Fateful Triangle

by Noam Chomsky

  The conception of the Palestinians as primitive “natives” who can easily be bought off has deep roots in Zionist history, and is a natural concomitant to “Weizmann’s legacy,” as expressed by Ben-Gurion and others (see chapter 3, section 2.2.2, and for more detail, the next chapter). It was observed long ago by visitors to Palestine. The American journalist Vincent Sheean, for example, arrived in Palestine in 1929 as an avid Zionist sympathizer, and left a few months later as a harsh critic of the Zionist enterprise. He found that the Jewish settlers “had contempt [for the Arabs] as an ‘uncivilized race,’ to whom some of them referred as ‘Red Indians’ and others as ‘savages’,” and felt that “We don’t have to worry about the Arabs” who “will do anything for money.” They looked upon the indigenous population as “mere squatters for thirteen centuries” so that it should “be feasible for the Zionists, by purchase, persuasion and pressure, to get the Arabs out sooner or later and convert Palestine into a Jewish national home,” an attitude which he thought was “from their own point of view…perilous in the extreme.” Sheean “could not believe that the Arabs of Palestine were so different from other Arabs that they would welcome the attempt to create a Jewish nation in their country.”55 These attitudes remain alive today, expressed in the actions of the Milson administration and its predecessors in the occupied territories, in the common view of Israeli leaders and others that the Palestinians can readily find a place in some other Arab land, and in the general disregard in the West—particularly the United States—for Palestinian rights.

  It might also be noted that even Mustafa Dudin—the archetypal quisling—has called for total Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and the evacuation of all Jewish settlements established there since 1967. How this stand results from PLO intimidation has not yet been explained. Furthermore, well after the expulsion of the PLO from Beirut and southern Lebanon, Palestinian demands for an independent state and rejection of Israeli-imposed “autonomy” remained unchanged, and “with the notable exception of Mustafa Dudin,…very few Palestinians think they can reach their objectives by negotiating with Israeli officials.” In January 1983, the leader of the Ramallah League, Riyad el-Hatib, called for an independent Palestinian state, and the chairman of the Hebron area Village Leagues, Muhammad Nasser, called upon Israel to freeze settlements, describing them as “an obstacle to peace” between Israel and the Palestinians.56 In the meeting that Rubinstein attended, representatives of the Leagues called for measures to prevent migration of Palestinians from the West Bank (“a clear antigovernment goal,” Rubinstein observes), while Dudin and others urged the Israeli military authorities to facilitate the return of Palestinian refugees, primarily from Lebanon, to the West Bank, a position with only the most marginal support within Israel. Again, it seems that the PLO must have a long arm.

  2.3.3 The “Peace Process” Returning to the PORI Institute survey of West Bank opinion, also of interest were the attitudes expressed towards the two Israeli political groupings. 0.9% preferred to see Begin’s Likud in power, while 2% preferred the Labor Party. 93% registered complete indifference. As for Camp David, 2% felt it helped the Palestinian cause, while 88% regarded it as a hindrance.

  In news reporting as in editorial commentary in the United States, the arrangements set in motion by the Camp David accords are known simply as “the peace process.” Evidently, those whose lives are at stake do not share the assumptions that underlie this usage, which simply reflects a tacit acceptance of the U.S. propaganda system by the media and scholarship.

  It is also quite likely that the inhabitants of the occupied territories understand some facts about “the peace process” that are little noted here. Specifically, it is plain, on the ground, that the government of Israel never had the slightest intention of joining “the peace process” in anything other than a rhetorical sense, beyond the Sinai agreements, which had the merit of giving Israel a free hand elsewhere by effectively excluding Egypt from the conflict. Not only is this obvious from the settlement program and the internal repression, but it is even clear from the official record, a fact that Abba Eban has pointed out. He cites the official “Government policy guidelines” adopted by the Knesset (by a single vote), which state that “After the transition period laid down in the Camp David accords, Israel will raise its claim and will act to fulfill its rights to sovereignty over Judea, Samaria and the Gaza district” (Eban’s emphasis). “There is no resource of language,” he notes, “that can possibly bridge the gulf” between this decision and the Camp David Agreement, which leaves the status of the territories to be determined after the transition period by negotiations between Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and elected representatives of the inhabitants of the territories, not by Israeli actions. Eban states that he is unable to find any precedent “in the jurisprudence of any government for such a total contradiction between an international engagement and a national statement of policy.” Surely an exaggeration,* but nevertheless an understandable reaction to the immediate announcement by the government of Israel that it intended to disregard the Camp David Agreement, to which it pledges (and demands of others) total fidelity.57

  The poll results reflect the attitudes of those who have learned about the occupation, as conducted by the Labor Party and then Likud, from their own lives. They are deprived of New York Times editorials, and therefore—as their low regard for the Labor Party indicates—they are unaware that under the Labor Party the occupation was a “model of future cooperation” and a “nine-year experiment in Arab-Israeli coexistence,” or that the Labor Party in 1980 “has taken a giant step toward compromise with the West Bank Palestinians and thus challenged the Arab world to reciprocate with acts of restraint and conciliation”58 the “giant step” was a reiteration, once again, of the rejectionist Allon plan put into effect by the Labor Party ten years earlier.

  2.3.4 The United States and the Conquered Population * To mention only one obvious case, consider the statement of U.S. government policy by Kissinger and Nixon in January 1973 as they announced the signing of the Paris peace agreements concerning Vietnam, adding in the clearest and most explicit terms that the U.S. intended to violate every obligation to which it had just committed itself. For details concerning the facts, the consequences, and the U.S. reactions, see TNCW, chapter 3.

  The hopes and aspirations of the indigenous population are generally ignored in the United States, not because the facts are unknown—the poll just cited, for example, appeared prominently in Time magazine— but because the Palestinians are not accorded the human rights that are properly and automatically recognized in the case of Israeli Jews, so that their attitudes are of no account, just as one would not ask the donkeys in the West Bank what their preferences might be. Those who have backed or tolerated U.S policy towards the region, or who support either of the two major political groupings in Israel, simply announce thereby their complete contempt for the indigenous inhabitants of the former Palestine.

  Of course, such attitudes cannot be openly expressed. We therefore read in the New Republic that “No means exist of discovering what public opinion may be today [in] the occupied territories, which are the eye of the storm”—although the same author, who simply exudes sympathy for the Palestinians suffering under PLO terror, informs us confidently that Arafat’s “extraordinary public relations success has no popular base,” and that the “Palestinians en masse leave the PLO alone.”59 Evidently, polls carried out by Israel give us no insight into public opinion, just as we learn nothing from the elected leadership and others, even from Israel’s favorite collaborator Mustafa Dudin. The same authority explains that there are genuine “moderates” who might “agree to whatever is left of the concept of partition” (presumably he has in mind “territorial compromise” in the sense of the Labor Party). He even tells us who they are: Mayor Freij and dismissed Mayor Shawa (both of whom continue to support the PLO; see section 2.3.1 above), and Mustafa Dudin who, he informs us, “has met with the disdain of selfappointe
d Western tribunes for the Palestinians”—though not this tribune, who is unconcerned by the fact that his candidate for “responsible leadership” insists upon a Palestinian state contrary to his claims, and is supported by a rousing 0.2% of the population. Again, the age of Orwell, nowhere better exemplified than in the semi-official journal of American liberalism, as we shall have ample occasion to see below.

  It might be added that the sentiments of the Palestinians in the occupied territories regarding an independent state and the legitimacy of the PLO appear to be widely shared among Arab citizens of Israel as well. One of the Arab leaders who has been most closely integrated into Israeli political life, Saif ad-din Zuabi, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Begin protesting the expansion of the “Peace for Galilee” invasion of Lebanon beyond the originally-announced 40km limit. Zuabi, “who is known for his moderate opinions, indicated in his letter that he has never been an admirer of Yasser Arafat, but after the war it became clear to everyone that Yasser Arafat is the most fitting representative of the Palestinian people.”60 Similar conclusions have often been expressed within the Israeli Arab community. We return to more detailed studies of Israeli Arab opinion on these matters in chapter 7, section 4. 1.1.

  2.4 The Arab States and the PLO We have reviewed the international consensus and the positions of the U.S., Israel, and the Palestinians in the occupied territories. What about the Arab states and the PLO? The historical record is rather different from what is generally believed in the United States.

  2.4.1 The Erosion of Rejectionism and the U.S.-Israeli Response In the immediate post-1967 period, the Arab states and the PLO took a rejectionist position comparable to the stand that has been consistently maintained by Israel and the U.S. Not long after, this rejectionism began to erode. In February 1970, President Nasser of Egypt declared that “it will be possible to institute a durable peace between Israel and the Arab states, not excluding economic and diplomatic relations, if Israel evacuates the occupied territories and accepts a settlement of the problem of the Palestinian refugees.” Amnon Kapeliouk observes that “this declaration received no response at the time in Israel.”61 Note that settlement of the refugee problem within the context of a negotiated peace has been the official position of the U.S., along with virtually the entire world apart from Israel, since 1949, and is regularly endorsed in UN resolutions. Note also that Nasser made no reference to a Palestinian state, in accordance with the international consensus of the time. Nasser also “accepted the [Secretary of State William] Rogers [June 1970] proposals for a cease-fire and subsequent negotiations,” a “brave and constructive step” in the words of Zionist historian Jon Kimche.62

  After Nasser’s death, the new President, Anwar Sadat, moved at once to implement two policies: peace with Israel and conversion of Egypt to an American client state. In February 1971, he offered Israel a full peace treaty on the pre-June 1967 borders, with security guarantees, recognized borders, and so on. This offer caused much distress in Israel (it caused “panic,” in the words of the well-known Israeli writer Amos Elon),63 and was promptly rejected with the statement that Israel would not return to the internationally recognized pre-1967 borders. Note that Sadat’s offer of February 1971 was more favorable to Israel than what he proposed in November 1977 on the trip to Jerusalem that officially established him as “a man of peace,” since he made no mention of Palestinian rights, allegedly the stumbling block in the Camp David “peace process.” Sadat’s offer was in line with the international consensus of the period, in particular, with the Rogers Plan, which had been angrily rejected by Israel.64 In internal discussion in Israel, Labor Party doves recognized that a peace settlement was within reach, but recommended against it on the grounds that territorial gains would be possible if they held out.65

  Israel’s only reaction to Sadat’s offer, apart from the immediate flat rejection, was to increase settlement in the occupied territories. On the same day that Sadat’s offer was officially rejected, the Labor government authorized plans for settlement in the hills surrounding the Arab portion of Jerusalem, well beyond the earlier borders of the city, as part of the process of “thickening Jerusalem.” Noting this fact, Edward Witten comments on the similarity to Begin’s response to the Reagan plan in 1982: new settlements in response to a request for a settlement freeze (see section 2.2.1 above; we return to the facts). Witten also points out that Sadat clearly expressed his desire for “coexistence” with Israel at the same time in a Newsweek interview, and that Foreign Minister Abdullah Salah of Jordan announced that Jordan too was ready to recognize Israel, if it returned to the internationally-recognized pre-June 1967 borders (February 23, 1971). There appears to have been no Israeli response.66 In 1972, Israel’s Labor government angrily rejected the proposal of King Hussein of Jordan to establish a confederation of Jordan and the West Bank (again, a rejectionist position, denying Palestinian national rights). In response, the Israeli Knesset “determined,” for the first time officially, “that the historic right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel [including the West Bank] is beyond challenge,” while Prime Minister Golda Meir stated that “Israel will continue to pursue her enlightened policy in Judea and Samaria…” Her political adviser Israel Galili, who was in charge of settlement in the occupied territories, stated that the Jordan River should become Israel’s “agreed border—a frontier, not just a security border,” the latter term implying the possibility of some form of self-government, however limited, for the indigenous population.67

  Returning to Sadat’s February 1971 offer of a full peace treaty, Israel was backed in its rejection by the United States. Unfortunately for Sadat, his efforts came just at the time when Israel had established in Washington its thesis that it was a “strategic asset” for the U.S. (see chapter 2). Kissinger assumed that Israel’s power was unchallengeable, and takes considerable pride, in his memoirs, in his steadfastness in blocking the efforts of his primary enemy—the State Department— towards some peaceful resolution of the conflict. His aim, he writes, “was to produce a stalemate until Moscow urged compromise or until, even better, some moderate Arab regime decided that the route to progress was through Washington... Until some Arab state showed a willingness to separate from the Soviets, or the Soviets were prepared to dissociate from the maximum Arab program, we had no reason to modify our policy” of stalemate, in opposition to the State Department.68

  Kissinger’s account is remarkable for its ignorance and geopolitical fantasies, even by Kissingerian standards.* Sadat had explicitly decided that “the route to progress was through Washington,” joining Saudi Arabia and others (even when Sadat expelled Soviet advisers in 1972

  * Kissinger’s inability to comprehend what was happening in the Middle East was almost monumental in its proportions. The second volume of his memoirs extends the story. See the review by James E. Akins (U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1973 to 1976), who argues that “the truly tragic consequence of Watergate is that President Nixon was not in a strong enough position to dominate his secretary of state. Weakened and distracted by domestic issues, he allowed Kissinger to frustrate his own Middle East design. Had it not been for Watergate, it is possible, even probable, that Nixon would have achieved a just and lasting peace in the area and that the world would be much safer today.” See note 68.

  Kissinger did not see the light). Saudi Arabia was not only willing “to separate from the Soviets” but in fact did not even have diplomatic relations with them. The USSR backed the international consensus including the existence of Israel within recognized (pre-June 1967) borders and with security guarantees.69

  Apparently under Kissinger’s influence, the Nixon Administration decided to suspend State Department efforts aimed at a peaceful settlement in accordance with the international consensus and the explicit proposals of Egypt. An envoy was sent to a conference of U.S. ambassadors in the Mideast to announce the suspension of these efforts. “To a man, the U.S. ambassadors replied that if the countries in the Mideast con
cluded that the process itself had ended, there would be a disastrous war.”70 Sadat also repeatedly warned that he would be forced to resort to war if his efforts at a peaceful settlement were rebuffed, but he was dismissed with contempt, apparently because of the widespread belief in Israel’s military supremacy. Warnings from American oil companies operating in the Arabian peninsula concerning threats to U.S. interests were also disregarded.71 Nahum Goldmann, long a leading figure in the Zionist movement, observed that Sadat had conducted a “daring” policy by “declaring himself ready to recognize Israel, despite the opposition,” and that “if he cannot show that he can obtain results, the army will be compelled to launch a war.” Israel listened no more than Kissinger did, and on the same assumptions. After Israel shot down 13 Syrian planes with one Israeli plane lost in September 1973. the editor of one major Israeli journal wrote: “This battle will remind our Arab neighbors that they cannot manage their affairs without taking into consideration who is the true master of this region.”72