Fateful Triangle

by Noam Chomsky

  U.S. policy has always been strictly rejectionist, similar to that of Hizbollah, except that Washington denies national rights to Palestinians, not Jews. Again, the modalities have varied over the years, though basic assumptions have been stable, as has the doctrinal framework: thus, Washington is invariably seeking peace and justice, pursuing the ‘peace process,” a term of Newspeak that refers to Washington’s efforts to impose its own rejectionist goals, excluding all diplomatic initiatives that conflict with them. In its recent version, the “peace process” has been based on the Baker-Shamir-Peres Plan of 1989, which barred any “additional Palestinian state in the Gaza district and in the area between Israel and Jordan” (Jordan already being a “Palestinian state”) or any negotiations with the PLO, and declared that “There will be no change in the status of Judea, Samaria and Gaza other than in accordance with the basic guidelines of the Government” of Israel, which reject Palestinian self-determination. With these “basic principles” in place, there are to be “free elections” under Israeli military occupation to yield “autonomy.”30

  In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf conflict, there were new opportunities for advancing this project as well as new urgency in pursuing it The opportunities derived from the forceful assertion of unilateral U.S. power over the region, the demoralization of the Arab world (and the Third World generally), the abdication of Europe, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, leaving Russia as an even more loyal client than Britain, perhaps. The urgency arose from the need to concoct some triumph” to conceal the disastrous consequences of the U.S.-U.K. war in the Gulf, with Saddam firmly in power cheerfully slaughtering Shiites and Kurds while Stormin’ Norman and the heroic George Bush stood quietly aside, U.S. corporations beginning to rake in huge contracts for reconstruction of the ruins, and “an excess of more than 46,900 children [dying in Iraq] between January and August 1991” from the effects of the war and the sanctions, according to a study conducted by leading U.S. and foreign medical specialists reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, far more since.31

  Something had to be done. Accordingly a new “peace initiative” was declared with much fanfare, amidst praise for the noble President who “has made very clear that he wants to breathe light into that hypothetical creature, the Middle East peace process” (Anthony Lewis). The story since should surprise no one who looked beyond the impressive chorus of self-praise to the not-very-obscure facts.32

  The U.S. still remains committed to the “peace process” it initiated, not surprisingly, given its framework. We therefore have even more powerful reasons for recognizing that “this is not the moment for sermons to Israel,” rather for “respect for Israel’s anguish—and for mourning the latest victims of Israel-Palestinian hostility.” Sermons—let alone any other reaction—would only impede the “peace process.” Indeed the “peace process,” apologists argue, has been advanced by Rabin’s violence, not only for the powerful reasons given by Israeli authorities but also because it enables Rabin to fend off criticism from the right as he strides towards “territorial compromise.”

  Rabin’s assault on Lebanon is thus much like Clinton’s bombing of Iraq a month earlier in retaliation for an alleged threat to assassinate a former U.S. leader, a crime so heinous that our pure sensibility can scarcely even imagine how it could be conceived by some distorted and primitive mind. Clinton’s brave act, we were informed, relieved the fears that the old draft dodger might be less prone to violence than his predecessors, and refuted the dangerous belief that “American foreign policy in the post-Cold War era was destined to be forever hogtied by the constraints of multilateralism” (Washington Post)—that is, by international law and the UN Charter.33

  Welcome to the New World Order.

  4. Post-Oslo Lebanon

  R

  abin’s July 1993 war having achieved its goals, the pattern returned to normal. Israel continued to attack Lebanon at will, sometimes in retaliation for Hizbollah attacks on military personnel in Israel’s “security zone,” sometimes with no pretext.

  Hundreds of Lebanese were killed, but few were counting, so details are unknown. Israel’s use of “internationally banned shells which spray steel darts” was justified by Health Minister Ephraim Sneh, a former army commander, as “a very good weapon” that is “completely legitimate” in a war against “terrorists,” with no “ethical constraint.”34

  In April 1996, Rabin’s successor, Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres, concluded his term in office by conducting “Operation Grapes of Wrath,” a virtual replay of Rabin’s 1993 “Operation Accountability.” The background was approximately the same as for Rabin’s terrorist attack.

  Human Rights Watch compiled a sample of incidents from July 1993 to the launching of “Grapes of Wrath.” All Hizbollah attacks on Israel in the sample are retaliatory The regular pattern is a Hizbollah operation against Israeli forces or their mercenaries in Israel’s “security zone,” followed by Israeli attacks north of the zone, then Hizbollah rocketing of northern Israel. Other Israeli attacks (also often killing civilians) were unprovoked. That continued to March 30, 1996, when Israeli shelling killed two civilians north of the security zone, without provocation, leading to Hizbollah retaliation.35

  After an Israeli soldier was killed in Lebanon on April 10, Peres launched the new invasion with strong support from the Clinton Administration. The press largely followed the course of falsification and apologetics illustrated earlier and more extensively in sources cited. Even the Israeli massacre of over 100 refugees sheltering in the UN base at Qana was justified by President Clinton as a “tragic misfiring by Israel in its legitimate exercise of its right of self-defense” in response to a “deliberate tactic of Hizbollah” to position rockets near civilians. By this time, however, international protest had become so intense (including UN and Amnesty International reports indicating that the massacre was probably deliberate) that Washington and the media chose to distance themselves. Washington tried but failed to establish a cease-fire agreement that would modify the 1993 terms still more in Israel’s favor, but was compelled to adopt the basic outlines of a French proposal that barred operations against civilians while allowing resistance to the Israeli occupation. The outcome was depicted as a grand achievement of U.S. diplomacy; Europe’s intervention elicited occasional tirades, notably by Thomas Friedman of the New York Times whose “advice to the Euros” was “get a life”: keep to your own internal affairs and don’t interfere with the world ruler.

  The pattern then resumed, but with an important change. Israeli forces, including elite units, began to suffer serious military setbacks, and resistance actions became more effective. As in the latter stages of the U.S. wars in Indochina, the military leadership began to be concerned about morale and performance. Rising casualties led to domestic protest, and voices calling for withdrawal were heard in the Israeli mainstream. By 1998, the government indicated that it would accept UN 425, but only with qualifications that remained unacceptable to Lebanon and Syria. For the Lebanese, terror continued, with some innovations: in the security zone, “Israeli lorries have been scooping up truckload after truckload of Lebanon’s fertile topsoil and carting [it] off to Israel,” leaving the Lebanese “with an ugly open-cast mine”—“a new interpretation of the land-for-peace principle,” the London Economist commented. After denying the reports, Israel conceded that they were accurate, claiming that the practice would be stopped. “Most Lebanese feel that the theft of soil, just like all of Israel’s aggressions against Lebanon and its more than 20-year occupation of the country will most likely go unpunished,” the Egyptian press reported, and “observers believe that even if the Security Council issued a condemnation, the US would most likely veto it,” as in the past. Meanwhile attacks on Lebanon continued. As the end of 1998 approached, Israeli warplanes attacked eastern Lebanon with rockets, “reportedly killing a woman and her six children,” injuring her husband and another child. The Israeli military “expressed regret,” attributing th
e killings to a “malfunction.” No pretext was offered. As is the norm, a few lines sufficed, unlike any counterpart with “worthy victims.”36

  Notes—Chapter 9 “Limited War” in Lebanon

  1. Ahmed Mantash, Sidon, AP BG, July 31; Chris Hedges, NYT, July 31, Aug. 1; Mary Curtius, BG, July 30, citing Lebanese press reports on refugees; Ethan Bronner, BG, Aug. 1,1993.

  2. Hedges, NYT, Jerusalem, NYT, July 29, July 28; Peter Ford, Tyre, CSM, July 30; Mark Nicholson, FT. July 28, 29; Ethan Bronner, BG, July 27; Joel Greenberg, NYT, July 30, 1993. On Israeli hijacking and terror in international waters and the reaction in the U.S. national media, see Necessary Illusions, p. 118, and my article in Alex George, ed., Western State Terrorism (Polity, 1991).

  3. Klein, Hadashot, July 29; Robert Fisk, Independent, July 28; Dani Sadeh, Meir Shalev, Yediot Ahronot, July 29, 1993.

  4. Nicholson,FT. Aug. 2.

  5. Eitan Rabin, et al., Ha’aretz, Feb. 17, 1992. Amnon Levi, Hadashot, July 28, 1993. Barak’s statement reported by Ethan Bronner, BG, July 26, 1993.

  6. Hedges, NYT, July 31.

  7. Bronner, BG. Aug. 1; Hedges, NYT, Aug. 1.

  8. Security Council, SC/5676, 28 July 1993, press release.

  9. The primary reason for Washington’s effective veto of the anti-terrorism resolution was probably concern over the fate of the Apartheid regime in South Africa, but since the event received no coverage or discussion, and documents are unavailable, one can only surmise. The silencing of the fate of the most important international declaration condemning terrorism is particularly instructive in light of the fact that a leading theme of U.S. government/media propaganda at the time was “the plague of terrorism” (of the wrong sort—not the phenomenal escalation of U.S.-backed terror in Central America, for example). On the criteria for distinguishing PC from politically incorrect terror, see among others George, op cit.; Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, The Political Economy of Human Rights, 2 vols. (South End, 1979); Herman, The Real Terror Network (South End, 1992).

  10. Cited by William Quandt, Peace Process (Brookings, 1993), 576.

  11. Levi, Hadashot, July 28; Hedges, NYT, July 28, Aug. 1; Ford, CSM, July 30; Bronner, July 27.

  12. Bronner, BG, July 29.

  13. Bronner, BG, Aug. 1.

  14. See 7.4.1.2. The project was later repackaged as an “arms for hostage” deal, which has a more appealing and humanitarian ring. There were no hostages when it began. As participants made clear, it was undertaken as standard operating procedure for overthrowing a civilian government: deny aid, arm the military. Some recent success stories had been Indonesia (Suharto) and Chile (Pinochet). For more detail, see pp. 457f., and my Culture of Terrorism (South End, 1988). On Israel’s involvement in the early phase of the Nicaraguan operations, in close collaboration with Argentine neo-Nazis, see Ariel Armony, Argentina, the United Argentina, the United 1984 (Ohio University Center for International Studies, Latin American Series #26, Athens, Ohio, 1997), 153f. On Israel’s warm relations with the anti-Semitic murderers and torturers who ruled Argentina at the time, specifically targeting Jews, see Towards a New Cold War, p. 292

  15. Ozanne, FT. July 29; Andoni, CSM, July 30; Sciolino, NYT, July 27; Friedman, NYT, Aug. 1.

  16. What follows is documented in earlier publications of mine, including Fateful Triangle (1983 edition), Pirates and Emperors, Necessary Illusions, and Letters from Lexington (Common Courage, 1993). For a comprehensive review on Lebanon, see Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation (Atheneum, 1990).

  17. Greenway, BG, July 29, 1993.

  18. Israeli Chief-of-Staff Rafael (“Raful”) Eitan rejects this interpretation, which he attributes to “some academics” (presumably Israeli), offering instead the account presented in chapter 4.5, 196f.: Israel reacted to the Argov assassination attempt by bombing Lebanon (irrelevantly, as he knew), which killed hundreds of civilians (as he fails to mention), and invaded only after “the terrorists bombarded northern Israel” in reaction to the murderous attack he launched. Accordingly Israel’s invasion was retaliatory, hence justified. Eitan, A Soldier’s Story: The Life and Times of an Israeli War Hero (New York, 1991), cited by Kirsten Schulze in Israel Studies 3.2 (Fall 1998).

  19. Thomas Friedman, NYT, Jan-Feb. 1985. See note 16, this chapter, for many similar examples.

  20. Elaine Sciolino, NYT, July 27, 1993.

  21. For sources, here and below, see references of note 16, this chapter.

  22. See note 16, this chapter, for a review through 1990.

  23. Davar, Aug. 15; AP, Nov. 16; Dani Sadeh, Yediot Ahronot, Dec. 22, 1991. Ahmed Mantash, AP, BG. Jan. 11, 1992.

  24. Ibid.; Ihsan Hijazi, NYT, Jan. 11; Clyde Haberman, NYT, Feb. 16, 17, 22; Ihsan Hijazi, NYT, Feb. 20; special, Ihsan Hijazi, NYT, Feb. 22; Guardian Weekly, Mar. 1, 1992.

  25. Chicago Tribune, May 26, 27; AP, BG, June 29; Clyde Haberman, NYT, Oct. 27, 1992.

  26. Ihsan Hijazi, NYT, Feb. 18; Reuters, NYT, Apr. 13; AP, BG, Apr. 17, 1993. UN Security Council press release, op cit.

  27. See ch. 5, sec. 1.

  28. David Hoffman, “Israel’s $10 Billion Nevermind,” WP Weekly, WP Weekly, 27, 1993.

  29. Barzilai, July 12, 1993.

  30. For details, see Necessary illusions, Deterring Democracy, Afterword, and World Orders.

  31. Special Article, Alberto Ascherio, et al., “Effect of the Gulf War on Infant and Child Mortality in Iraq,” NEJM, vol. 327, no. 13, 1993.

  32. See my articles in Z Magazine, October and December 1991; and references of note 30, this chapter.

  33. Ruth Marcus and Daniel Williams, WP-MG weekly, July 4, 1993.

  34. Reuter, Independent, Feb. 2, 1996; Sneh quoted speaking over Israeli radio. For documentation here and below, see World Orders, Epilogue.

  35. Ibid., for further details. Human Rights Watch, Civilian Pawns: Laws of War Violations and the Use of Weapons on the Israel-Lebanon Border (May, 1996).

  36. Economist, Nov. 14; Zeina Khodr, Al-Ahram, Nov. 18, 1998. For U.S. interpretation of Israel’s reaction, see Deborah Sontag, “Israel Rethinking Stand in Lebanon,” NYT, Nov. 28, 1998, with standard falsifications and crucial omissions. AP, NYT, Dec. 23, 1998.

  10. Washington’s “Peace Process”

  1. Oslo I*

  O

  n August 30, 1993, the Israeli Cabinet approved a draft agreement on “Palestinian self-rule” that had been reached by the government of Israel and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat’s personal representatives. To understand what has been

  achieved, it is necessary to recall the relevant background.1 Israel’s policy spectrum with regard to the occupied territories is illuminated in a study by Peace Now, which compares four different plans for the territories from 1968 to 1992, asking how many Palestinians would be within areas annexed by Israel if these plans were enacted today: (1) the 1968 Allon Plan (Labor); (2) the 1976 Labor Party Settlement Plan (never officially adopted though “it has informed practical decision-making and action”); (3) the Ariel Sharon Plan of 1992 (Likud), which created eleven isolated and discontinuous “cantons” for Palestinian autonomy; (4) the Defense Establishment Plan of 1992 (Labor), which deals only with the West Bank. The number of Palestinians in settlements to be annexed are as follows:

  *Taken from “The Israel-Arafat Agreement,” Z Magazine, October 1993.

  (1) Allon Plan: 385,000, 91,000 in the West Bank and the rest in Gaza

  (2) Labor Party Settlement Plan: 603,000, 310,000 in the West

  Bank

  (3) Sharon Plan: 393,000, 378,000 in the West Bank

  (4) Defense Establishment Plan: 204,000 in the West Bank, Gaza

  unspecified.

  To these figures must be added the 150,000 Palestinians of East Jerusalem, to be annexed in all plans, the Peace Now study notes. ‘The Labor Party plan of 1976 would annex the greatest number of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza,” while the Sharon Plan “is the maximalist plan with regard to the West Bank,” though ceding selfrule to more Gaza Palestinians than the Labor
plans.

  As the analysis indicates, the policy spectrum has been narrow, and invariably rejectionist. The political blocs have differed on West Bank Arab population concentrations, Labor being more concerned than Likud to exclude them from areas scheduled for Israeli takeover. Washington has favored Labor Party rejectionism, more rational than the Likud variety, which has no real provision for the population of the occupied territories except eventual “transfer” (expulsion).

  After the Gulf war, Europe accepted the U.S. position that the Monroe Doctrine effectively extends over the Middle East; Europeans would henceforth refrain from independent initiatives, limiting themselves to helping implement U.S. rejectionist doctrine, as Norway indeed did in 1993. The Soviet Union was gone from the scene, its remnants now loyal clients of Washington. The UN had become virtually a U.S. agency. Whatever space the superpower conflict had left for nonalignment was gone, and the catastrophe of capitalism that swept the traditional colonial domains of the West in the 1980s left the Third World mired in general despair, disciplined by forces of the managed market. With Arab nationalism dealt yet another crushing blow by Saddam’s aggression and terror and PLO tactics of more than the usual ineptitude, the Arab rulers had less need than before to respond to popular pressures with pro-Palestinian gestures. The U.S. was therefore in a good position to advance its rejectionist program without interference, moving towards the solution outlined by Secretary of State James Baker well before the Gulf crisis: any settlement must be based on the 1989 plan of the government of Israel, which flatly bars Palestinian national rights (Baker Plan, December 1989).2