Moscow back Meir

Unrest A FORMAL request by the 'big four' powers— France, the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain—has been made to the UN General Secretary U Thant for Gunnar Jarring to begin negotiations with Israeli and Egyptian officials along the lines of the US 'peace proposals'.

Yesterday's announcement from the UN headquarters in New York coincides with a new Moscow Radio offensive against those Arab leaders still opposing the deal.

And even more ominously, the same broadcast—in Arabic to the Middle East-implicitly gives support to Israeli Prime Minister Mrs Golda Meir against the right-wing Gahal Party, which left the Cabinet earlier this week after Meir accepted the Rogers Plan.

which has started in the Near last is already having ¿ paralysing effect on the ex pansionist ambitions of the Israeli extremist circles: their nost extreme wing-the Gahal bloc-is out of the contest.

'Ignore rights' 'The Gahal bloc represents those people who oppose the terrories in the were back return of the Jordan to Jordan . . . and the Sinai Peninsula the UAR.

"They are also those who ignore the rights of the Palestinian people. The implementation of the Security Council resolution is sure to bury the Israeli expansionist schemes and plans and make Tel Aviv take into consideration the legitimate rights and interests of the Arab peoples, including the Palestinians . . • 'It is to no avail that some Arab countries try to cause confusion about this clear issue. They portray the matter as it were possible to isolate the struggle for Israel's withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories, and even as confrontation with the Palestinians' struggle for their "The following fact is also being forgotten: the Israeli occupation of Arab territories has always been, and still is, the main method by which Israel takes by force all the rights of the Arab people.' So Moscow puts the from tion of withdrawal territories occupied in 1967— never specifying exactly which-as the only issue.

The 'hawks' in Israel are identified as being the Gahal Party, and Meir's Cabinet is, by implication, classified as wanting peace, and not ignoring the rights of the Palestinian people'.

Meir herself, however, makes the position much clearer.

Her statement on Tuesday stressed her regret at the resignation of the Gahal from the government and hoped that 'mutual friendship and confidence would continue between them and the governShe emphasized that 'the common attitudes of Gahal and the rest of the Cabinet Ministers had not changed.

The Moscow statement is a clear indication that • a complete sell-out of the Arab people as a whole, and the Palestinians in particular, has been worked out, and that Nasser is a party to it.

The need of the western oil companies, and even more the Soviet Union, to secure th opening of the Suez Canal is one of the factors driving the big powers towards a deal.

But the Stalinist betrayal is here going to be more open than at any previous time, and will be part of a wider agreement with imperialism.

The Arab leaders' nationalism, while partially expressing and adapting to Arab aspirations, has always been limited by imperialism's needs. Now they must find ways of covering up this betrayal of the Palestinian people.

No statement The 'summit' meeting in Iripoll, attended by Egypt Libya, Sudan, Jordan and Syria, but not by Iraq or Algeria, ended yesterday without a communiqué.

Instead, the Egyptian and Jordanian representatives issued a statement welcoming the Jarring UN 'peace mission'.

Sudan, which has supported Nasser's acceptance of and nor which declared its rejection of the Jordan's Foreign Minister Antallah had earlier said that the question of the ceasefire had not been discussed.

He also explained that Jordan's acceptance of the US plan did not imply that his government would try to impose ceasefire on the guerrillas operating from FUI inv: hav car ann It Aug enti: mac mot mitt 1961 leafl be mor wea con: selv grot s er hen Husak fears renewal of August 1968 RTHER details of the strike against the Soviet asion of Czechoslovakia at Vitkov uranium mine e been made public by Prague Radio as part of its paign against further protests on the second liversary of the intervention in two weeks time.

: is a resurgence of the just 1968 movement that propaganda and now strike ust 21, following oritt that stee will arrive when sider it of holes in the • yed Novotny chman in Prague].

protectors, The Soviet Secret Police is ady among her it.

elty and cunning..

his leafiet had clearly beer wn up while the Dubcel lership was still in Mos as soners in the Kremlin — terms of their return to in the first days if hae m or even hard line shalin had : to come forward as pet government of amlin.

so the Dubcek group had to fil this role, and returned Prague on August 26 under protection of Soviet nour.

Reaction

The Vitkov workers' action to this deal, a reaction that must have been widespread throughout the more advanced Czech workers, is remarkable.

According to the same Prague Home Service broadcast, the strike committee later issued another leaflet denouncing the submission of Dubcek and Svoboda to the Kremlin dictat:

'With tears in our eyes and terribly crushing pain we stand here, miners and technicians of the Uranium Mines enterprise, Vitkov Il, having heard the communiqué on the Moscow talks and the speech of the President of the Republic, Ludvik Svoboda, and shout thousands of times, NO!

You, our representatives BY A FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT whom we always trusted and for whom we were willing to lay down our lives, have not carried out your mandate. Can we not trust even you?

What have you committed against our nation, our homeland and our party? A betrayal. We did not give you such a mandate and we therefore reject the decisions of the talks ..

This leaflet, which sents, a high point of class consciousness in the Czech workers' struggle against Stalinism, is slandered by Prague Radio as 'a counterrevolutionary appeal'.

Striking workers surround