Fateful Triangle

Israel and Palestine: Historical Backgrounds213“may be characterized as undeveloped, non-viable, stagnant anddependent. It is an auxiliary sector of both the Israeli and Jordanianeconomies.” It is a “captive market” for Israeli manufactures, Israel’slargest single market, where 25% of Israel’s exports are sold. 67 There is“no capital investment, no government investment in industrialinfrastructure, no credit facilities or capital market, no protection fromthe import of Israeli goods.” There are, however, Israeli taxes. Theworking population increasingly serves as a cheap labor force for Israel,a repetition of what happened to the Arab population within Israel itself;in the terms preferred by Col. (ret.) Sasson Levi, a specialist in Arabaffairs who “served in a key capacity in the military government of Judeaand Samaria,” the Arabs of the territories benefit from “the opportunitygiven to them to work in Israel.” 68 Continuing with the rhetoric preferredby the conquerors, Israeli scholars Sandler and Frisch (see note 67) areeuphoric about “the remarkable accomplishments of the territories in thelast decade” and “the benefits derived from contact with Israel.” LikeCol. Levi and many others, they have little to say about why thePalestinians in the territories do not appear to share their enthusiasm.Perhaps this is yet another manifestation of Irving Howe’s “sourapothegm: In the warmest of hearts there’s a cold spot for the Jews”; orperhaps, as Levi remarks, the reason is that “the terrorist organizationscontinued to incite the people.”Israel’s policies in the West Bank, Benvenisti concludes, are “anoutgrowth of an imperial concept—’I want this’—combined with theability to go about taking it.” It must be stressed again that this “ability”is conferred by lavish U.S. funding, ideological support of the kind described,and diplomatic support; for example, the U.S. veto of an April 2,1982 Security Council resolution calling on Israel to reinstate the oustedelected mayors Bassam Shak’a of Nablus, Karim Khalef of Ramallah,and Ibrahim Tawil of El Bireh, recent targets of terrorist attack (see thisClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky