Fateful Triangle

Israel and Palestine: Historical Backgrounds232his wife, rushed home, but could not enter his apartment because, hesaid, “the Jews were on the roof of our building hurling bricks andbottles.” An Arab youth who tried to save the woman was also brutallybeaten, and lies next door in the hospital. He “identifies his attackers asthe Jewish zealots from the Yeshiva.” They “scarcely bothered to denythe attack.” When questioned about it, “an American zealot blandlytalked of the need to cleanse the area of ‘terrorists’.” The group “isknown to to the police as ‘the blessing of Abraham,’ a Yeshivacomprised mostly of European and American-born Jews who havereturned to their faith with a burning desire to reclaim land lost to theArabs.” Several years ago they established the Yeshiva in an old Arabarea; eighteen Arab families had since moved out, and this couple wasthe only one remaining as the “Jewish zealots” sought “to ‘redeem’property that had once been inhabited by Jews as long ago as the 16thcentury.” The couple had rejected cash offers which were followed bythreats of violence; “there is no doubt that those threats were carried outthis week.” The police arrested a few of the Jewish extremists but theyare to be charged only with “riotous behavior.” “The assault on MrsMayalleh and the fact that she and her husband are now homelessseemed to be accepted as a fait accompli by the police,” which istypical of the “indulgent attitude by authorities.” “The vicious attackscarcely rated a mention in the local press.” 100One not untypical issue of a Palestinian weekly contains two storieson the front page. The first deals with the week-long curfew imposed onthe Dheisheh refugee camp after an Israeli observation post was burnedand stones were thrown at an Israeli vehicle. It reports that inhabitantslacked food and that Israeli authorities raided houses, confiscating largenumbers of books, magazines and tapes with national songs, while themen were forced to stand outside the police station during the coldnights. Soldiers searched the house of a man who had died two monthsClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky