Fateful Triangle

The Palestinian Uprising805has no significance” (quoted by Arthur Ruppin). 20 American journalistVincent Sheean, who arrived in Palestine as an avid Zionist in 1929, lefta few months later a harsh critic of the Zionist enterprise largely becauseof the attitudes among the Jewish settlers towards what they called the“uncivilized race” of “savages” and “Red Indians,” “squatters for thirteencenturies” who, as David Ben-Gurion put it in words that are stillcommonly echoed, would be “equally at ease whether in Jordan,Lebanon or a variety of places” which are “as much his country as thisis. And as little.” 21 The Palestinians, obtuse and recalcitrant, refuse tosee the point.Early settlers, including those regarded as enlightened, saw the issueas “a conflict between culture and wild men”; “there is no race morecowardly, hypocritical and dishonest than this race” (Avshalom Feinbergto Henrietta Szold). They warned of “the Eastern mentality,” with itslack of civilized norms and reliance on violence, a “culture of half-savagepeoples.” 22 Turning to the present, Minister of Justice Avraham Sharirinforms an audience of American Jewish functionaries in February 1988that “The Arabs are liars from birth,” eliciting no reaction, the Israelipress reports. The head of Israel’s Northern Command, General AvigdorBen Gal, described the Arabs of Galilee (within Israel proper) as “acancer in Israel’s body” an attitude echoed in references to the“underpopulated Galilee” (Irving Howe), meaning that the Galilee hastoo few Jews (but too many Arab citizens, Israel fears). Others fulminateover the Arab “crazed in the distinctive ways of his culture” andcommitted to “pointless” though “momentarily gratifying” acts of“bloodlust” (New Republic editor Martin Peretz) . 23These persistent attitudes, familiar throughout the history ofEuropean colonialism, help us understand what is happening today TheIsraeli editor Yigal Schwartz, on completing his tour as a reserve officerin the West Bank, described the prevailing attitude among the militaryClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky