On March 24, Socialist Resistance held a very successful forum on the Middle East, War, Imperialism, Ecology and Resistance attended by around eighty participants in central London. It was particularly encouraging to see a significant number of young people at the event. Gilbert Achcar, probably the best known Marxist writer on the region was joined by Ewa Jasiewicz, a founder of Naftana - the UK support committee for the anti-occupation, anti-dictatorship oil workers union. Unfortunately Israeli Jewish writer and activist Tikva Honig-Parnass was not in the end able to attend because of family illness. But the meeting was pleased to welcome Chadi Khalil, representative of the Lebanese Communist Party in Britain. Socialist Resistance's Phil Hearse completed the plenary speakers. Socialist Resistance prides itself on encouraging discussion inside its own ranks as well as on the left more generally, so it was fitting that Gilbert and Phil had different opinions on the likelihood of a military offensive against Iran. We also try to give plenty of opportunity for those attending to put forward their opinions both by having time for discussion in plenary sessions
encourage it. support of the left even if it is not ideologically of the left. Its members hold the ideas of their society. They are religious believers but they genuinely hold a class point of view, particularly in their sector.
In Palestine we have another indication of the disaster. The first Intifada, which began in 997, was led by the left. Hamas has succeeded in building itself as the main opposition to the rightwing PLO leadership.
The left has been marginalized but it still exists. While we support the right of the Palestinian people to vote for whichever group or party they want but socialists should be relating to leftwing forces.
We can point to SOLIC improvement in the positions of at least one section of the Palestinian left, the Popular Front For the Liberation of Palestine.
This organisation, after a long history of tail ending the PLO leadership, now refuses to join the coalition government. The PFLP now has a more independent position on a generally left wing platform and should be our privileged partner. and through organising workshops that don't just allow debate but actively This was the spirit in which Gilbert and Chadi held a popular and impromptu workshop to develop the plenary discussion on Iraq and Lebanon which was able to give more developed answers to some of the issues raised in the first session than there was time there such as the question of what role the massacre at Sabra and Chatila played in Lebanese politics. In addition to the contributions and reports we print here you can see some video footage from the day at http://macuaid.blogspot.com/
Our privileged partner in Lebanon should be the Lebanese Communist Party. You don't have the same problem that you do in Iraq. Hezbollah has never engaged in that type of sectarian vio lence during its fight against Israel and this allows us to support the Lebanese resistance as a whole. But we favour the Lebanese Communist Party. This is the most promising remaining section of the left in the region. It has no relations with regimes like the one in Syria and other dubious forces and it is building itself on a progressive platform. It is renewing itself and learning the lessons of the recent past. It is keen on rebuilding the left in the region and is calling for open conferences of leftists and Marxists. It wants to be the pole for some form of regroupment. The left in the Middle East is much weaker than it was some years ago but our view need not be as bleak as the one presented in the media. There are still class forces that could be elements for rebuilding the left and that it what we should be promoting. Production is still not back up to 1979 levels