TEL-AVIV -- Israeli Communists have been celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Israel (CPI) in recent months at festive meetings throughout the country. The main celebration took place on Dec. 22 in the large assembly hall of the Friendship building in Nazareth.
Party members, among them many veteran leading figures and rank-and-file members, sympathizers and friends, Young Communist League members and Young Pioneers, as well as invited guests, filled the hall to capacity. The room wasfestooned with red flags, slogan banners and flowers.
The wall behind the presidium was decorated with the symbol of the anniversarysided by the main slogans: "For strengthening and continuing the path of the Communist Party of Israel" and "For increased struggle for true and just peace-- for equal rights, democracy and defense of the workers' rights."
Among those seated at the presidium were CPI General Secretary Muhammad Nafa'a, Palestinian People's Party Politburo member Fuad Reizik and Minister of Scientific Planning of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Chief Delegate at the Peace Negotiations, Dr. Nabil Sha'ath.
Former CPI General Secretary Meir Vilner opened the meeting and gave an historical overview of the heroic struggles of the CPI (prior to 1948 known asthe Palestinian Communist Party). He recalled the long years of common Arab-Jewish struggle against British colonial rule.
Vilner said that from 1947 the CPI was the foremost force in the country in support of the United Nations' resolution which called for the partitioning ofPalestine between a Jewish state and an Arab-Palestinian state. Non-compliancewith this principled two-state resolution was at the roots of the long and bloody wars and Arab-Jewish strife.
Vilner added, "Now the Party, in common with other progressive peace forces, are called upon not to be satisfied with the present situation, but to fight for full implementation of the interim accord with the PLO and for speedy negotiations towards the permanent status of just and lasting peace with the Palestinian State to-be."
Vilner stressed that the CPI's source of strength emanates from its firm commitment to the ideology of Marxism-Leninism and the internationalist Jewish-Arab fraternity in its ranks.
General Secretary Nafa'a sharply censored the Israeli government for the many and major obstacles it is continuing to put in the way of the peace process. Nafa'a pointed out Israel's not complying with the so-called "redeployment" ofthe occupation forces, agreed upon in Oslo, according to which the occupation forces should have withdrawn from the towns and other Palestinian population centers in the West Bank not later than July 1994.
Further, Nafa'a said the government has caved in to the right-wing opposition and the right-radical elements among the Jewish colonialist settlers. It has allowed new settlements to be established on expropriated Palestinian land.
Nafa'a called upon all peace forces in Israel to struggle in common in order to put an end to this anti-peace policy, and to force the government to proceed on the way promised by it, and started to follow with the first-ever accord with the Palestinians. The Israeli Communists, Arab as well as Jew, will do all in their power to bring to a speedy and positive end to the ongoing mutual bloodshed by demanding to proceed now, without further delay, towards a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace solution, based on the Security Council resolutions and the vested national rights of the Palestinians as wellas of Israel.
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