Fateful Triangle

Israel and Palestine: Historical Backgrounds223standing and frequently expressed complaint]. Our social structure brokedown—it was their fault.” “There is real hatred, hatred for what wasdone by the Alignment, which is seen by a whole generation as thesuccessor to Mapai from a cultural, economic and social classstandpoint.” “Mapai also destroyed us from the point of view of our selfimage.That will not be forgotten easily.” He complains,characteristically, that the Labor Party organized the lives of the OrientalJews in the Ma’abarot “the way they organize the lives of the Arabs inGaza today.” When the immigration of Russian Jews began, thesetensions became far worse, because of the comparison between the “deluxe” treatment of these European immigrants and the long-standingoppression and impoverishment of the Jews from Arab countries. 84Tamar Maroz presents a detailed and illuminating record of workingclass and lower middle class attitudes as expressed in the Oriental communities,among a group that she regards, with some plausibility, as“the silent majority.” The lines are rather sharply drawn: Begin is a“messiah,” a “hero,” ‘‘one of us,” “honest,’’ a man of the people wholives simply in a rented apartment, a “real Jew.” Peres, the head of theLabor Party, is a “capitalist,” a commonly repeated insult; the people ofthe Labor Alignment are swindlers, bureaucrats, the “establishment,”“careerists.” Likud is “anti-establishment.” Begin “is concerned for theworkers”; Labor, in contrast, is not. Its “development towns” wereconstructed as working class slums for kibbutz industry, where the richkibbutzniks are the managers and “do nothing.” Begin cares about theOriental community; Labor has contempt for them. Defense MinisterSharon is also a hero, who doesn’t fear and pander to the Americans, asLabor does; he should be the next head of the government, and it is adisgrace that he was forced to resign as Defense Minister. There can beno peace with the Arabs: “if we don’t fight, they will destroy us”; “agood Arab is a dead Arab.” Peace Now are traitors and have contemptClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky