Fateful Triangle

Peace for Galilee473Walzer at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton three monthsbefore the outbreak of the war, when the repression in the West Bankhad reached its peak (a fact not mentioned). Both men knew that“Sharon’s war” was soon to come. What could they do to stop it?Timerman suggested “that if the two of us decided to commit suicideand explained in our wills that we were killing ourselves to stop Sharon’swar, perhaps we could succeed in stopping it.” But the idea wasrejected, since Sharon would not “have found in his heart the images ofso many Jews who believed in moving the conscience of mankind by thegenerous surrender of their own lives... What would the world, or Israel,or General Sharon himself, have done with our two bodies?... We cutpathetic and ridiculous figures, Michael Walzer and I, in our search forlogic and sober judgment,” pathetic in their inability to find a way toprevent the tragic events that they foresaw. For Timerman, “Sharon’sWar began that very day.”There are certain difficulties in this account. First, Walzer supportedthe war as a ‘just war,” as we have seen. Thus it is not clear why heshould have contemplated suicide to prevent it. Indeed, in the light ofhis record, it is difficult to imagine circumstances in which he wouldtake any action in opposition to policies of Israel, or even deign torecognize unpleasant truths about the state that he so loyally defends.Second, one can think of some less extreme measures that might havebeen useful, for example, writing an article warning of what lay ahead,an option that neither man undertook though they have access to a wideaudience denied to others who had the same perception. In fact,Timerman considered the idea of organizing a petition among “the menof Princeton” but rejected it on the grounds that Sharon and hisassociates would not “pay attention to these men of Princeton who havewritten so many books and shared so many discoveries with mankind,”which seems a bit facile, even if it would have been possible to mobilizeClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky