Fateful Triangle

Rejectionism and Accomodation112either Israeli or Jordanian citizenship, while Israeli sovereignty remainsin force over the entire territory in question. Surely it is intended by bothLabor and Likud that the Jewish settlers will retain Israeli citizenship.Under the Labor Alignment plan, the inhabitants would be Jordaniancitizens or stateless, but effectively under Israeli control.In essence, then, the two programs are not very different. Theirdifference lies primarily in style. Labor is, basically, the party of theeducated Europe-oriented elite—managers, bureaucrats, intellectuals,etc. Its historical practice has been to “build facts” while maintaining alow-keyed rhetoric with conciliatory tones, at least in public. In private,the position has been that “it does not matter what the Gentiles say,what matters is what the Jews do” (Ben-Gurion) and that “the borders[of Israel] are where Jews live, not where there is a line on a map”(Golda Meir). 21 This has been an effective method for obtaining the endssought without alienating Western opinion—indeed, while mobilizingWestern (particularly American) support.In contrast, the mass base of the Likud coalition is largely theunderclass, the lower middle class, and the workforce, the Sephardicpopulation of Arab origin, along with religious-chauvinist elements,including many recent immigrants from the U.S. and the USSR; it alsoincludes industrialists and many professionals. Its leadership is not soattuned to Western styles of discourse and has frequently been willing toflaunt its disregard for the hypocritical Gentile world, often in a mannerregarded as openly insulting in the West, including the U.S. Forexample, in response to Reagan’s September 1982 call for a settlementfreeze, the Likud leadership simply announced plans for 10 newsettlements while Begin sent a “Dear Ron” letter with a lesson on“simple historic truth.” 22 Under somewhat similar circumstances in thepast, Labor responded not by establishing new settlements but by“thickening” existing ones or by establishing military outposts whichClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky