Fateful Triangle

Aftermath586authorization of Hussein to take part in negotiations over the plan thatIsrael had rejected out of hand with American support. The requiredconclusion was established without noticeable difficulty while the actualfacts of the matter were dispatched to their deserved location, Orwell’smemory hole.A few points of clarification may be in order. First, Israel would havebeen more than pleased to have Hussein join negotiations over the planit had rejected, thus tacitly accepting the crucial Israeli principle that thePalestinians have no national rights, that they “are not a party to theconflict” as Israeli courts have ruled and “have no role to play” in anypeace settlement, in the words of Labor Party dove Abba Eban (seechapter 3, section 2.2.2). Then Israel could have proceeded to take overthe territories, with constant U.S. support, while the negotiationsdragged on meaninglessly, or perhaps its extension of sovereignty mighteven be ratified in some form. No other outcome was possible, givenAmerican support for a Greater Israel, which persisted, in fact wasreinforced in the months that followed. Second, it should be noted thatif the PLO had adapted itself more successfully to the norms of westernhypocrisy, pursuing a more intelligent diplomatic course, this wouldhave marginally complicated the task faced by American propagandists:namely, to show that the failure of the plan was the fault of the Arabsand the PLO. The problems they would then have faced would havebeen comparable to the problems posed by Sadat’s 1971 peace offer orthe two-state settlement proposed by the PLO and the Arab states inJanuary 1976; that is, it might have taken a day or two to restore theParty Line to full effectiveness. It is difficult to imagine any otheroutcome, despite much nonsense that has been written about thematter. Let us now review the subsequent events, which followed theirpredictable course.Reagan’s proposals, while flatly inconsistent with the Likud program,Classics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky