Fateful Triangle

Peace for Galilee510reason. The diplomatic correspondent of the Jerusalem Post writes thatMr. Begin reportedly took heart from a warm reception hereceived from worshippers at a Jerusalem synagogue onYom Kippur [September 27, shortly after the Beirutmassacres]. His devotees may have drawn encouragement,too, from the report that a crowd of angry stallholders andshoppers in the Jerusalem vegetable market the previousday mobbed [an Israeli] radio van, chanting “Begin, Begin,”and pouring out their wrath upon the media for bringingIsrael to its present sorry state. 267The press reports the same incident:The rioters kicked the [Israeli Radio] van and then attackedthe three radio employees inside. “How much were youbribed to do the job for them?,” they shouted at one of thereporters. Radio technician Mordechai Maimoni, who hadbeen held prisoner by the al-Amal forces in Lebanon, saidthat “the terrorists treated us better than did this mob.” Themob blamed the radio reporters for the incidents in Beirutand cursed them for reporting the mass demonstrations ofPeace Now. 268The “incidents” in question were the massacres at Sabra and Shatila.Maimoni’s use of the term “terrorists” for the Lebanese Shiite militia thatwas resisting the Israeli invasion alongside of the PLO deserves specialnotice. In fact, Lebanese who resisted the Israeli invasion did become“terrorists” officially, which makes sense, given that it was an operationto liberate the Lebanese from terrorism. It is, then, not too surprising toClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky