by Noam Chomsky
Sharon’s war had long been anticipated within Israel, and the reasons for it were clearly understood. Three months earlier, in March, Yoel Marcus had written in Ha’aretz:
Behind the official excuse of “we shall not tolerate shelling or terrorist actions” lies a strategic view which holds that the physical annihilation of the PLO has to be achieved. That is, not only must its fingers and hands in the West Bank be amputated (as is now being done with an iron fist), but its heart and head in Beirut must be dealt with. As Israel does
* In this interview in Ha’aretz, Peretz urges “slightly better” treatment of the Arabs in the West Bank than is contemplated under Begin’s “autonomy,” which, he notes, will allow them no more than the right to collect garbage. He thinks that the “enlightened and liberal” occupation policy followed until 1981 was probably a mistake, and that his “old friend” Menachem Milson may be right in his view that “strongarm policies”—such as those discussed in the preceding chapter—should have been instituted from 1967, not just from 1981. We return directly to his thoughts concerning the press and “the Arab national character” (pp. 200, 283). The interview is interesting as a rather crude expression of the right-wing Labor viewpoint, barely distinguishable from that of Likud hard-liners. It may also be usefully compared to what Peretz addresses to an American audience in the New Republic. It is interesting that this advocate of an overwhelming assault on “the PLO” in Lebanon felt no shame in serving as a sponsor for an Oxfam “Urgent Humanitarian Appeal for the People of Lebanon” that described “The grim count of civilian casualties in Lebanon” with “thousands killed” and “hundreds of thousands of people homeless” (New York Times, June 20, 1982).
not want the PLO as a partner for talks or as an interlocuter for any solution in the West Bank, the supporters of confrontation with the PLO hold that the logical continuation of the struggle with the PLO in the territories is in Lebanon. With the loss of its physical strength, in their opinion, the PLO will lose not only its hold over the territories but also its growing international status.49
Marcus correctly identifies two concerns: the hold of the PLO over the territories—or more accurately, the support for the PLO on the part of the overwhelming majority of the population—and its growing international status. Both factors stood in the way of the rejectionist commitments of the two major political groupings in Israel.
The latter concern recalls the familiar “panic” described by Amos Elon whenever the threat of a peaceful political settlement becomes difficult to contain (see chapter 3). In fact, this panic was again rising in 1981-2, as we have already seen, with the Saudi Arabian peace plan (the “real author” being the PLO, according to President Chaim Herzog) and subsequent Syrian and Saudi initiatives. But now there was a still more ominous development: the PLO was scrupulously observing the cease-fire, despite many Israeli provocations. The struggle to portray the PLO as nothing more than a terrorist gang had already largely been lost in Europe, but the U.S. was still holding the line. But how long could American opinion remain under control if the PLO persisted on this dangerous course?
One might note again, in this connection, the curious beliefs of supporters of Israel about the “pro-PLO press” and the “numerous public figures” in the West and even Western governments that “encourage” the PLO in its “maximalist course” of destroying Israel; see chapter 1, first*. Similarly Martin Peretz explained to his Israeli audience that one of Israel’s problems in the U.S. is “Obviously—the press.” “The press you have lost years ago” because “most journalists are young people of the Vietnam generation whose sympathy is always granted to anyone who calls himself ‘a guerrilla’ or a ‘freedom fighter’,” and television simply “makes the problem worse.”50 A similar and equally plausible view of the press as Communist-dominated is common among the extreme right-wing in the U.S.
The dangers posed by PLO passivity were subsequently elaborated by Yehoshua Porath, one of Israel’s leading scholars and the author of major works on the Palestinian national movement, cited earlier. Commenting on the motives for the Israeli invasion, Porath dismisses at once the contrived excuse concerning the London assassination attempt as well as the claim that the purpose was to protect Israeli settlements in the Galilee, noting that the PLO had respected the July 1981 cease-fire. But Porath argues that the many commentators who have criticized Israeli propaganda on these grounds are missing the point. “It seems to me,” he writes, “that the decision of the government (or more precisely, its two leaders [Begin and Sharon]) flowed from the very fact that the cease-fire had been observed.” Arafat had succeeded in imposing discipline on the many PLO factions, thus maintaining the cease-fire that had been achieved under U.S. auspices. His success in this constituted “a veritable catastrophe in the eyes of the Israeli government,” since it indicated that the PLO “might agree in the future to a more far-reaching arrangement,”51 in which case Israel could no longer evade a political settlement on the grounds that the PLO is nothing but “a wild gang of murderers.” “It was this eventuality that the Israeli attack was primarily designed to prevent”:
The government’s hope is that the stricken PLO, lacking a logistic and territorial base, will return to its earlier terrorism: it will carry out bombings throughout the world, hijack airplanes, and murder many Israelis. In this way, the PLO will lose part of the political legitimacy that it has gained and will mobilize the large majority of the Israeli nation in hatred and disgust against it, undercutting the danger that elements will develop among the Palestinians that might become a legitimate negotiating partner for future political accommodations.52
Other commentators made the same point. Danny Rubinstein wrote in Davar that “The PLO as an orderly political body is more terrifying to the government of Israel than the powerful terrorist PLO.” This is the reason why “the government of Israel planned the Lebanon war for the entire past year (as Sharon has testified) and planned to reach Beirut (as all the commanders have testified).” Israel’s security had never been so great, but Arafat’s success in maintaining the cease-fire was a greater danger than any security threat because of the “political power that the PLO had developed,” so that “fear was growing” that it could not be excluded from negotiations, and negotiations would undermine Israel’s rejectionism, leading to Palestinian self-determination, i.e., a Palestinian state. The PLO must be forced back to “murderous terror” to overcome the danger of pressure from Western liberal opinion and the U.S. government (a dubious prospect) in favor of a two-state settlement.53
Always the same “panic” that there might be a peaceful political settlement, so that Judea, Samaria and Gaza would have to be abandoned, an intolerable prospect to both major political groupings. In line with this rather plausible analysis, one can expect that much of the U.S. press (the New Republic, New York Times, etc.), will eagerly seize upon any indication of PLO “radicalism,” which may indeed develop in the wake of the disaster that the Palestinians suffered in Lebanon, though by early 1983 there was as yet no sign of this much hoped-for development. See chapter 3, notes 115, 116 and chapter 6, section 3.1.
Some political commentators in the U.S. have argued that Israel’s intention to destroy the PLO is against its better interests, since success in this venture might provoke a return to terrorism among the scattered Palestinians, a danger to Israel and its citizens and indeed to much of the world. But as Porath, Rubinstein and others suggest—and their analysis is well-supported by the historical record that has been effectively suppressed in the U.S.—this interpretation misses the essential point: Israel’s goal is precisely to achieve this end, fending off the catastrophe of a political settlement in which both Palestinians and Israelis might live in peace and security. As was evident at the time, the Camp David accords and Kissinger’s earlier arrangements provided Israel with the opportunity for further moves to incorporate the occupied territories, and to facilitate such actions as the invasion of Lebanon undertaken in large pa
rt for the same ends.
In the latter connection, former military intelligence chief Shlomo Gazit observes that “behind the Lebanon victory lie the peace accords with Egypt,” which permitted Israel to concentrate its military forces in the north without fear of military retaliation by the Arab states.54 To underscore the seriousness of this point, Israel warned Egypt during the Lebanese war that if Egypt were to respond by severing diplomatic links, “the Israeli army would be used against Egypt.” This was reported by Labor Party chairman Shimon Peres at a meeting of Labor Knesset members, and “aroused anger among the ruling coalition, but has not been denied by any government spokesman.”55 The warning was presumably thought necessary because of the impact of the Israeli invasion in Egypt. Egyptian critics of the Camp David agreements were not surprised by the invasion. “Is it really amazing,” one said, “that Israel, supported by America, is implementing the American peace design, after it has separated Egypt from the Arab world?... We objected to the Camp David Accords since we perceived them as a trick to pull Egypt out of the Arab circle, and to make it easier for America and Israel to strike against the Palestinians and the Arab countries who refused to follow Egypt’s way.” It is primarily among supporters of the “peace process” that bitter anger is expressed. The editor of an Egyptian magazine, who backed the Camp David agreements, told a group of Israeli journalists: “You turned peace into something hated for the Egyptians.” The journalists discovered the truth of his statement from their own observations among officials, journalists, taxi drivers, salesmen and others. Unlike those who were skeptical from the start, “the advocates of peace with Israel feel defeated, deceived and scorned.” The editor quoted above says: “I perceived the peace with Israel to be the cornerstone for a comprehensive peace in the Middle East. But for you peace was merely a trick to neutralize us so as to more easily strike at the Palestinian people.”56
The critics of the “peace process” have been proven correct in their analysis by what has happened in the occupied territories and in Lebanon since, though the fact is almost completely unrecognized in the United States, where—by definition—whatever happens is the fault of the PLO, or perhaps Begin’s unanticipated excesses.
Israeli commentators are often clear enough about the central points; for example, David Krivine of the Jerusalem Post, quoted earlier, who observes accurately that Israel will not talk to the PLO “not because they are nasty people” but because “the subject on the agenda” can only be a Palestinian state, to which Israel will never agree because it must retain “part of’ the West Bank. Similarly the leader of the Labor Party, Shimon Peres, explains that “Israel cannot conduct negotiations with the PLO; not only because of the PLO’s past but because of the geographical map of Israel itself.”57 See also p. 157*. The reference to the PLO’s past can hardly be taken seriously considering the history of Zionism and the State of Israel, which Peres knows very well. And outside of the U.S., it is doubtful that many people would take very seriously Peres’s claim that the world’s fourth most powerful military force, which had just once again demonstrated its might, would be threatened by a Palestinian state or his further claim that Jordan too would be threatened by this emerging superpower (in fact, Jordan’s King Hussein is more likely to feel threatened by Israeli leaders who refer to a potential Palestinian state as “an additional Palestinian state,” as Peres does here, in the light of the implications of this view). But for an American audience it can pass. The more serious reasons for Israel’s insistence on maintaining effective control over the West Bank, we have discussed in chapter 3, section 2.2.1. Recall also the explanation given by Peres’s predecessor, Yitzhak Rabin, as to why Israel could never negotiate with any Palestinians: such negotiations could only lead to Palestinian selfdetermination in a separate state, which Israel will never accept (see chapter 3, section 2.4.2).
Many other Israeli commentators have emphasized the political goals of the operation. Former chief IDF education officer Mordechai Bar-On writes that “there is no doubt that the [war’s] central aim was to deal a crushing blow to the national aspirations of the Palestinians and to their very existence as a nation endeavouring to define itself and gain the right to self-determination.” And Ze’ev Schiff, Israel’s most respected military correspondent, wrote that the decision to enter West Beirut in September in defiance of earlier promises was not motivated, as claimed, “by the desire to prevent a state of anarchy and to save the city.” Rather, “the truth is that it was meant to further a different goal: to influence the election of Lebanon’s next president and the country’s future political path... It was an additional proof of the fact that the goals of the war have been, for a long time now, political and are not directly connected with Israel’s security,”58 as is constantly claimed and loyally repeated by American supporters of Israel.
Meanwhile much of the American press, either through naivete or cynicism, writes of the great opportunities that the Israeli invasion has offered, including the prospects for a territorial compromise in the West Bank that will lead to genuine recognition of Palestinian national rights—now that the PLO military force has been destroyed and PLO intimidation of “moderates” will no longer be possible in the occupied territories.
The truth of the matter, it seems rather clear, is somewhat different: the necessity to destroy the PLO politically—and along with it, organized Palestinian existence in Lebanon—flowed directly from the increasing isolation of the leaders of the rejectionist camp. As we have seen, the U.S. and Israel stood virtually alone (apart from a few holdouts such as Libya and Iraq,* and the minority Rejection Front of the PLO) in
* It had been assumed that at least Iraq would hold the line, but once again it appears that the Arabs cannot be trusted. On January 3, 1983, the Iraqi news agency released the text of an August 25 statement by President Saddam Hussein to Rep. Stephen Solarz in which Hussein recognized Israel’s “need for a state of security,” stating also that “no Arab leader has now in his policies the so-called destruction of Israel or wiping it out of existence.” Israel at once dismissed the statement as meaningless, the reflex reaction to peace threats. Foreign Minister Shamir stated “that there has been no change in Iraq’s attitude towards Israel”; perhaps he had in mind a New York Times report (Dec. 4, 1976) that all the Arab states, even Libya and Iraq, had accepted “the principle of a West Bank state” alongside of Israel. Sharon also dismissed the Iraqi statement, adding for good measure that Israel would not agree to negotiations that include any members of the PLO in a Jordanian delegation or even West
opposing a two-state settlement with recognized borders and security guarantees.59 To evade possibilities for a peaceful negotiated settlement would not be possible forever, it seemed. It was therefore necessary for the U.S. and Israel to resort to force, the dimension along which they reign supreme, to establish their own rejectionist terms as the framework for any potential settlement. This policy required the destruction of the organization that most Palestinians regard as their sole legitimate representative, or at least, impelling it towards random terrorism or a rejectionist stance of its own rather than still further political evolution. With this end achieved, Israel and the U.S. might pursue their respective—and somewhat different—rejectionist policies: for Israel, extension of sovereignty over the occupied territories; for the Reagan Administration, the September 1 proposals that reject a Palestinian state and exclude the PLO, i.e., that reject Palestinian selfdetermination. The U.S. press and intelligentsia could be counted on to characterize this rejectionist program as the soul of moderation and honor, the basis for any further discussion among humane people, thus eliminating the international consensus, which was becoming something of a nuisance, as an irrelevance. Given the overwhelming U.S.-Israeli
Bank Palestinians who support the PLO. For more on the matter, see Eric Rouleau’s interview with the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, Tariq Aziz, who observes that Iraq “went along with the Fez resolutions” of September 1982, which
advocated negotiations to establish a Palestinian state alongside of Israel and “to work out arrangements with Israel for guaranteeing the existence and security of all the states in question” (Aziz), including Israel and the Palestinian state. Iraq is also “urging Yasser Arafat to coordinate his diplomatic strategy with King Hussein’s.” Rouleau also notes a recent low-interest $450 million loan to Iraq from the U.S., part of the “cooperation with the United States [which] is developing in every field.”
control over the means of violence and the obedience of the intellectual community, there was every reason to expect success in these endeavors, and in fact, it has very largely been achieved.
Leaving no doubts as to its intentions in the Lebanon war, Israel quickly proceeded to dissolve the elected city councils of Nablus and Dura in the West Bank and to dismiss the mayors of Jenin and Gaza, also arresting city employees in Jenin. Previously, other elected mayors of major towns had been dismissed or deported, leaving only Mayor Elias Freij of Bethlehem. Mayor Shawa of Gaza had been appointed by the Israeli military government and was known as a supporter of King Hussein of Jordan; he reports that he had been subjected to severe economic pressures by the military government in an effort to induce complete conformity. Shortly after, Israel set up a new Village League near Nablus, with a substantial grant for a water supply project, regularly denied to democratically elected officials. Under the SharonMilson regime, standard procedure for imposing the rule of the selected quisling leadership is to channel subsidies for development to them, require merchants to apply to them or join them to obtain licenses, etc. (supply of arms is another device). Indeed, such measures are necessary given the minuscule support for the official “moderates”; see chapter 3, section 2.3. As noted there, the Leagues were then united in a regional organization with the “political task” of representing the West Bank in negotiations with Israel. Meanwhile, student protests over the invasion of Lebanon at Bir Zeit University led to tear-gassing by Israeli soldiers and many arrests, beating and harassment of students (according to the university president), and finally closing down of the university—once again. From mid-June, demonstrations and a general merchant strike (in the usual manner, merchants were forced by the occupying army to open shops) were met by firing with injuries. Two inhabitants of Nablus were killed during a demonstration in which Israeli soldiers opened fire (the government claims they were not killed by soldiers), and members of the Village Leagues, armed by Israel, killed and wounded a number of West Bank opponents.