulders, to bring these issues to the front burner,
not on the back where it's been forever," said Denmark. "I'm
talking about Bush's front yard."
In fact, these activists have a concrete proposal for how to
deal with the crisis of welfare sanctions, forced labor of
welfare recipients and the health-care crisis. They say the
answer lies in providing two full years of meaningful job
training with compensation including full health-care
coverage for families.
"This journey has become very dangerous for us now that Bush
has been selected, appointed, because Kim is walking to
revise the welfare program and Bush feels he has a plan with
the 'faith-based initiative,'" Patton told WW.
"The pastors that are accepting this faith-based initiative
need to look beyond and see that there's a plan against
them. A plan to turn the pastors against each other," she
continued. "He's trying to take the blame for social
injustice off the government and put it on the churches."
Denmark refers to the faith-based initiative as the 'fake'
based initiative for the reasons explained by Patton. She
said, "It's rich against poor."
In addition to urging a legislative overhaul of welfare,
Denmark and Patton are encouraging many varied means to
achieve their goals.
"If we have a strike in all the states of workfare workers,
withhold our labor, they would have to listen," Patton
asserts. "Most workfare workers don't know the law; that
they can take a day. We need to have a day of a national
strike for workfare workers."
"We have talked to poor people who have said 'we are dead
and we just need to lay down,'" Patton recollects. "I
disagree. It's time for us to unite and organize. We need a
voice."
Denmark told WW that Monica Moorehead, Workers World Party's
2000 presidential candidate, is the best leader and voice
for the people that she has found. "She is my hero."
The courageous pair have been on their journey for more than
two years, and still they have so far to go. They are keenly
aware that their plight involves a tremendous amount of
work, persistence and dedication. And they cannot do it
alone. It will take a united mass movement to defeat the
racist, capitalist attacks on the poor and working class.
These fighters for justice say they will keep on for as long
as it takes.
"We want change. We want social change." These words from
Denmark and Patton sum up the sentiment of all those who
joined in the streets of Washington, Tallahassee and
elsewhere on Jan. 20 to protest the inauguration of George
W. Bush.
The right-wing attacks from Bush and his racist, anti-woman,
anti-worker, anti-lesbian, gay, bi and trans administration
have only just begun. The movement must take a stand and
hold strong against attacks on poor and working people.
Supporting Kim Denmark as she walks for welfare rights, and
joining her in Washington in August, is one good way to do
it.
Kim Denmark and Rose Patton will set out on their 41-state
walk on Feb. 24. They invite supporters to attend the send-
off rally at Holyrood Church at 1 pm and walk with them
across the George Washington Bridge. For more info, call the
International Action Center at (212) 633-6646.
The IAC and WW will follow Kim and Rose on their journey.
For updates and to find out when they will be in your area,
check out www.kimwalks.org, or follow the link from
www.iacenter.org.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 22, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
JAZZ: THE REAL ROOTS
[Consuela Lee is a concert jazz pianist, composer and
teacher. Her parents, Arnold and Alberta Lee, passed the
gift of music to her. Her father brought a Louis Armstrong
recording into the house when she was eight years old. It
was at that time that her interest in playing jazz began.
She has revitalized a school in Snow Hill, Ala.--Snow Hill
Institute--that her grandfather, William J. Edwards, founded
in 1893. Ms. Lee is now artistic director of Snow Hill
Institute of Cultural Arts and Heritage. She is the mother
of two children, Monica and Cameron Moorehead.]
Ken Burns' Public Broadcasting System documentary "Jazz"
fails, in my view, to give the true origins of jazz. Jazz is
Black music--more specifically African American music. This
fact is played down considerably in Mr. Burns' work. Instead
it should be emphasized, especially in a presentation this
large in scope, reaching millions of people. The truth is
essential.
Jazz was born of Africans brought to this country as slaves
who endured the most brutal system of bondage known
throughout the history of humankind.
Not only was there physical torture and mass murder. There
was a mission to destroy the psyche, to degrade and
dehumanize Blacks by, for instance, the animalistic labels
given to Africans. The overall intent was to render the
Black man--and woman--to less-than-human status so that the
holocaust could continue with lunatic abandon. And so it
did.
BEDROCK OF AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE
Through all of this, the African spirit, resistance and
culture remained strong. Stripped of their traditional
religious beliefs, beaten to a pulp if caught trying to read
English, slaves were introduced to the "master's" religion--
Christianity.
"Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" asks one of
the most beautiful and moving spirituals created by slaves.
"Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?"
It must be noted that the word "cross" was not chosen. The
word used is "tree." Jesus of Nazareth was lynched. The
slaves knew what that was. They related to this man, this
prophet.
Consequently, one of the greatest body of songs-of-faith,
the spiritual, was originated by slaves. They described many
of the events related in the Bible in highly colorful
language and in brilliant rhythmic and melodic phrases.
An African musical practice--call-and-response--is very
prevalent in the African American spiritual. These songs are
the bedrock of African American culture in general and jazz
in particular.
Out of the holocaust of slavery, sharecropping and
government-sanctioned segregation came a body of folk music--
field hollers, work songs, blues, spirituals and spirited
fun-songs like the Hambone.
At first the music was vocal and percussive--using the body
and any other object that made a drum-like sound (high and
low). When the Black men got their hands on instruments--
some they made, others left behind by army regiments after
the Civil War--they played what they had been singing,
hollering and moaning. Jazz was born!
SPIRIT OF RESISTANCE IN SONG
In the mid-1920s and early 1930s, Alan Lomax and others
recorded Black people singing their folk songs in the Deep
South. The tragic experiences of Africans in America
produced the pathos in the music.
Some of the most striking of these recordings were made in a
Mississippi prison camp by chained Black men singing work
songs, blues and spirituals. All of the brutality endured by
a race of people brought to this country against their will
is evident in the voices of these men.
Despite all of the suffering and indignities, there was the
African spirit that encouraged hope and sometimes joy. In
this rural area where I was raised and presently live, the
people sing the old spirituals during the Prayer Service
prior to the Church Service. "Glory, glory! Hallelujah! When
I lay my burden down!"
That music swings! There are only the voices, feet and hand
claps! Makes you want to dance! Especially when the song
leader starts to improvise and add other verses: "You don't
treat me like you used to, since I lay my burden down!"
I taught a jazz course called "Melody and Improvisation" at
Norfolk State, a predominantly Black university in Virginia.
The first sound chosen for the students to hear on the first
day of the semester was the voice of an elderly man singing
a spiritual--a cappella--titled "I'm Tramping."
There were 33 students in the class, all but two of them
Black. After class, the two white students remained and
asked me what was the purpose of playing that particular
selection in a class offering jazz.
My answer was: Jazz is a music of the spirit. The man's
singing exemplified an undaunted spirit, impeccable
intonation and rhythmic perception, as well as
improvisational gifts--all essential ingredients for
aspiring jazz players to possess.
Both young men gave me expressions of disbelief, so I
recommended that they attend a Prayer Service at a
Black church--not for the message but
for the music.
WHERE JAZZ WAS BORN
In my opinion, jazz is the highest form of musical art
conceived by human beings. It allows freedom of artistic
expression. It encourages and demands--in many ways--that
the person be as creative as she or he can be each time the
music is performed.
It challenges and strengthens a person's self-confidence. It
is most of all a spiritual music originated by slaves on the
backside of the plantations of the Deep South--not in New
Orleans. Jazz grew in New Orleans as it did in other cities
throughout the South, East and Midwest--read "Nothing But
the Blues," Count Basie's autobiography.
The origin of this music is a problem with many white jazz
historians, managers and musicians. Jazz is Black music,
played and sung best by Black musicians. The real history of
the music has proven this without a doubt. Yet white jazz
musicians continue to be placed in the same category as the
great jazz innovators--all of whom are Black.
Benny Goodman hired Fletcher Henderson to put some "color"
in the sound of his band. Thanks, Ken Burns, for including
that fact in your project. Thanks too for the great film
footage and photographs.
At a jazz workshop at Hampton University, McCoy Tyner--a
jazz pianist who performed with the legendary saxophonist
John Coltrane--talked about the global popularity of jazz
and the desire of musicians worldwide to become adept at
playing the music. He stressed, "They want to play the music-
-we have to play the music."
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 22, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
RACIST MASS MURDERER ELECTED AS ISRAELI PRIME
MINISTER
By Richard Becker
Ariel Sharon, leader of the Likud party, was elected on Feb.
6 as Israel's new prime minister. He won more than 60
percent of the vote against incumbent Ehud Barak of the
Labor/One Israel bloc.
The Western corporate media have treated Sharon in a most
kindly fashion, cleaning up his image with descriptions like
"a portly old warrior," or a "tough veteran of Israel's many
wars." But there are many who are not deceived by this
whitewash.
Sharon, an extreme racist right-winger, has a long and
bloody history of murder and repression against the
Palestinian people. In the early 1950s, he commanded Unit
101, a special forces battalion that carried out massacres
against Palestinian exiles in Gaza and Jordan. Following the
1967 war of conquest, he was the military governor of Gaza,
and renowned for a policy of systematic assassination and
extreme brutality.
But Sharon is best known--and universally hated in the Arab
world--for the 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the massacres of
Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in
Beirut. As Israel's defense minister, Sharon organized and
led, with full U.S. backing, the massive assault on Lebanon.
For three months in the summer of 1982, Israeli bombers,
supplied by the U.S., relentlessly pounded Beirut and other
cities and towns, killing more than 20,000 Lebanese and
Palestinian civilians. Lebanon had no air defense system.
The stated objective of the invasion was to drive the
Palestine Liberation Organization out of Lebanon. There are
400,000 Palestinian refugees--those driven from their
homeland to make way for the state of Israel in 1948 and
their descendants--living in Lebanon. Altogether, more than
4.5 million Palestinians today live in exile.
In early September 1982, the PLO fighters were forced to
evacuate Beirut. As part of the cease-fire agreement
requiring them to leave, the remaining Palestinian civilian
population was to be placed under international protection.
Sharon, however, publicly stated that 2,000 "terrorists"
remained in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps
in west Beirut. In reality, those remaining in the camps
were almost all children, women and elderly men. Virtually
all of the young men had been evacuated.
Israeli tanks surrounded the camps in violation of the cease-
fire agreement. Then, on Sept. 16, 1982, with the full
knowledge and consent of Sharon and the Israeli occupiers
then in control of the area, Lebanese Phalangist militias
were allowed to enter Sabra and Shatila in west Beirut.
The fascist Phalange--open admirers of Adolph Hitler who
took their name from Franco's party in Spain--were Israel's
closest allies in Lebanon. The Phalangists wore Israeli-
supplied uniforms and carried Israeli-supplied weapons.
For three days, they rampaged through the Palestinian camps,
torturing, raping and murdering. Many of the victims were
disemboweled or decapitated. No one was spared-- neither the
very old nor the very young. By the end, more than 1,900
Palestinian children, women and men lay dead.
There were many witnesses, including some Israeli military
officers who testified before an Israeli official commission
of inquiry in February 1983. Throughout the three-day
slaughter, the Israeli high command was repeatedly informed
in detail of the bloodbath taking place under their
supervision. (See Robert Fisk's account in the Feb. 6 London
Independent. Fisk was one of the first Western
correspondents in Sabra and Shatila on Sept. 18, 1982.)
Using the most diplomatic and mildest language possible, the
commission led by Yitzhak Kahan, head of Israel's High
Court, stated: "It is our view that responsibility is to be
imputed to the Minister of Defense [Ariel Sharon] for danger
of acts of vengeance and bloodshed by the Phalangists
against the population of the refugee camps, and having
failed to take this into account when he decided to have the
Phalangists enter the camps.
"In addition, responsibility is to be imputed to the
Minister of Defense for not ordering appropriate measures
for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre as a
condition for the Phalangists' entry into the camps. These
blunders constitute the non-fulfillment of a duty with which
the Defense Minister was charged."
Of course "these blunders" were not "blunders" at all, but
rather intentional acts. Sharon was as guilty of murder and
all the other crimes committed in Sabra and Shatila as any
knife-wielding Phalangist. In fact, he was far guiltier,
because it was Sharon's orders that opened the way for the
bloodbath.
But despite being found "responsible" for the Sabra and
Shatila massacres, and forced to resign as defense minister,
Sharon was never charged with any crime.
Even more remarkably, it did not end his political career.
Sharon served in several cabinet positions in the 1980s and
1990s in both Labor and Likud governments, and in 1999 he
became the head of the Likud party.
Now he is prime minister. Only in a racist settler society
could a practitioner of racist mass murder be elected as the
top leader. Not only elected, but with a sweeping majority.
WHAT SHARON STANDS FOR
Sharon stands for Israeli domination of all of historic
Palestine. His positions were made clear in a July 21, 2000
interview in the Jerusalem Post newspaper in which he called
for Israel to retain "greater Jerusalem, united and
undivided . . . under full Israeli sovereignty." This refers
to the Palestinian Old City and all of the surrounding areas
that Israel illegally annexed after the 1967 war.
"Israel will retain, under its full control sufficiently
wide security zones--in both the East and West. The Jordan
Valley, in its broadest sense, as defined by the Allon Plan,
will be the eastern security zone of Israel." Here, Sharon
calls for large areas of the illegally occupied West Bank to
be annexed.
