Fateful Triangle

Peace for Galilee517distribute blankets and clothing for refugees, returning the same night“after a mixed reception.” “In the Rashadiya refugee camp [the firsttarget of Israel’s assault], the distribution was disrupted by womenwhose relatives had been detained by the Israelis as suspected terrorists.‘We don’t want your clothes,’ they screamed. ‘We want our sons.’ Themission left the camp with the rest of its stock and turned it over to awelfare agency and two orphanages in Tyre and Sidon fordistribution.” 276 Nothing is said about the reaction of Tova Neta and herArab husband.Turning to the Hebrew press, we find a somewhat fuller account ofthis episode, under the title “the Jewish heart functioned withoutcommon sense.” 277 This humanitarian endeavor of the Magen DavidAdom (the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross) suffered numerous“disappointments.”The first disappointment awaited us a few kilometers southof Tyre, in the Rashidiyeh refugee camp. There was nointention to stop in this camp [since it contained theremnants of a Palestinian community, not Lebanese, and itwas not yet known that there was a Jewish woman there],but after we met a foreign television crew across the border,it was decided that it would be a good idea if TV would filmthe distribution of supplies in a refugee camp.In the camp, where “purification from terrorists lasted four days,” theIDF was preventing the refugees from returning to their homes (or whatwas left of them). Almost all the men had been taken to Israel for“interrogation and identification,” and the women and children whoremained lived in a nearby orchard—from which they were later drivenwhen the army became concerned that they were being filmed by TVClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky