Fateful Triangle

Rejectionism and Accomodation149but others do, for example, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, who describes theZionist Organization of America as (in recent years) “the American wingof the Liberal Party in Israel which, together with Begin’s Revisionists,make up the Likud. 95 Thus the two extremes that have been “highlighted”in recent debate among American Jews are not exactly equallyrepresented: one consists of George Habash, and the other, the ZionistOrganization of America, and in fact, most others in the organizedJewish community.Helprin then proceeds to give the version of history as perceived inthe “middle ground.” Apart from the U.S., we find “the facile rejection ofIsrael and compassionate overembrace of its enemies by nearly all theworld,” including Europe, which “hardly reacted” to PLO atrocities in thepast, saving its condemnations for Israel—a ridiculous falsification, ofcourse, but one that appears to be widely believed in the U.S. and issometimes supported with serious misrepresentation; for one example,by Saul Bellow, see TNCW, pp. 303-4. As for Israel, while it is notperfect, its “campaign in Lebanon was both late in coming andrestrained in character when compared with what any other state,civilized or uncivilized, would do in reaction to the continual shelling ofits cities, the murder of its children and the massing of arms against itfor years without abatement.” Omitted are a few possibly pertinent facts:e.g., that Israel occupies Arab territory from which hundreds ofthousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled in 1967 (not to speak ofquestions that might be raised about earlier years) and that the PLO hadscrupulously adhered to the July 1981 cease-fire in the face of constantIsraeli provocations, a matter to which we return.As for the PLO, it “is to the slaughter of men, women and childrenwhat France is to wine.” Assuming this to be a valid characterization,we may ask what analogy is appropriate for Israel with its far greaterslaughters since the early 1950s, long before the PLO was founded, orClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky