Fateful Triangle

Rejectionism and Accomodation115Similar views were expressed by Prime Minister Golda Meir of theLabor Party, much admired here as a grandmotherly humanitarianfigure, in her remark that:It was not as though there was a Palestinian people inPalestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and wecame and threw them out and took their country away fromthem. They did not exist. 27Elsewhere, she describes the Palestinian problem as merely an“invention of some Jews with distorted minds.” 28In accordance with these dominant views concerning the Palestinians,an Israeli court ruled in 1969 that the Palestinians “are not a partyto the conflict between Israel and the Arab States,” and Foreign MinisterAbba Eban of the Labor Party (a well-known dove) insisted that thePalestinians “have no role to play” in any peace settlement, 29 a positionthat received no major challenge within the Labor Party when itgoverned or in opposition. Simha Flapan concludes his study of thisquestion with the observation that “The Palestinians were neverregarded as an integral part of the country for whom long-term planshad to be made, either in the Mandatory period or since theestablishment of the state.” This was the most “lasting impact” of“Weizmann’s legacy.” 30 This appears to be quite a realistic judgment, asfar as the mainstream of the Zionist movement was concerned. Wereturn to further discussion in the next chapter.These positions, which have been consistently maintained, amount torejectionism in its clearest form, though the matter is rarely seen in thislight in the U.S. Both major political groupings in Israel have taken theposition that Jordan is a Palestinian state, and that Israel will accept nothird state between Israel and Jordan—the “Jordanian-Palestinian ArabClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky