Fateful Triangle

Peace for Galilee476instead of patiently explaining to the PLO that this would lead todisaster. Again, some references would have been helpful. I know ofnone—though possibly a diligent search would yield a marginal examplein some Maoist journal. These professors, Timerman says, were“obsessed by their competition with academics who supported Israel”(who are subjected to no criticism by Timerman), as if there were some“great debate” in academic circles, or anywhere in the United States,between “supporters of Israel” and “supporters of the PLO,” a ludicrouspicture, as anyone familiar with the U.S. would know at once, includinghis editors and reviewers, if not Timerman himself. There were, in fact,a handful of critics of Israeli policies within the academic profession, noone of whom questioned the right of existence of Israel, to myknowledge. These few, who incidentally had few opportunities topublish here on these matters, consistently warned the PLO of thedangers of its resort to terrorism while sharply condemning this practice,and condemned the early rejectionist diplomacy of the PLO asintolerable on moral grounds as well as self-destructive. They needed noinstruction from Timerman on this score.I was in fact one of these few, so I will keep to my own writings onthe subject, though there are few enough critics so that a full recordwould not be difficult. My first article on the topic appeared inLiberation and the New Outlook (Tel Aviv) in 1969, and is reprinted inPeace in the Middle East? as chapter 1. It contains an extensivediscussion of the “suicidal” and deeply immoral character of the resort toterror, drawing from Israeli doves who were making the same point. Mynext article (reprinted as chapter 2 of the same book) was a talk given ata conference of the Association of Arab-American University Graduates(AAUG) in 1970, where I condemned the PLO reliance on “armedstruggle” on moral and political grounds, emphasizing precisely its“suicidal” character for the Palestinians given the actual balance ofClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky