Fateful Triangle

Peace for Galilee374Apart from having “completely destroyed the partial and delicateequilibrium that had existed in Lebanon,” the Israeli invasion, asintended, demolished the basis for organized social life among the halfmillion or so Palestinian refugees. “Everyone now knows that in Lebanonthe PLO had, to all intents and purposes, set up a Palestinian state: astate with its own army, with a system of civil administration, welfareand educational institutions and even the characteristics of its owneconomy, which was only partially integrated with that of their hostcountry” and which existed in “a certain equilibrium” with it, 83 notwithout periodic and sometimes bitter conflict, in part, through thefulfilment of Abba Eban’s “rational prospect.” This too is gone.The invasion had some other merits as well. As noted earlier, Israel isnow heavily reliant on military exports. While the bombing of Beirut wasat its height, the Israeli military industries (Ta’as) “came out with anextensive publicity campaign in the international press [Aviation Week,etc.] to extend the scope of sales of its bombs.” The main feature was adisplay showing a jet plane dropping bombs with the heading: “Bombsyou can count on to do what they’re supposed to do. That’s the onlykind of bomb we make.” 844.7 The Green Light from WashingtonWhile Israel may indeed be the world’s fourth greatest military power, asthe experts claim, this can be true only insofar as it is an appendage tothe United States—it would not be quite fair to speak of it as a 51ststate as some do, since none of the 50 states receive comparablebenefits from the federal government. Despite the weakness of theenemy, the invasion of Lebanon too was predicated on Americansupport, which was quite clearly forthcoming. As Meir Pail writes, “AllClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky