Fateful Triangle

Israel and Palestine: Historical Backgrounds247teaching and were facing expulsion) is particularly harmful, since “manytalented West Bankers educated abroad are unable to get Israeli workpermits.” 126 One aspect of the problem, noted by David Richardson, isillustrated by the case of Mohammad Shadid, an American-trainedpolitical scientist at al-Najah university, one of those banned fromteaching and facing expulsion. He lost the right to return to the WestBank, where he was born, because he happened to be out of thecountry studying when a census was taken in 1967; requests by hisfamily to allow him to return under a “family reunion scheme” weresimply ignored, and he is now an American citizen. Richardson observesthat what the civil administration is trying to do is to suppress the localintelligentsia, and to “make political use” of the signed statements aspart of the effort to undermine support for the PLO in the occupiedterritories. Furthermore, a degree for a West Bank student is a “passportto emigration,” since “most of the young graduates cannot hope to findemployment in their own society”—as Israel is reconstructing it. 127 Infact, Israeli policy in the occupied territories has clearly been designed toremove elite groups, either by direct expulsion (“moderates” have been aparticular target) or by eliminating the possibility of meaningfulemployment, in the hope that no nationalist or cultural leadership willremain. 128 After Shultz’s protests, the anti-PLO pledge was technically“withdrawn,” in fact transferred in virtually the same terms to thegeneral work permit. 129Mohammad Shadid is no unique case. President Salah of al-NajahUniversity, who was expelled in October, is also a native of the WestBank, born in Nablus, who was studying abroad in 1967 and istherefore considered a “foreigner” by the Israeli government; in its briefstory on the expulsion, the New York Times refers to him as “a Jordaniannational,” technically correct but missing a rather important point. In apress conference on the morning of his expulsion, unreported here to myClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky