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Newsweek, August 18, 1969, p. 41
Mideast: „My Country, My Country“
Perhaps as part of
their repudiation of any cause dear to middle-aged liberals, the young
zealots of the New Left take a dim view of Israel. In the U.S., members
of the Students for a Democratic Society have joined such black
militants as Stokely Carmichael in denouncing Israel as an insidious
outpost of Western influence in the Third World. In Stockholm and London
youthful radicals have established organizations dedicated to
propagandizing for the Arab cause, while students in Paris hold
teach-ins featuring anti-Israeli speakers and the sale of one-franc “war
bonds” to support Al Fatah, the best known of the Palestinian commando
groups. And lately, the New Left’s support for Al Fatah has taken an
even more active turn. From Jordan last week,
Milan J. Kubic, Newsweek’s
Middle Eastern bureau chief, cabled this report:
When 140 radical Western students arrived in Jordan late in July and
were quickly hustled off to an Al Fatah training camp, diplomatic rumor
mills in Amman ground overtime. Al Fatah, it was rumored, was about to
create an anti-Zionist foreign legion that would soon participate in
guerrilla raids on Israel. The groans that these reports evoked in the
vine-covered Western embassies of Amman were painful to hear. “We had
the most awful visions of nasty cables from politicians, stacks of
inquiries from frantic parents and worst of all tragic casualties,”
confided one overwrought consul in the Jordanian capital. “I don’t want
to sound cynical, but you’ve no idea how much paperwork it takes to send
home just one national in trouble – let alone he’s dead.”
Discipline:
Diplomatic fears, however, were somewhat calmed last week by assurances
from Al Fatah spokesmen that the sole purpose of the five-week “summer
camp” was to acquaint foreign students with the Arab cause. The students
– predominantly British, French and Scandinavian, but reportedly
including four Americans – visit Palestinian refugee camps in the
morning and listen to lectures on Middle Eastern history and politics in
the late afternoon. In between, they are more occupied with Marx than
marksmanship, for Al Fatah does not seem at all interested in
instructing them in guerrilla techniques. “We already have more Arab
volunteers than we can use,” explained an aide to Yasir Arafat, the Al
Fatah commander. “And, besides, there’s the problem of discipline and
communication. You tell these kids something and they give you backtalk
in five languages.”
Indeed, while the New Left as a whole is determined to elevate the
Palestinian guerrillas to the “hero status” it previously accorded only
to the Viet Cong, it is clear that firsthand exposure to the commando
movement has embittered some of the students now in Jordan. Defying Al
Fatah orders to stay out of sight, they roamed through Amman’s fetid,
fly-infested souk last week in search of the commando camouflage caps that have
become their favorite souvenir – and openly criticized their hosts.
“Arafat has all the inclinations of a petty bourgeois,” said one
bespectacled youngster. “He knows the worldwide revolution like I know
Arabic.” Despite their disillusionment, however, the students will
remain through the summer and then return home to propagandize for the
Arabs. “Our movement would wither without a “liberation war,” one of
them explained. “With Che Guevara dead and Vietnam almost over, we need
the Palestinians to carry the flag of our cause.”
Ideology:
The question was whether the commandos would let the students carry the
Palestinian flag. While Arafat has called on Arab governments to become
“Hanois” for his commandos, Al Fatah can scarcely qualify as a model
liberation movement by New Left standards. To begin with, its remarkable
growth has been in part due to its policy of accepting Palestinians of
all political hues as members, including followers of the right-wing
Muslim Brotherhood. Then, too, Al Fatah defrays much of its $40 million
annual budget with contributions from such conservative Arab leaders as
King Faisal of Saudi Arabia and the Sheik of Kuweit. “I use Saudi money
to buy weapons from Red China,” Arafat recently exploded at a newsman
who badgered him with political questions. “Now what kind of ideology is
that?”
But the biggest disappointment to the students must have been the
attitude of the rank and file of Palestinians. Fundamentally religious
and distrustful of foreigners, the Palestinians yearn only to avenge
past Arab defeats and reconquer the land they believe was wrongfully
taken away from them by the Israelis. And they are not really prepared
to grant full participation in their holy war to other Arabs, much less
Westerners. In one refugee camp the students visited, several Jewish
members of the group tried to explain to the Palestinians that their
leftist ideology allowed them to view the Mideast situation “correctly”
despite their ethnic background. Unconvinced, the refugees angrily
insisted that they leave and had to be restrained by the Al Fatah tour
guides. And an idealistic ex-Yale student, who came to Jordan a year ago
with the intention of joining the fight against Israel, admits that
whenever he tried to discuss the matter with the guerrillas, “all they
would say was baladi, baladi –
my country, my country. Finally I got the message. In their eyes, this
was not my fight.”
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