Fateful Triangle

Peace for Galilee363(the government claims they were not killed by soldiers), and membersof the Village Leagues, armed by Israel, killed and wounded a number ofWest Bank opponents.As the Lebanon war proceeded, West Bank organizations andassociations, including religious circles, insistently repeated their supportfor the PLO, in sermons given in mosques and in public statements. TheSupreme Islamic Council of Jerusalem, normally apolitical, sent a letterto the United Nations rejecting the Camp David “peace process” andrecognizing the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinianpeople, and stated publicly its “support for the PLO in its heroicattempt to reach a noble solution for the Palestinian problem,” callingupon the Palestinian people to donate one day’s salary “to our sons andbrothers in Lebanon.” West Bank and Gaza municipalities issued acommuniqué denouncing the war in Lebanon and declaring that the PLOremains the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people(June 20). A supporting statement, announcing once again “our fullsupport for the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole legitimaterepresentative of the Palestinian people in the homeland and thediaspora,” was issued by a broad group of West Bank unions. AmnonKapeliouk, who covers the occupied territories for the Israeli journal AlHamishmar, wrote that there is near unanimity in opposition to theinvasion (apart from the Village Leagues “fostered by the civilianadministration”) and in reiterating the previous stand that “for anypolitical negotiation it is necessary to address the PLO in Beirut.”Correspondingly, it was next to impossible to find quisling elements toreplace deposed officials. In Dir Dabouan, the eighth town to have itselected administration removed since March, not one inhabitant waswilling to serve in the new Israeli-imposed administration. Kapelioukreports that apart from three people in the city of Jenin, no collaboratorswere found during the intensive summer repression undertaken “toClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky