Workers World, Vol. 19, No. 46
November 29 – There is so much that one can learn from the stupendous debacle inflicted upon the Arab people by Sadat’s misadventure in Jerusalem. One must, however, go beyond surface manifestations, beyond the current bourgeois platitudes, facile generalizations, half-truths, and downright lies regarding Sadat’s “lofty motives,” “his courage,” and the “psychological transformation” which has supposedly overtaken the Arab people since his visit, subduing and even dissipating the anti-imperialist struggle against U.S.-Israeli aggression.
Take, for instance, the treason of Sadat himself. The treason of an individual, whether a leader of a whole nation or of a class, is of little moment or significance if it is merely the treason of the individual and divorced from the class or nation he represents. It is important to bear in mind the distinction between the treacherous action of an individual and the treachery of a class.
What class is involved in the instant case? Should it turn out, as we indicated in our earlier articles, that Sadat is acting not merely as an individual but as a representative of the comprador bourgeoisie of Egypt, then it puts another face upon the intricate and complex interrelationship of classes in the Middle East vis-à-vis imperialism.
Fully eight days have gone by since Sadat returned from Jerusalem. He did not take the military and the bourgeoisie along on his trip. They were free to do as the circumstances permitted them. He could not have returned to Cairo without substantial support from the comprador bourgeoisie and the military, or a section of it, which is now in an unholy alliance with the forces of U.S. finance capital and Zionist expansionism.
We pointed out earlier that the Egyptian bourgeoisie’s interest in the struggle against U.S.-Israeli imperialist aggression is of a conjunctural character. The Egyptian bourgeoisie’s conflicts with monopoly capitalism may be peripheral, temporary, and coincidental since, in reality, both have a great deal in common: both are possessing classes, both exploiters who live off the sweat and blood of the exploited everywhere. Nevertheless, they stand in antagonism to each other (insofar as the Arab-Israeli struggle goes) and have stood so over a period of close to three decades.
However, it is wholly erroneous to assume that both Egypt and the Israelis have now equally become puppets of U.S. imperialism. To put it that way is to cover up a fundamental difference between the two which lies at the very root of the struggle.
Indeed, both the Sadat clique and the Begin neo-fascist governing group are instruments of U.S. imperialism. But Egypt, and indeed all the Arab lands, especially the Palestinians, are oppressed nations while the Israelis are oppressors of the Arab people in general and the Palestinians in particular. And the fact that the Israeli state is an artificial entity constructed by imperialism and a servitor of imperialist interests only sharpens the difference between the oppressed Arab people and the mini-garrison state of Israel which is an extension of U.S. military power in the Middle East.
It would be entirely wrong to attribute the treacherous actions of the Sadat governing group to mere inherent personal weakness and divorce them from the present context, that is, the context of the historical moment confronting the Arab people. If there was one thing that came out in Sadat’s speech to the Egyptian Parliament on Nov. 26 in which he reported on his Jerusalem visit, it was that the military situation between the Israeli armed forces and the Egyptians stood at razor’s edge! The Israelis had commenced dangerous maneuvers which had forced the Egyptian Minister of War to initiate counter-maneuvers, thereby creating the imminent possibility of a military confrontation.
That, said Sadat, was one of the reasons which impelled him to go to Jerusalem. In so doing, he proclaims, he “transformed the psychological” situation in the Middle East from one of war to one of peace.
That the military situation had indeed reached a dangerous point is not denied anywhere following Sadat’s disclosure. But what does it really signify – assuming that we take everything at face value, as he himself put it?
That politically, diplomatically, and militarily Sadat has created an Egyptian version of Munich.
It is important to understand what Munich really meant in 1938 instead of the variety of distorted bourgeois versions of it, especially the post-war imperialist versions.
Munich stands for appeasement, all right. But not because Chamberlain was necessarily weak, stupid, and myopic, or because Anthony Eden was the knight in shining armor ready to do battle on behalf of “democracy”; or Churchill likewise when he finally became Prime Minister.
Munich meant this: the imperialist democracies, that is the French and the British, with the consent, at the beginning, of the Roosevelt administration, were most anxious to deflect a military confrontation with Hitler and divert the Nazi forces toward the USSR. That’s the lesson of Munich. The imperialists had their differences with each other and with Hitler but they shared a common goal which imperialism to this day still shares – to direct the struggle against the USSR.
Sadat, faced with a military confrontation, pulled his Munich in order to deflect the confrontation with the U.S.-backed Israelis and divert them toward the “rejectionist front,” and in particular toward the Palestinians and their military enclaves in Syria, Lebanon, Libya, and Iraq. The comprador bourgeoisie of Egypt, like the bourgeoisie everywhere in the Arab world, has this in common with the imperialists: they are both deathly opposed to the ultimate awakening and revolutionary struggle of the masses, whether it be under the banners of the PLO or other revolutionary national liberation organizations.
The effort by Sadat to arrive at a Munich peace with the Israeli aggressors is what lies behind the odious spectacle of Sadat summoning all the Arab leaders and the Israelis to a “summit conference” in Cairo after he had already given de facto recognition, if not more, to the Israeli state.
That the imperialist bourgeoisie understands the meaning of the projected Cairo-Munich is explicitly demonstrated in a column by C.L. Sulzberger on Nov. 27 in the New York Times. He states that Israel is now “reviewing” its contingency plans for a resumed conflict. He points out that “Specially trained and equipped commandos have been created in several countries, including Israel, West Germany, Britain, France, the United States, the Soviet Union, etc.” (He throws in the USSR just to create a little “even-handed” confusion.) These units can effectively carry out raids such as the one at Mogadishu airport last month, Sulzberger reminds us.
(We wrote in Workers World at the time of the Mogadishu raid: “These troops are not ordinary German soldiers. ... They are part and parcel of a worldwide counter-insurgency division of imperialist militarism. They are specially trained not to rescue people but to kill them. ... Every concerned observer on the African continent, and everywhere throughout the world, knows what a dangerous precedent Siad Barre of Somalia has set in allowing a military intervention by the imperialists ...”)
Raids are to be targeted on countries such as Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon where the Palestinians (PLO) have guerrilla forces. Sulzberger alludes to the Entebbe airport raid by the Israelis as one such highly orchestrated and efficiently carried out attack. This is well known, of course. But he goes on to show that “one Israeli reconnaissance unit ferociously struck Beirut airport as long ago as December 1968. Another hijacked an entire Soviet radar station from Egypt in February 1969.”
The whole point of the article is to show that with Egypt standing on the sidelines, the destructive forces of U.S.-Israeli militarism can presumably destroy and demoralize the masses in the “rejectionist” countries. (We use the term rejectionist for purposes of convenience, rather than as a political characterization.)
Assuming that no split develops within its summits in the meantime, the ability of the Egyptian bourgeoisie to contain the expansionist forces of U.S.-Israeli aggression through this tactic is extremely limited at best and adventuristic in the extreme. Nevertheless, a certain amount of dismay in the ranks of the militants and the revolutionary forces struggling for national liberation among the Arab people was inevitable when one considers the monumental catastrophe with the Sadat treachery imposed on the Arab people. The mood among the oppressed Arab people cannot be much different than the mood which prevailed in the days following the Munich peace with Hitler.
Of course, Begin is a small-time fascist and a tool of American finance capital. Begin and the Israelis whom he commands haven’t the independent status or resources which were available to Nazi imperialism.
But the fascist and expansionist character of U.S.-Israeli aggression is just as uncontrollable in the long run as was the Nazi war machine and the rapacious and uncontrollable appetite of the transnational corporations which reign supreme in Washington does not differ fundamentally from the imperialist interests of Hitler’s Germany.
The collapse of Sadat’s Munich plans in Cairo is inevitable. The insatiable appetite of the imperialist brigands cannot be satisfied and the revolutionary struggle of the Arab masses is the one and only true path toward freedom from imperialist encroachment and bourgeois reaction at home.
The failure of any of the Arab countries to respond positively to Sadat’s call for a Munich conference, a so-called preconference meeting in Cairo, has thrown consternation into the Carter administration’s camp. This is heightened by the all too obvious fact that three of the states who failed to show enthusiasm are major oil-producing countries: Libya, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Of course, each has reacted coolly for its own reasons.
The Carter administration is therefore trying in the light of this new ominous development to shift responsibility to the Israelis and Sadat as Washington did in the days of the Syngman Rhee, Diem, and Thieu client regimes whenever catastrophe seemed to stare it in the face.
(The New York Times begins its lead editorial today: “The Carter Administration’s enthusiasm for President Sadat’s diplomacy could freeze the Nile.” However, this extreme reaction by the Times to the administration’s dilemma isn’t shared by the rest of the bourgeois media.)
Now we have Carter’s sudden low profile in the new Israeli-Sadat talks scheduled for Cairo. Simultaneously, and commensurate with the speed of developments propelled by the Sadat Jerusalem visit, the early gloom in the camp of the oppressed is beginning to dissipate. Washington is becoming more fearful and is now engaged in virtually frantic efforts to pull the USSR into its orbit as a partner in the supposed forthcoming Geneva Conference. What cynicism! Why, the bilateral talks between the Israelis and Sadat and the de facto recognition of the Israeli state have virtually laid the foundation for a separate settlement, making a ritualistic mockery of Cairo and Geneva.
The USSR now has a splendid opportunity to demonstrate its anti-imperialist stand. It can, and is duty bound to, reject any and all overtures, blandishments, and threats by refusing to attend or participate in any way in any conference which does not have the wholehearted support of the Arab people as a whole and the Palestinians in particular.
It is a great opportunity, indeed, for it to demonstrate the urgently needed anti-imperialist support consistent with the socialist aspirations of the Arab masses as well as the socialist interests of the USSR.
Last updated: 11 May 2026