Fateful Triangle

Peace for Galilee435were complicated by Palestinian support for the Muslim majority in thecivil war, nevertheless the sentiment is no doubt widely held,understandably enough. Just as even the most sympathetic Pakistaniswant to see the Afghan refugees return to Afghanistan—particularlywhen, as in Lebanon, their presence and military actions call forth“retaliatory” strikes—so the Lebanese favor the return of Palestinians totheir land. In this regard, they share views held throughout the Arabworld. Propagandists here made much of the reluctance of the Arabstates to take in the PLO fighters, crowing about this allegeddemonstration that even the Arab states despise and reject the PLO.While it is true enough that the elites that rule the Arab states dislikethe PLO—and, quite generally, nationalist currents in the Arab worldthat might threaten their power—one can hardly demonstrate the facton these grounds, at least if we add one factor commonly ignored: thatthey regularly stated that they did not want to contribute to a newdispersal of the Palestinians, whom they prefer to see in a state of theirown in Palestine in accordance with the international consensus. In thesame context, we may take note of the common charge that the Arabstates have contributed to the plight of the refugees by refusing to takethem in, * a claim that ignores, as usual, the wishes of the Palestiniansthemselves, who have insisted on maintaining their national and culturalidentity and their hope to return to their native land. Finally, while thecharges that have circulated in the U.S. concerning the behavior of thePLO in Lebanon appear to be vastly exaggerated, at least to judge byinvestigations carried out by Israeli journalists, Jewish and ChristianArab, and while there seems little doubt that the behavior of the Israeli-*The charge is so common as to make reference almost superfluous. It was, forexample, repeated in an unusually accurate ABC Closeup report on the Beirutmassacres, Jan. 7, 1983, in apportioning the blame for the massacres.Classics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky