Fateful Triangle

The Road to Armageddon763role is secondary at best, and in any event, of far less significance forAmericans than the role of the U.S. and U.S.-supported Israel, fortransparent reasons, which merit comment, if at all, only because of theconstant pretense of inability to understand them: it is the policies of theU.S. that we can hope to influence, and indirectly, the policies of othersthat are shaped to a degree by U.S. action.4.1 Assuming U.S. Rejectionism4.1.1 The Spectrum of Israeli Political ThinkingAs has been made abundantly clear, the two major political groupingsin Israel are alike in their rejectionism, but differ in the means bywhich they choose to implement it. Both intend to hold on to the GolanHeights and Gaza Strip. As for the West Bank, Likud advocates anextension of Israeli “sovereignty” while Labor prefers that Israel maintaincontrol over its resources and a substantial part of its territory whileovercoming the “demographic problem” by leaving the population statelessor under some form of Jordanian administration but Israeli militarycontrol. Neither position can be reconciled with the rather vague rhetoricof the Reagan plan, though Labor’s position comes closer. For this andother reasons, the U.S. government and a good part of the press appearto favor the return of Labor to power.Poll results indicate that none of the current Labor leaders comeclose to Begin in popularity. Consequently there has been some hopethat former President Yitzhak Navon, a Labor Party veteran who is ofSephardic origin and who ranks considerably higher in the polls, * will*See P. 440*. Some early 1983 polls indicated that if the Labor Alignment wereled by Navon, it would draw even with Begin’s Likud, though few politicalClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky