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2020-05-31 Israel-Palestine-Jordan
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Weapons and Ideology: Files Reveal How China Armed and Trained the Palestinians
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From 2019, but still interesting as deep historical background, especially for those interested in the Cold War. Herewith the key bits: [Ha’aretz] Chairman Mao identified the Paleostinian cause as an important way of combating imperialism in the Middle East. Documents from the 1960s show how far China went to support the guerrilla groups’ armed struggle
In the early 1980s, Israeli forces stormed several Paleostine Liberation Organization command posts in southern Leb
 ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
, seizing a wide array of documents detailing various military operations. Among the papers were letters orchestrating the PLO’s dispatch of officers to East Germany, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Pakistain, India, North Korea
Continued from Page 2
...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche...
and China for military training from the mid-’70s.
Hidden among the letters was a three-page manual for handling and assembling explosives. The pages detail (in Mandarin) how to build mines using barbed wire, cement, gunpowder and other materials.
The instructions arrived in Lebanon in one of several shipments of Chinese arms to the PLO that took place in the ’60s and, according to documents obtained by Haaretz, were part of a greater Chinese effort to support the Paleostinian liberation movement.
Shortly after the creation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Beijing (then more widely known internationally as Peking) recognized the State of Israel. However,
the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits...
by the ’60s, the communist regime started to enjoy warmer relations with the Paleostinians, seeing the Paleostinian struggle through the lens of a larger fight against imperialism.
In the ’60s and early ’70s, China supplied large quantities of arms to various Paleostinian guerrilla groups at no cost. Israeli intelligence valued the Chinese weaponry provided to the Paleostinians between 1965 and 1970 at $5 million (about $33 million today, adjusted for inflation). Rifles, hand grenades, gunpowder, mines and other explosives were among the arms supplied. Initially, China provided secondhand rifles and machine guns manufactured in the Soviet Union. However,
the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits...
by 1967, the Paleostinians were seemingly fighting almost exclusively with Chinese-made weaponry.
In addition to supplying arms, China also provided ideological inspiration and military training to PLO members. A letter obtained by Haaretz — dated March 26 but no year — documents four PLO units being urged to dispatch officers for an intensive summer commander’s course in China. It seems the officers were sent to a military academy in Nanjing. Although the number of officers receiving such training probably wasn’t more than a few dozen, it was nevertheless the start of a years-long private agreement to provide arms and training to the PLO.
COLD WAR ALLIES
In 1970, Yasser Arafat was quoted in the Peking Review as describing China as "the biggest influence in supporting our revolution and strengthening its perseverance." Between 1964 and 2001, the Paleostinian leader went to China on 14 separate official visits. Indeed, by the ’80s, Chinese homes had become accustomed to images of Arafat on their televisions, stepping off a plane dressed in his trademark military uniform and kaffiyeh.
"Arms supply was a kind of Chinese gesture to show Paleostinians they support them," Prof. Emeritus Yitzhak Shichor from the Department of Asian Studies at Hebrew University tells Haaretz. According to Shichor, the PLO didn’t actually do much with those arms. Had it carried out an attack that killed many civilians, for example, the implications would have been very different. Not only did the weapons remain largely unused in serious military operations, but the amount of arms supplied were beyond what the Paleostinians needed, Shichor says.
The Chinese instructions that came with the explosives contained blank columns to document the devices’ effectiveness once assembled. Interestingly, those columns were never filled in and there is no hard evidence to know how or if the explosives were used.
FADING CHINESE SOLIDARITY
By the early ’70s, China had largely cut back on its arms supplies to the Paleostinians due to internal unrest during its ongoing Cultural Revolution, its desire to create good relations with Arab states after the People’s Republic of China’s entry into the UN in 1971, and increased infighting between the Paleostinian factions sparked by the Black September conflict. The dwindling practicality of an arms struggle being the main ideology behind a political Paleostinian party further served to alienate the Chinese.
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Posted by trailing wife 2020-05-31 00:00||
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File under: Commies
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Posted by Rjschwarz 2020-05-31 16:58||
2020-05-31 16:58||
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Posted by Rjschwarz 2020-05-31 16:58||
2020-05-31 16:58||
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