Fateful Triangle

by Noam Chomsky

  3. It could not be known, of course, that an American marine (Cpl. David L.

  Reagan) would also be killed by a cluster bomb of the type supplied to

  Israel by the U.S.; J. Michael Kennedy, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 2; Time,

  Oct. 11, 1982.

  4. On August 5, 1982, New York Times correspondent Thomas Friedman

  reported “indiscriminate” shelling of West Beirut by Israeli planes,

  gunboats and artillery. The editors deleted the word “indiscriminate” as

  inconsistent with the approved image of our Israeli ally. Washington Post

  editors, in contrast, felt that it was permissible to report “indiscriminate”

  Israeli bombardment on the same day. See Alexander Cockburn, Village

  Voice, Sept. 21, 1982, for discussion and details, including Friedman’s

  protest to the editors for their lack of “courage - guts,” for being “afraid to

  tell our readers and those who might complain to you that the Israelis are

  capable of indiscriminately shelling an entire city.” The solicitude of

  Times editors for Israel during this period—as before—has been

  remarkable, as we shall have occasion to observe below.

  5. Amos Perlmutter describes “the destruction of Palestinian nationalism in

  any form” as one of “Begin’s most extreme and cherished ambitions” (Foreign Affairs, Fall 1982). The same was true of his predecessors, who typically denied that it existed and sought to destroy its manifestations. On the measures taken under the occupation to prevent even cultural expression, see my Towards a New Cold War (henceforth, TNCW;

  Pantheon, New York, 1982, pp. 277-8).

  6. Haim Baram of Haolam Haze; cited in the Manchester Guardian Weekly,

  Sept. 12, 1982.

  7. Economist, Sept. 11, 1982.

  8. For ample though only partial evidence, see TNCW, chapters 9-12. We

  return to this matter, and other questions touched on here. 9. UPI, Boston Globe, Sept. 26, 1982.

  10. Editorial, New York Times, Nov. 6, 1982; Time, Oct. 11, 1982. 11. The estimate is that of the London-based International Institute of

  Strategic Studies; Time, Oct. 11, 1982. Israelis tend to rank their power

  one notch higher, describing themselves as the third most powerful

  military force in the world. See, for example, Dov Yirmiah, Yoman

  Hamilchama Sheli (My War Diary; privately printed, Tel Aviv, 1983, to

  be published in English translation by South End Press), an important

  record of the Lebanon war to which we return.

  2. The Origins of the “Special Relationship”

  1. Levels of Support: Diplomatic, Material, Ideological

  T

  he relationship between the United States and Israel has been a curious one in world affairs and in American culture. Its unique character is symbolized by recent votes at the United Nations. For example, on June 26, 1982 the United States stood alone in

  vetoing a UN Security Council resolution calling for simultaneous withdrawal of Israeli and Palestinian armed forces from Beirut, on the grounds that this plan “was a transparent attempt to preserve the P.L.O. as a viable political force,” evidently an intolerable prospect for the U.S. government.1 A few hours later, the U.S. and Israel voted against a General Assembly resolution calling for an end to hostilities in Lebanon and on the Israel-Lebanon border, passed with two “nays” and no abstentions. Earlier, the U.S. had vetoed an otherwise unanimous Security Council resolution condemning Israel for ignoring the earlier demand for withdrawal of Israeli troops.2 The pattern has, in fact, been a persistent one.

  More concretely, the special relationship is expressed in the level of U.S. military and economic aid to Israel over many years. Its exact scale is unknown, since much is concealed in various ways. Prior to 1967, before the “special relationship” had matured, Israel received the highest per capita aid from the U.S. of any country. Commenting on the fact, Harvard Middle East specialist Nadav Safran also notes that this amounts to a substantial part of the unprecedented capital transfer to Israel from abroad that constitutes virtually the whole of Israel’s investment—one reason why Israel’s economic progress offers no meaningful model for underdeveloped countries.3 It is possible that recent aid amounts to something like $1000 per year for each citizen of Israel when all factors are taken into account. Even the public figures are astounding.* For fiscal years 1978 through 1982, Israel received 48% of all U.S. military aid and 35% of U.S. economic aid, worldwide. For FY 1983, the Reagan administration requested almost $2.5 billion for Israel out of a total aid budget of $8.1 billion, including $500 million in outright grants and $1.2 billion in low-interest loans.4 In addition, there is a regular pattern of forgiving loans, offering weapons at special discount prices, and a variety of other devices, not to mention the taxdeductible “charitable” contributions (in effect, an imposed tax), used in ways to which we return.5 Not content with this level of assistance from the American taxpayer, one of the Senate’s most prominent liberal Democrats, Alan Cranston of California, “proposed an amendment to the foreign aid bill to establish the principle that American economic assistance to Israel would not be less than the amount of debt Israel repays to the United States,” a commitment to cover “all Israeli debts and future debts,” as Senator Charles Percy commented.6

  This was before the Lebanon war. The actual vote on foreign aid came after the invasion of Lebanon, after the destruction of much of southern Lebanon, the merciless siege and bombardment of Beirut, the September massacres, and Israel’s rapid expansion of settlement in the occupied territories in response to Reagan’s plea to suspend settlement in accord with his peace proposals, which Israel rejected. In the light of these events, the only issue arising in Congress was whether to “punish” Israel by accepting the President’s proposal for a substantial increase in

  * The General Accounting Office (GAO) has informed Congress that the actual level of U.S. aid may be as much as 60% higher than the publicly available figures. This is the preliminary result of a detailed study of U.S. aid to Israel by the GAO. “A major issue could develop next year [1983] over how much of the GAO study may be made public.” James McCartney. Philadelphia Inquirer, August 25, 1982.

  the already phenomenal level of aid—what is called taking “a get-tough approach with Israel”7—or to take a softer line by adding even more to the increases that the President requested, as the Senate and most liberals demanded. Fortunately, the press was sufficiently disciplined so that the comic aspects of this characteristic performance were suppressed. The consequences of this message of approval to Israel for its recent actions on the part of the President and Congress are not at all comic, needless to say.

  It should be noted that in theory there are restrictions on the use of American aid (e.g., cluster bombs can be used only in self-defense; development funds cannot be spent beyond Israel’s recognized—i.e., pre-June 1967—borders). But care has been taken to ensure that these restrictions will not be invoked, though the illegal use of weapons occasionally elicits a reprimand or temporary cut-off of shipments when the consequences receive too much publicity. As for the ban on use of U.S. funds for the settlement and development programs that the U.S. has officially regarded as illegal and as a barrier to peace (i.e., beyond the pre-June 1967 borders), this has never been enforced, and the aid program is designed so that it cannot be enforced: “in contrast to most other aid relationships, the projects we fund in Israel are not specified,” Ian Lustick observes, and no official of the State Department or the aid program has “ever been assigned to supervise the use of our funds by the Israeli government.”

  For comparison, one may consider the U.S. aid program to Egypt (the largest recipient of non-military U.S. aid since Camp David), which is run by an office of 125 people who supervise it in meticulous detail. Many knowledgeable Egyptians have been highly critical of the
aid program, alleging that it reflects American rather than Egyptian priorities, financing U.S. imports which must be brought on American ships and U.S. consultants, when trained personnel are available in Egypt for a fraction of the cost. They also note the emphasis on the private sector, “pay[ing] Mid-west farmers for wheat which could be grown at half the price in Egypt” (according to a former AID director), and in general the infiltration of Egyptian society to the extent that some perceive a threat to Egyptian national security.8

  These examples illustrate the diplomatic and material support that the U.S. provides for Israel.9 A concomitant, at the ideological level, is the persistence of considerable illusion about the nature of Israeli society and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Since 1967, discussion of these issues has been difficult or impossible in the United States as a result of a remarkably effective campaign of vilification, abuse, and sometimes outright lying directed against those who dared to question received doctrine.* This fact has regularly been deplored by Israeli doves, who have been subjected to similar treatment here. They observe that their own position within Israel suffers because of lack of support within the U.S., where, as General (Res.) Mattityahu Peled observed, the “state of near hysteria” and the “blindly chauvinistic and narrow-minded” support for the most reactionary policies within Israel poses “the danger of prodding Israel once more toward a posture of calloused intransigence.”10 The well-known Israeli journalist and Zionist historian

  * Israeli intelligence apparently contributes to these efforts. According to a CIA study, one of its functions is to acquire “data for use in silencing anti-Israel factions in the West,” along with “sabotage, paramilitary and psychological warfare projects, such as character assassination and black propaganda.” “Within Jewish communities in almost every country of the world, there are Zionists and other sympathizers, who render strong support to the Israeli intelligence effort. Such contacts are carefully nurtured and serve as channels for information, deception material, propaganda and other purposes.” “They also attempt to penetrate anti-Zionist elements in order to neutralize the opposition.”

  Simha Flapan describes “the prejudice of American Jewry” as now “the major obstacle to an American-Palestinian and Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, without which there is little chance to move forward in the difficult and involved peace process.”11 In concentrating on the role of American Jewry, these Israeli writers focus much too narrowly, I believe.

  To cite one last example, an article in the American Jewish press quotes a staff writer for Ha’aretz (essentially, the Israeli New York Times) who says that “you American Jews, you liberals, you lovers of democracy are supporting its destruction here by not speaking out against the government’s actions,” referring to the wave of repression in the occupied territories under the “civilian administration” of Professor Menachem Milson and General Ariel Sharon introduced in November 1981 (see chapter 5, sections 5-8). He goes on to explain the plans of Begin and Sharon: to drive a large number of Arabs out of the West Bank, specifically, the leaders and those with a potential for leadership, “by every illegal means.” How?

  You activate terrorists to plant bombs in the cars of their elected mayors, you arm the settlers and a few Arab quislings to run rampages through Arab towns, pogroms against property, not against people. A few Arabs have been killed by settlers. The murderers are known, but the police are virtually helpless. They have their orders. What’s your excuse for not speaking out against these violations of Israeli law and Jewish morality?

  The settlers, he adds, are “Religious Jews who follow a higher law and do whatever their rabbis tell them. At least one of the Gush Emunim rabbis has written that it is a mitzvah [religious duty] to destroy Amalek [meaning, the non-Jewish inhabitants], including women and children.”12 The Ha’aretz journalist adds that his journal has “a file of horror stories reported to us by soldiers returning from occupation duty in the West Bank. We can refer to them in general terms—we can rail against the occupation that destroys the moral fibre and self-respect of our youth—but we can’t print the details because military censorship covers actions by soldiers on active duty.”13 One can imagine what the file contains, given what has been printed in the Israeli press. It should be noted, in this connection, that many crucial issues that are freely discussed in the Hebrew press in Israel and much that is documented there are virtually excluded from the American press, so that the people who are expected to pay the bills are kept largely in the dark about what they are financing or about the debates within Israel concerning these matters. Many examples will be given below.

  The dangers posed to Israel by its American supporters have consistently been realized, leading to much suffering in the region and repeated threat of a larger, perhaps global war.

  2. Causal Factors 2.1 Domestic Pressure Groups and their Interests

  T

  he “special relationship” is often attributed to domestic political pressures, in particular, the effectiveness of the American Jewish community in political life and in influencing opinion.14 While

  there is some truth to this, it is far from the whole story, in two major respects: first, it underestimates the scope of the “support for Israel,” and second, it overestimates the role of political pressure groups in decision-making. Let us consider these factors in turn.15

  In the first place, what Seth Tillman calls the “Israeli lobby” (see note 14) is far broader than the American Jewish community, embracing the major segments of liberal opinion, the leadership of the labor unions,*

  * Leon Hadar writes: “Along with the organized American-Jewish community, the labour movement has been a major source of support for Israel”; true with regard to the labor union bureaucracy, whatever the membership may think. Hadar quotes ILGWU president Sol Chaikin who condemns Reagan for his willingness “to ‘sell’ both Israel and the Solidarity movement in Poland…to appease his big business friends.” Victor Gotbaum discusses the problems posed for Israel’s supporters by the Begin government and its “antagonizing” foreign policy decisions: “We couldn’t justify [the Golan annexation], so we preferred to remain silent”; many labor leaders find themselves “divorcing their love for Israel from their relations with Begin” (Gotbaum). Such rhetoric has not been heard since the peak days of American Stalinism and Trotskyite “critical support.” It is, however, rather common among Western intellectuals with regard to Israel. See TNCW, chap. 10, for some examples. More will appear

  religious fundamentalists,16 “conservatives” of the type who support a powerful state apparatus geared to state-induced production of high technology waste (i.e., military production) at home and military threats and adventurism abroad, and—cutting across these categories—fervent cold warriors of all stripes. These connections are appreciated in Israel, not only by the right wing. Thus Yitzhak Rabin, reputedly a dove and soon to become the Labor Prime Minister, argued against moves towards political settlement after the 1973 war. Israel should try to “gain time,” he urged, in the hope that “we will later find ourselves in a better situation: the U.S. may adopt more aggressive positions vis-a-vis the USSR…”17

  Many American Zionist leaders recognize these factors. In December 1980, several of them argued in the American Jewish press that “there is far greater potential commonality of interests among Jews and the Moral Majority than there is among Jews and the National Council of Churches” (Jewish Week). Jacques Torczyner, former President of the Zionist Organization of America and an executive of the World Zionist Organization, wrote that “We have, first of all, to come to a conclusion that the right-wing reactionaries are the natural allies of Zionism and not the liberals”18—he is wrong about the latter, mistakenly assuming that they do not join in the cold war consensus whereas in fact they have consistently promoted and helped to maintain it. It should furthermore be noted that the American left and pacifist groups, apart from fringe elements, have quite generally been extremely supportive of Israel (contrary to many bas
eless allegations), some passionately so, and have turned a blind eye to practices that they would be quick to denounce elsewhere. Again, examples will, appear below.

  There is an interesting expression of views akin to Rabin’s in a recent

  below. study of “the real anti-Semitism in America” by Nathan and Ruth Perlmutter, respectively, the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith and his wife, also an active Zionist leader. In the United States, the Anti-Defamation League is regarded as a civil libertarian organization, at one time, a deserved reputation. Now, it specializes in trying to prevent critical discussion of policies of Israel by such techniques as maligning critics, including Israelis who do not pass its test of loyalty, distributing alleged “information” that is often circulated in unsigned pamphlets, and so on.19 In Israel, it is casually described as “one of the main pillars” of Israeli propaganda in the United States. Seth Tillman refers to it as part of “the Israeli lobby.” We return to some of its public performances (see chapter 5, section 7.1). The well-known Israeli military historian Meir Pail, formerly head of the Officers Training School of the IDF and an Israeli dove, might well have had the League in mind when he described the ways in which “Golda Meir and the Labor Party destroyed pluralism and debate within the old Zionist framework,” mimicking “Joseph Stalin’s tendency towards communist parties all over the world,” whose interests were to be “subjugated…to the power interests of the Soviet Union”; “And the Israeli regime’s tendency has been similar” as it has “destroyed the very process of dissent and inquiry,” beginning (he says) with the Golda Meir labor government.20 The League has proven a more than willing instrument.

  The Perlmutters cite studies showing that whereas anti-Semitism “was once virulent” in the U.S., today there is little support for discrimination against Jews; there may be dislike of Jews, anti-Jewish attitudes, etc., but then much the same is true with regard to ethnic and religious groups quite generally. What then is “the real anti-semitism,” which is still rampant, in fact perhaps more dangerous than before? The real anti-Semitism, it turns out, lies in the actions of “peacemakers of Vietnam vintage, transmuters of swords into plowshares, championing the terrorist PLO…”* The Perlmutters fear that “nowadays war is getting a bad name and peace too favorable a press…” They are concerned by “the defamations by the Left of the promptings for our warring in Vietnam and latterly…their sniping at American defense budgets…” “Beyond oil it is the very ideology of the liberals in which peace, even if it is pockmarked by injustice, is preferable to the prospect of confrontation that today imperils Jews.” Similarly, Jewish interests are threatened “by this decade’s Leftists, here and abroad, as they demonstrate against and scold the United States for its involvement in Nicaragua and El Salvador.” Jewish interests are threatened because the Central American dictators have been friends of Israel—friendship which has been and is being reciprocated with much enthusiasm, though the Perlmutters do not discuss these facts, which help explain why victims of Somoza and the Salvadoran and Guatemalan generals are not friends of Israel, not because of anti-Semitism, but for quite understandable reasons; peasants being massacred with Israeli arms or tortured by military forces who boast of their Israeli training and support are not likely to be friends of Israel. According to the Perlmutters, such groups as the National Council of Churches also threaten Jewish interests by calling on Israel “to include the PLO in its Middle East peace negotiations.” “Apologists for the Left—like those for the Right—have frequently rationalized anti-Semitism or indifference to Jewish interests as being merely a transitory phase,” but Jews should know better.