Rally for Palestinian right to return

by MC12

Thousands of people marched for the right of Palestinians to 
return to Palestine on September 16 in Washington, D.C. The march 
was sponsored by the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, known by 
the Arabic name Al-Awda, which included the support of many 
groups, including the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, 
Muslim organizations, Amnesty International, student 
organizations, peace organizations and the revisionist Workers 
World Party front group known as the International Action Center.

As the organizers said, "Some 800,000 Palestinians were forced 
from their homes in 1948, and many more forcibly displaced by 
Israel since that time. Today there are about 5 million 
dispossessed Palestinians." Although the number of refugees and 
their descendants is in dispute, United Nations resolutions and 
international law clearly require that the refugees be allowed to 
return to their original lands. The massive program of "ethnic 
cleansing" carried out at the formation of the Israeli state has 
been ratified over and over by Israel's imperialist backers, who 
used Israel as a foothold for their interests in the Middle East. 
MIM supports the right of return for Palestinians as part of the 
national self-determination of the Palestinian nation.

The march featured a diverse group of "Palestinians, Arabs, North 
Americans, Jews, Christians, Muslims," who also heard testimonies 
from the massacres of Sabra and Shatila, which were 18 years ago 
last month.(1) A partner march was also held in London, and there 
were rallies in the West Bank as well.(2)

The right of the refugees to return to Palestine has not been a 
significant part of the bogus "peace" negotiations between Yasir 
Arafat's Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government in 
recent years. To the extent the issue has been raised, it has 
mostly concerned much smaller numbers of refugees still living in 
Lebanon and the Israeli Occupied Territories.(3) Arafat says 
refugees should have the right to return, repeating recently that, 
"I say to all refugees, that there will be neither peace nor 
security if you do not return to your country,"(4) but his promise 
is a hollow one.

The principal culprit in repressing the national rights of the 
Palestinians is the United States, which pours about $3 billion 
per year into Israeli aid, of which Israel is expected to spend 
$1.9 billion on U.$. military products. That makes Israel the 
largest recipient of U.$. aid in the world.(5)

The Workers World front International Action Center carries on the 
long tradition of pretending that the masses of the oppressor and 
oppressed nations have common interests that are undermined by 
devious imperialists. They argue that the U.$. uses anti-
Palestinian policies to "divide and rule" both Israelis and 
Palestinians.(6) Like the same argument made with regard to the 
national oppression of First Nations, Blacks or Latinos within the 
U.$., this argument is a hollow one when you consider how one side 
(the Israelis / Amerikan whites) benefits while the other loses in 
this scheme that is supposedly aimed at dominating both!

The Israeli government is a client state serving Amerikan 
interests as well as the interests of the Israeli oppressor nation 
and its labor aristocracy. The Palestinian Authority, meanwhile, 
while claiming to carry the mantle of Palestinian national 
liberation, is in fact a comprador regime, because it depends on 
the imperialists, and not the people, for its power and its 
survival. Israel and Amerika have Arafat doing their dirty work 
for them -- repressing the Palestinian people and depriving them 
of the rights due to independent nations. 

The Clinton administration has been applying pressure to both 
Israel and the Palestinian Authority, hoping to get some 
agreements set up before Clinton leaves office. But the Amerikan-
Israeli strategy is well established, and we doubt a change of 
party in power in the U.$. would seriously alter the course of 
events in the Middle East in the near term -- Gore and George W. 
Bush do not have appreciably different positions on this issue. 
The future for the Palestinian depends on the course of their own 
anti-imperialist struggles. MIM will continue to support the 
oppressed nation masses in their struggles for self-determination 
by exposing the Amerikan role in national oppression and using our 
newspaper and other media to build support for those struggles 
within the United $tates and other countries in which we work.

Notes:

1. Email testimony from Ali Abunimah,  17 Sep 2000

2. Haaretz, 17 Sep 2000

3. Detroit Free Press, 18 Sep 2000

4. Agence France Presse, 18 Sep 2000

5. Christian Science Monitor, 18 Nov 1999

6. "U.S. Blocks the Palestinian Right of Return," by Sara 
Flounders, co-director of the International Action Center, 
www.iacenter.org.