Fateful Triangle

Peace for Galilee367territories. This seems to me questionable. The strength and courage ofthe Samidin have been truly impressive, but people have their limits,and conquerors in the past have succeeded in breaking their will.After the repression of June and early July described above, onesupporter of the Israeli invasion, Robert Tucker, wrote that “The Israeliaction was, quite clearly, an anticipatory measure, taken to forestall theprospect of serious injury” to Israel, hence legitimate; by this moralcode, preemptive strikes are now justified, and there can be no rationalobjection, say, to the Russian invasion of Hungary or Czechoslovakia,given the dangers posed to the USSR by NATO, or perhaps even toHitler’s moves to blunt the Czech dagger pointed at the heart ofGermany 67 . * But, Tucker adds, “if, despite the destruction of the P.L.O.as a military force, and perhaps as a political force as well, the IsraeliGovernment uses its victory to harden further its policy in the occupiedterritories, the case made today by critics of the war will be made morepersuasive.” 68 One wonders what would count as “hardening of policy,”since evidently the actions undertaken from the first days of theinvasion, or those of the preceding months, do not—perhaps massexpulsion of Palestinians, though no doubt an appropriate moral codecould be devised to justify this as well, and perhaps yet will be.The destruction of the PLO in Lebanon will require new prodigies ofapologetics from “supporters of Israel,” who have been stoutly maintainingthat Israel has long sought political accommodation but has beenblocked in this effort by the PLO, and that only PLO terrorism has*Recall that Hitler’s 1937 plan for an operation against Czechoslovakia wasjustified in internal documents “in order to parry the imminent attack of asuperior enemy coalition” and in public by the Czech threat and “terror” againstGermans. 67 Recall also that Hitler’s conceptions have struck a responsive chordin current Zionist commentary; see p. 150*.Classics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky