surgical operation that a person should use only after trying all other means, and only when he finds his life imperiled. As for the state of violence that we live in today, the reality being that violence is the current condition in the Middle East in particular, and in many parts of the world, this violence does not spring from a state of mind or from an orientation based on violence. To the contrary, it emanates from given political, economic, and social conditions which have been imposed on reality in this or that part of the world by a great oppressive power that has intruded in pursuit of its economic and strategic interests, reaching a point where the people feel they are engulfed by the problem on all sides. The violence began as the people, feeling themselves bound by impotence, stirred to shatter some of that enveloping powerless ness for the sake of liberty. In this arena, the Palestinian issue was primary, while the violence that began to force itself upon the region, by one route or another, then became the issue that gave birth to the Palestinian resistance, looking for a space to breathe and move within it. The first stage was in Jordan, where occurred a slaughter of the Palestinians resulting from their actions and conditions there. The second stage was in Lebanon, which suffered from numerous factors that furthered the violence, owing to the many conditions there which have a confessional or nationalistic basis, choking the country's com plicated pluralism, which contains many his toric complexes. These have brought the problem to the level of open conflict, though the prevailing attitudes of violence throughout the region have created this atmosphere. The U.S. As Common Nemesis The Origin of Violence THUS, WE SEE THAT THE PALESTINIAN question was the origin of the wave of violence in the Middle East. This problem, which has its roots in a political condition, has produced considerable humiliation and despair, in that the people of Palestine suddenly found them selves outside of their country, refugees looked upon with pity and contempt in a humiliating manner, their destiny decreed by irresponsible leaders. This has been compounded by the sight of the Jews coming from all over the world, already possessing places and countries of their own, arriving to stay in their villages, their towns, and their homes. Surely this situation could, in view of its nature, indeed foster violence, the wave of violence pouring from the political attitudes that are exploited within it. Thus the condition ofviolence flowed from the Palestinian question, in which the Palestinian people found itself outside the context of a solution, while most, if not all, of the Arab regimes were supporting colonialism. The question then fell into the hands of the people of the region, ar:d we know that thereafter the area endured a number of crises and upheavals. Among these was the revolution led by Gamal Abd al-Nasir, via his movement that established a new political reality, intensi fying the climate of revolution and violence among the whole Arab people. THIS ATMOSPHERE AROUSED THE FORCES of international politics - especially European, American and Soviet politics. The Israelis sought to exploit the situation, and violence became a part of every problem in the region. The violence began with the Palestinian cause, but that cause, which is both nationalistic and Islamic in character, then entered the Lebanese arena, where it exacerbated many existing contradictions, resulting in a Lebanese prob lem, feeding that country's nationalistic, Islamic, and Lebanese mentalities. Through all this, the successive incidents, agonies, and traumas, the cases of refugees and the home. less, became possible. Ultimately, this implanted violence as the singular state of being throughout the entire region. It is natural to note this issue reached its peak during the 1982 Israeli invasion, which itself interacted with more than one Lebanese national condition. This invasion was con fronted by the Islamic factor, which had its roots in the Islamic Revolution in Iran. And throughout these affairs, America was the common denominator. America was generally perceived as the great nemesis behind the problems of the region, due to its support for Israel and many local reactionary regimes, and because it distanced itself from all causes of liberty and freedom in the area. This perception may be accurate or not, but that is the impression made. This is how some people dealt with the United States, at the same 6. MIDDLE EAST INSIGHT