"Jewish towns, villages and communities in Judea, Samaria
and Gaza, as well as access roads leading to them . . . will
remain under full Israeli control." "Judea and Samaria" is
the Israeli settler name for the West Bank.
"Israel does not accept under any circumstances the
Palestinian demand for the right to return. Israel bears no
moral responsibility for the refugees' predicament."
Sharon continued with colonialist arrogance: "As a vital
existential need, Israel must continue to control the
underground fresh water aquifers in western Samaria . . .
The Palestinians are obligated to prevent contamination of
Israel's water resources."
Under Sharon's plan, the broken-up and scattered pieces of
Palestinian territory would bear little resemblance to a
real state: "All the territories under control of the
Palestinian Authority will be demilitarized. The
Palestinians will not have an army, only a police force.
Israel will maintain complete control of the whole air space
over Judea, Samaria and Gaza."
Israel, meanwhile, will continue to have what is considered
the world's fourth most powerful military.
Sharon's plan blatantly denies the Palestinian right to self-
determination. But it is does not diverge much, in reality,
from the Oslo "peace process" as a whole. This is
illustrated by the fact that negotiations between Sharon and
the victorious Likud party and his defeated Labor party
opponents are close to forming a "national unity"
government.
It has recently come to light that out-going Prime Minister
Barak--a supposed liberal advocate of peace--gave more
funding to the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza than
did his Likud predecessor Netanyahu. At the top, both Labor
and Likud--with full backing from the U.S., which heavily
funds Israel--are united in seeking to deny the Palestinians
true statehood and independence.
But the Palestinians are continuing the struggle. Since
Sharon's victory, Palestinian street demonstrations and
resistance have intensified. All over the Arab world and the
Middle East as a whole Sharon's ascendancy has evoked anger
and revulsion. And it is not just in the Middle East.
Radio Havana Cuba, in a viewpoint commentary entitled "War
Criminal Ariel Sharon is New Prime Minister of Israel,"
stated, "Sharon has a huge criminal record against the
Palestinian people."
The Radio Havana editorial reiterated that "Cuba has always
been in solidarity with the Palestinian people and other
Arab nations, who hold the oil needed for capitalist
industry to function . . . The new Israeli rulers will not
be able to wreck the future of those who are determined to
struggle until their last breath."
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 22, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: PENTAGON ARROGANCE AT THE HELM
Washington's latest arrogant act struck a blow at Japan, the
most powerful single economic rival to U.S. imperialism, and
its most important military ally in Asia. Without apparent
reason--aside from the recklessness of the U.S. Navy in
general and the USS Greeneville submarine commander in
particular--the U.S. sank a Japanese fishing boat off
Hawaii.
Nine Japanese civilians are missing and presumed down with
the ship 1,800 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
Four of the deceased are teenage students.
The events recalled the incident three years ago when a
reckless U.S. Marine pilot sliced a cable and sent 20
Europeans to death in the Italian Alps. Then the Pentagon
couldn't resist adding insult to injury by trying the crew a
year later in a U.S. military court--and handing out slaps
on the wrist.
Off Hawaii, according to the Japanese captain, the submarine
crew stood by and watched for more than 45 minutes while the
fishing boat sank and crew and passengers struggled for
their lives in the water.
According to military experts--and that's U.S. experts--if
the equipment functioned, there's no way the sub commander
could have been obeying the safety rules and failed to
notice the Japanese ship.
Then U.S. sources admitted two days later that there were 16
civilians aboard the submarine--supposedly local business
people whose names are being withheld--and that several were
at the controls.
Some sources note the new role for U.S. submarines in
landing troops on shore for invasions--and bringing the
submarines for dangerous test runs into crowded, off-shore
waters.
How much impact this single incident will have on Japanese-
U.S. relations is still to be seen. But it highlighted
tensions that exist regarding the continued U.S. military
occupation of Japan 56 years after the Pentagon dropped
atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
On one level this involves the conflict between the U.S. and
Japanese ruling classes that exists despite their alliance
against China, north Korea and the oppressed workers and
peasants of Asia. There are elements among the Japanese
rulers who would like to shake free of U.S. tutelage and
build their own powerful military to rival U.S. hegemony in
the Pacific.
The working class--whether in the United States or in Japan--
has no interest in backing either side in this conflict.
On another level there is the strong desire of the Japanese
population and especially of the people of Okinawa to rid
their country of the U.S. military. The increased dangers
and harassment of the local population are all burdens no
people should have to put up with. This anti-Pentagon
struggle deserves the full support of all working-class,
progressive and anti-war activists in the United States.
