Fateful Triangle

The Palestinian Uprising8511987-8; Middle East International, May 28.45. Segev, Ha’aretz, Jan. 8, 1988. See Gabi Nitzan, Koteret Rashit, Dec.30, 1987, for a particularly harrowing example. Translated by IsraelShahak.46. My report of this incident, published in an Israeli political journal inwhich much of this article appeared, struck the very knowledgeableIsraeli writer Boaz Evron as “a bit shocking even by the ‘accepted norms’in the occupied territories.” But he writes that his skepticism abatedwhen he received an issue of a Kibbutz journal in which membersdescribed their personal experiences, some of which he recounts. Aparticipant in the armed struggle against the British in the pre-stateperiod, Evron observes that “we didn’t throw stones, but carried out‘personal terror’ against them, killing and wounding them... We wereconfident that we were dealing with an enlightened cultured nation thatwould be bound by moral constraints and therefore permitted ourselvessuch actions.” Palestinians, he writes bitterly, can make no suchassumption. We denounced the British as “Nazi-British,” he writes, butthey were “a miracle of politeness and humanity in comparison to ourbehavior in crushing the Intifada,” and “the Jewish community neverreached the level of determination and sacrifice of the Palestiniansstruggling for liberation against us.” Evron, “Silence is Trash,” YediotAhronot, Aug. 8, 1988.47. Hareven, op cit.; Gilat, Hadashot, April 7.48. See press release, Arab Studies Society, Sept. 13, 1987; The Otherlsrael, Nov.-Dec. 1987.49. Apr. 14.50. AP, Mar. 28. There was brief and inadequate notice in the Boston Globe,Mar. 29 and NYT, Mar. 28; editorial, JP, Mar. 29, deploring the army’s“blunder.”51. Dan Fisher, Los Angeles Times, Apr. 10; Uri Nir, Ha’aretz, Apr. 13; AP,Apr. 9. A May 3 NYT report from the village by Joel Brinkley describesnone of this.52. Yizhar Be’er and Munir Man’e, Kol Hair, Apr. 15.53. John Kifner, NYT, Apr. 7, 8, 9; News from Within (AlternativeClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky