% FROM THE NOAM CHOMSKY ARCHIVE
% http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu:/usr/tp0x/chomsky.html
% ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/user/cap/chomsky/
% Filename:    articles/chomsky.z.middle-east-diplomacy
% Title:       Middle East Diplomacy: Continuities and Changes 
% Author:      Noam Chomsky
% Appeared-in: Z Magazine, December 1991
% Source:      harelb@mssun7.msi.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai)
% Keywords:    
% Synopsis:    
% See-also:    articles/chomsky.z.israel-arafat-agreement

         MIDDLE EAST DIPLOMACY: CONTINUITIES AND CHANGES
                          Noam Chomsky
                        November 5, 1991
                    Z Magazine, December 1991


On October 30, the US-brokered conference on the Middle East
opened in Madrid. The conference was described on all sides as a
``historic event,'' a remarkable achievement of George Bush's
diplomacy and the tenacity of his Secretary of State James Baker
in exploiting the ``historic window of opportunity'' opened by
changes in the world order. These observations are not
unrealistic, when understood within their historical and policy
context---a question of perspective and judgment, of course. I
will review the way these matters look to me, contrasting that
picture with a different one that dominates public discussion.

Three related questions arise at once about the current
diplomatic efforts: First, why are they taking place right now?
Second, do they signify a departure from the traditional US
stand? Third, what is the meaning of the disputes between the US
and Israel?

The answer to the first question is clear enough. The Bush
administration desperately needs a foreign policy success to
obscure the outcome of its war in the Gulf: hundreds of thousands
killed and the toll mounting as a long-term consequence of the
devastating attack on the civilian society; the Gulf tyrannies
safeguarded from any democratic pressures; Saddam Hussein firmly
in power, having demolished popular rebellions with tacit US
support. US government interests and goals are hardly concealed.
Washington seeks ``the best of all worlds,'' _New York Times_
chief diplomatic correspondent Thomas Friedman explains: ``an
iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein,'' a return to the
days when Saddam's ``iron fist held Iraq together, much to the
satisfaction of the American allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia,''
along with the Reagan-Bush administrations, which gave unwavering
support to their murderous ally. These images, however, cannot be
left in the public memory in the United States or elsewhere.  The
reality can be effaced by what the press describes as the
``remarkable tableau'' in Madrid, with its promise of a ``sweet
victory'' built on the ruins of the Gulf slaughter. {note:
Friedman, _NYT_, July 7; R. W. Apple, _NYT_, Oct. 30, 1991.}

Furthermore, the Arab clients who lined up in the US war must be
helped to maintain some credibility. This requires gestures to
suggest that the US-led crusade aimed at something more than
merely reinforcing US dominance over the oil-producing regions,
with the family dictatorships of the Gulf playing their
traditional role as an ``Arab Facade,'' in the words of British
imperialists of earlier days.

It is also necessary to divert the attention of the American
public from the social and economic crisis resulting from
Reagan-Bush domestic programs. Under such conditions, any
powerful state would seek diversionary foreign policy exploits.

The second question is also readily answered: the available
evidence reveals no departure from the traditional US stance on a
Middle East settlement. In fact, another reason for the current
diplomatic efforts is that the US monopoly of violence now offers
a ``historic window of opportunity'' to advance traditional US
goals.

The urgency of the current Bush-Baker diplomacy is
understandable. Not surprisingly, Washington refused to permit
the Madrid conference to be derailed by the intransigence of
Israeli hawks, even at the cost of a confrontation with the
government of Israel and its domestic lobby.

That brings us to the third question, the Bush-Shamir conflict.
Though real, it is narrowly circumscribed. There is no
fundamental disagreement about the denial of Palestinian rights
or US support for measures to extend Israeli control over the
territories, just as both governments agree that Soviet Jews
should be denied freedom of choice and directed to Israel, with
the US paying the bill on humanitarian pretexts. Not an eyebrow
is raised when the Jewish Agency meets in Jerusalem to demand
that Jewish organizations ``unite to sabotage'' any efforts to
open US doors to Soviet Jews, while in the Israeli press,
Minister of Immigration and Absorption Michael Kleiner explains
how he will induce Germany to reverse its decision to admit
Soviet Jews but no other refugees: ``Germany has already
fulfilled its quota for discrimination concerning Jews in this
century,'' Kleiner will inform these German criminals, ``and the
time has come for it to treat Jews just like other
people''---denying entry to Jewish refugees, so that they can be
forced to Israel. {note: Yotam Navin,_Yediot Ahronot_, Oct. 1,
1991; see my article in _Z_ magazine, October 1991.} The cynicism
of the enterprise will surprise only those unfamiliar with the
vastly more shameful practices of the 1940s, well into the
post-Holocaust years when the miserable remnants of the
extermination camps were treated in much the same way.

The Bush-Shamir conflict arose over the timing of US guarantees
for loans---which may eventually turn into grants---for the
theoretical purpose of absorbing Soviet immigrants, though in
fact they will be used to expand settlement in the occupied
territories, whatever formalism is adopted. Huge sums are being
``spilled like water'' into the territories by the Israeli
government for ``ordinary and deluxe settlements,'' including
elegant subsidized villas for privileged settlers, the Israeli
press reports, diverting the funds that Israel has available to
absorb Soviet immigrants (thanks to US largesse). And while
``Jewish immigration from the USSR may be a great accomplishment
in Zionist or Jewish terms, there is nothing humanitarian about
it. . . . The humanitarianism is one of the lies the two states
have agreed upon,'' in full knowledge that ``the Jews of the USSR
are now better off than any other ethnic group in that country,''
protected by foreign powers, able to leave if they wish,
permitted to obtain foreign currency from abroad, and so on---
surely far better off than the hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians and others fleeing torture and harsh repression in
Kuwait, most of them crowding into impoverished Jordan, or
numerous other examples that readily come to mind. Israel's 1992
budget calls for up to $2 billion for expanding settlement in the
territories, an amount ``equivalent to one year's installment of
the loan guarantees that Israel wants from the United States,''
the _New York Times_ reports, hence an amount that Israel can
take from other sources if these funds are assured by US
``humanitarian'' assistance. {note: Editorial, _Ha'aretz_, Sept.
2; Yossi Sarid, _Yediot Ahronot_, Sept. 15; Nahum Barnea, _Yediot
Ahronot_, Sept. 13; Jackson Diehl, _Washington Post ---Manchester
Guardian Weekly_, Sept. 29; Clyde Haberman, _NYT_, Sept. 21,
1991. See also Ehud Sprinzak, _WP Weekly_, Sept. 23, 1991.}

An official US decision to provide financial support for these
projects would have made it very difficult for the US Arab allies
to attend the Madrid conference; a few months down the road, it
is assumed, the matter can be handled without too much fanfare.
Ariel Sharon and other Israeli extremists were unwilling to
accept even a temporary delay in their ambitious settlement
project, and were also intent on undermining the US-run
negotiations, which might interfere with their annexationist
plans. That is one reason why ``official Israel was dead silent''
about the August coup attempt in the Soviet Union, while ``some
influential Israelis found it advisable to extend to the
conspirators their joyous greetings and good advice,'' possibly
including Shamir's expert advisers, the Israeli press reported,
noting that a successful coup in the USSR might have undermined
the unwanted Madrid conference. {note: Sever Plotzker, _Yediot
Ahronot_, Aug. 25, 1991.} After the Soviet coup, the US
propaganda system produced the required gestures of outrage about
the alleged support for the coup or vacillation about it on the
part of assorted official enemies, while keeping ``dead silent''
about unwanted realities, the usual pattern when atrocities and
crimes afford an opportunity for service to power.

The Bush-Shamir dispute goes beyond the timing of US financial
support for Israeli settlement plans. There are real
disagreements between Washington and the current Israeli
government, serious and long-standing ones. But they concern the
modalities of rejectionism, not its essence, a matter that merits
a closer examination, to which we return.

To clarify what follows, by the term ``rejectionism'' I mean the
rejection of the right to national self-determination on the part
of _one or the other_ of the contending parties in the former
Palestine. This is distinct from US usage, which restricts the
term to those who reject the rights of Israeli Jews, denial of
the right of self-determination of the indigenous inhabitants
being considered proper and natural.

The standard usage reflects the limits of US discussion, largely
restricted to support for some version of Israeli rejectionism.
At one extreme, we find those who suggest that Palestinians
deserve nothing, like all of those who stand in the way of
civilization. Others, like _Times_ chief diplomatic correspondent
and Middle East specialist Thomas Friedman, take a more
forthcoming approach, because ``only if you give the Palestinians
something to lose is there a hope that they will agree to
moderate their demands,'' abandoning the ludicrous hope for
mutual recognition in a two-state settlement---a ``demand'' that
Friedman refused to report and consistently denied while
producing the ``balanced and informed coverage'' for which he
received the Pulitzer prize. ``I believe that as soon as Ahmed
has a seat in the bus, he will limit his demands,'' Friedman
added, adopting the racist rhetoric used as a matter of course
when dealing with the lower orders. He advised Israel to run the
territories on the model of South Lebanon, controlled by Israeli
troops and a terrorist surrogate army, with a hideous torture
chamber in Khiam where hundreds are held hostage to ensure that
the population will submit, Israeli administration of the flow
and profits of heroin from the second largest drug production
area in Lebanon (the most productive being the Bekaa valley, run
by Bush's other friend, Hafez el-Assad of Syria), and regular
bombardment beyond the borders to prevent resistance---called
``terrorism,'' a term that extends to attacks on drug cultivators
protected by the Israeli army and its clients. {note: Friedman,
_Yediot Ahronot_, April 7, 1988; _Hotam_, April 15, 1988.  Shlomo
Frankel, _Al-Hamishmar_, July 14, 1991.}

At the time of the US-Israel confrontation, it took scarcely more
than a raised eyebrow from the President for the Israeli lobby to
collapse, while major journals that rarely veer from the Israeli
Party line took the cue and began to run articles critical of
Israeli practices and hinting that US support for them was not
inevitable. That should also occasion little surprise. Domestic
pressure groups tend to be ineffectual unless they line up with
significant elements of state-corporate power, or have reached a
scale and intensity that compels moves to accommodate them. When
AIPAC lobbies for policies that the state executive and major
sectors of corporate America intend to pursue, it is influential;
when it confronts authentic power, largely unified, it fades very
quickly.

The essential issues just reviewed are more or less recognized
within the doctrinal system, though they are presented more
obliquely. It is no great secret that alleged ``foreign policy
triumphs,'' quickly removed from view to obscure what has
actually taken place, can help to divert the public from domestic
crises, along with racist and jingoist appeals, manufacture of
awesome foreign and internal enemies, and other familiar devices
of population control. The utility of the Madrid conference in
obscuring Gulf realities is outlined by _New York Times_
diplomatic correspondent R. W. Apple in the column already
quoted, as the conference opened: ``Critics have suggested that
the United States achieved far too little in the war, because
Saddam Hussein was not overthrown, Iran remained as hostile and
Kuwait as undemocratic as ever, and Saudi Arabia shed neither its
isolation nor its archaic ways.'' But the ``remarkable tableau''
in Madrid revealed ``that a very great deal had changed,'' thanks
to the ``diplomatic skills'' of James Baker and the Gulf triumph.
Thus ``George Bush and the United States today plucked the fruits
of victory in the Persian Gulf war, but it is still much too
early to predict how sweet they will be.''

To rephrase in more accurate terms, by limiting the options in
the Gulf to violence, its strong card, Washington was able to
determine the basic contours of what happened. It barred any
challenge to the ``iron fist'' in the client states. It continues
to torture the Iraqi people exactly as planned in the attack on
the civilian infrastructure, which had no relation to the
military conflict---this was not a long war against Nazi Germany
---but did lay the basis for postwar US policies, including the
current policy of holding the population hostage to induce some
tolerable duplicate of Saddam Hussein to restore ``the best of
all worlds.'' Iraq aside, the US also intends to exploit the
opportunity to teach valuable lessons to others who might have
odd ideas about disobeying US orders, another standard policy;
thus in mid-October, Washington once again blocked European and
Japanese efforts to call off the embargo that the US imposed on
Vietnam 16 years ago after direct conquest failed. {note: Mary
Kay Magistad, _Boston Globe_, Oct. 20, 1991.} Those who do not
follow the rules must be severely punished, indefinitely, and
others must learn these lessons---though the lessons must remain
invisible to the American public, who are to be regaled with
tales about the nobility of our aspirations and the grand
achievements of our leaders.

Crucially, the American public must not be allowed to perceive
that the outcome in the Gulf reveals the priorities of the state
that held all the cards, the state that could accurately proclaim
that ``What we say goes,'' in the President's words. The
consequences of Washington's decisions must therefore be
construed as a failure to achieve our noble goals, now to be
compensated by Washington's diplomatic triumphs.


The US Versus the Peace Process

Let us turn to the second question raised at the outset, and
examine whether it is indeed correct to stress the continuity of
US goals and policies.

For many years, the US has stood virtually alone in opposition to
international efforts to initiate a ``peace process'' on the
Middle East. The UN record brings out the issues with
considerable clarity. The Security Council was eliminated as a
forum years ago, thanks to the US veto. At its annual winter
meetings, the General Assembly regularly passes resolutions
calling for a conference on the Arab-Israel crisis, most
recently, in December 1990 (144--2, US and Israel in opposition).
In December 1989, the vote was 151--3, Dominica joining the two
rejectionist states; a year earlier, 138--2; and so on. US
international isolation dates to February 1971---coincidentally,
the very month when George Bush achieved national prominence as
UN Ambassador. The US has also barred other initiatives. Given US
power, its opposition amounts to a veto. Accordingly, there has
been no international effort to deal with the conflict. The peace
process has been effectively deterred.

Again, the matter is described differently within the ideological
system; in this case, just about universally, including
scholarship. We read constantly that the Middle East is
``littered with American peace plans'' (editorial, _Boston
Globe_), {note: _BG_, Oct. 20, 1991.} and that US efforts have
continually run aground because of the fanaticism and
irrationality of Middle East extremists. Such descriptions are
accurate, if we bear in mind the literary conventions: the term
``peace process'' is restricted to US government initiatives,
including moves to bar attempts to achieve peace. It then follows
as a matter of logic that the US is always advancing the peace
process, and if internationally isolated, as in this case, it is
alone in this endeavor. Efforts that the uninstructed might
misconstrue as ``the peace process'' are really attempts to
obstruct peace, that is, to interfere with US plans. It is really
quite simple, once the norms of political correctness are
understood.

Departing from these norms, one should have no difficulty in
understanding the traditional US opposition to the peace process.
The UN resolutions call for an _international_ conference, and
the US brooks no interference in what President Eisenhower
described as the most ``strategically important area in the
world,'' with its enormous energy reserves. This is US turf: no
independent force is allowed, foreign or indigenous. As Henry
Kissinger explained in a private communication, one of his major
policy goals was ``to ensure that the Europeans and Japanese did
not get involved in the diplomacy'' concerning the Middle East, a
goal achieved at Camp David in 1978, and again in the current
diplomacy---that is, in the two cases that qualify as steps in
the ``peace process'' in US rhetoric. Furthermore, UN and other
initiatives endorse a Palestinian right of self-determination,
which would entail Israeli withdrawal from the occupied
territories. While there has been an elite policy split over the
matter, the prevailing judgment for the past 20 years has been
that enhancement of Israeli power contributes to US domination of
the region. For these reasons, the US has always blocked attempts
at diplomatic resolution, apart from its own rejectionist
initiatives.

It should be noted that the US opposition to diplomacy is not
unusual. Southeast Asian and Central American conflicts provide
examples familiar to those who have escaped the doctrinal system.
The same has been true, quite often, of disarmament and many
other issues, and US isolation at the UN extends far beyond the
Middle East. These are natural concomitants of the role of global
enforcer, committed to policies with little appeal to targeted
populations but with ample force at the ready.

The basic terms of the international consensus on the Arab-Israel
conflict were expressed in a resolution brought to the Security
Council in January 1976, calling for a settlement on the pre-June
1967 borders (the Green Line) with ``appropriate arrangements . . .
to guarantee . . . the sovereignty, territorial integrity and
political independence of all states in the area and their right
to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries,''
including Israel and a new Palestinian state in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip. The resolution was backed by Egypt, Syria, Jordan,
and the PLO---in fact ``prepared'' by the PLO according to
Israel's UN Ambassador Haim Herzog, now President. It was
strenuously opposed by Israel and vetoed by the United States,
once again in 1980.

These events are---automatically---out of history, along with
other facts unacceptable to US power, including repeated PLO
initiatives through the 1980s calling for negotiations with
Israel leading to mutual recognition. The facts have been
distorted beyond recognition, often barred outright, particularly
by the _New York Times_. Its Pulitzer prize-winning correspondent
Thomas Friedman has shown particular dedication to the task, an
achievement appreciated by the journal, which promoted him to
chief diplomatic correspondent in recognition of his
accomplishments. It is an interesting case, because he knows
enough to understand exactly what he is doing. This stellar
performance permits Friedman to spin wondrous tales about ``the
birth of a new pragmatism among the Palestinians'' from the late
1980s, now raised ``another important notch'' through Baker's
benign influence at Madrid. Until Madrid, Friedman continues,
``both sides have hidden behind [the] argument . . . that there
is no one on the other side with whom to negotiate''---Timesspeak
for the fact that the PLO has for years been calling on Israel to
negotiate, but the US and Israel refuse, claiming there is no one
with whom to negotiate, while Friedman loyally reports as truths
the US-Israel propaganda which he knows perfectly well to be pure
fabrication. The Palestinians admitted by the US to the Madrid
conference called ``explicitly for a two-state solution,''
Friedman writes admiringly---so different from the despised PLO,
which supported (or perhaps ``prepared'') the UN resolution
calling for a two-state solution 15 years ago. {note: Friedman,
_NYT_, Nov. 4, 1991. On Friedman's intriguing record, see my
_Necessary Illusions_ (South End, 1989), particularly appendix 5,
sec. 4.}

The meaning of these shenanigans---one of the more impressive
achievements of modern propaganda---is that the State Department
and its spokesman believe that US-Israeli violence may at last
have succeeded in bringing the Palestinians to heel. In the
preferred rhetoric, the great achievement of Madrid was ``the
Palestinian self-adjustment to the real world,'' Palestinian
acceptance of ``a period of autonomy under continued Israeli
domination,'' during which Israel can build the facts of its
permanent domination with US aid. This willingness to follow US
orders---the real world---has ``tossed the negative stereotypes
out the window,'' _Times_ journalist Clyde Haberman observes
approvingly. The ``autonomy'' offered at Madrid had been
described two weeks earlier in _Ha'aretz_ by Danny Rubinstein,
one of the most acute observers of the occupied territories for
many years: it is ``autonomy as in a prisoner-of-war camp, where
the prisoners autonomous' to cook their meals without
interference and to organize cultural events.'' {note: Haberman,
_NYT_, Nov. 10; Rubinstein, _Ha'aretz_, Oct. 24, 1991.}

The most outspoken critic of US Middle East policy, Anthony
Lewis, offered a new proof of the brilliance of Bush-Baker
diplomacy. Their ``singular achievement'' at Madrid ``was quickly
measured'' by an election in Gaza in which moderates won a
resounding victory over the fundamentalist extremists, sending
``the message that Palestinians are ready to negotiate.'' This
message is ``of profound significance to Israelis,'' Lewis
continues, telling the many doubters ``that there are reasonable
Palestinians, people ready to make peace, people not so different
from themselves.'' In the past, ``the ordinary Palestinians, with
familiar aspirations for a decent life and a national identity,
were drowned out by Palestinian terrorists,'' and ``the
Palestinian political leadership'' was ``reluctant to say plainly
that it was ready to live in peace alongside of Israel.'' But now
the dread PLO is no longer feared and the moderates can raise
their heads, as shown by the Gaza elections in which the PLO won
13 of 16 seats contested. {note: Lewis, _NYT_, Nov. 8, 1991.}

The internal contradiction is easily resolved. We need only
recall the real world, in which the PLO had been calling for
negotiations and a peaceful settlement with Israel for many
years, while the US and Israel never countered with any
``reasonable people ready to make peace,'' just as they do not
today, and Israel supported the fundamentalist extremists in its
efforts to fend off the PLO moderation that it has always feared.
But that solution is unacceptable. In a well-run ideological
system, internal contradiction is far preferable to politically
incorrect reality.

Over the years, the US has continued to implement its
rejectionist program without interference from meddling
outsiders. The current circumstances afford an opportunity to
carry the process further, with a diplomatic process run solely
by the United States in accord with the principle that ``What we
say goes.'' Gorbachev's presence at Madrid was intended to
provide a thin disguise for unilateral US control; in reality, he
is acceptable as the powerless leader of a country that scarcely
exists. The ``peace process'' is structured in accordance with US
intentions. Palestinians are not permitted to select their own
representatives, and those who pass US-Israel inspection are part
of a Jordanian delegation. The US alone dictates the terms. I
will turn to details and background directly, but the basic facts
are surely clear enough.

The standard picture is, again, rather different. Few have been
so critical of US Middle East policy as _New York Times_
correspondent Anthony Lewis, who lauds the President for having
had ``the vision and the courage to commit himself to this
conference,'' in which ``Israel will meet face-to-face with each
of its Arab neighbors---and with representative Palestinians''---
namely, those acceptable to the US and Israel, whatever
Palestinians might prefer. Diplomatic correspondent R. W. Apple
expands in a typical paean to our leader's ``vision of the
future'' as he made use of ``the historic window of
opportunity.'' He identifies two factors that have made it
possible for Bush ``to dream such great dreams'' about
Israel-Arab peace: First, there is now no fear that ``regional
tensions'' might lead to superpower confrontation; Second, ``no
longer must the United States contend with countries whose
cantankerousness was reinforced by Moscow's interest in
continuing unrest.'' {note: Lewis, _NYT_, Oct. 21, 1991; Apple,
_NYT_ Week in Review, Sept. 22, 1991.}

Both of Apple's points are correct, though translation is again
required. The truth that lies behind his first point is that the
withdrawal of the Soviet Union from the world scene has made it
easier for the US to resort to force to gain its ends, a fact
that has led to fear and desperation among the traditional
victims throughout the Third World. One reason why the US
insisted on war in the Gulf, deflecting the danger of a peaceful
diplomatic settlement, was to demonstrate that it is now able to
use extremes of violence against defenseless enemies without
concern over the Soviet deterrent. As noted, the familiar lessons
are again being taught in the postwar period.

To interpret Apple's second point, we must recall that the
``cantankerous'' agents of Soviet disruption include the US
European allies, the major Arab states, the nonaligned countries,
in fact, essentially the world, apart from Israel. Apple's
formulation reflects the standard doctrinal assumption that the
US position on any issue is necessarily RIGHT, as a matter of
logic, so those who stand in our way are ``cantankerous,''
probably Comsymps to boot.

There is an intriguing sidelight to the US-Israeli insistence
that the political representatives of the Palestinians be
excluded from negotiations. The official reason is that the PLO
is a terrorist organization. Under Israeli law, anyone who has
any dealings with it is subject to criminal penalties under the
Law for the Prevention of Terror. The prime targets are
Palestinians, but the law has also been used to punish Jews for
contacts with the PLO, most recently, the courageous Abie Nathan,
jailed once again. {note: Clyde Haberman, ``Israel Jails Abie
Nathan for New Arafat Contact,'' _NYT_, Oct. 7, 1991. A few days
later, another Israeli peace activist, David Ish-Shalom, was
sentenced under the same law for discussions with the PLO on
bringing back people whom Israel had (illegally) deported from
the occupied territories.} The background for the law was
reviewed by one of Israel's leading legal commentators, Moshe
Negbi, discussing a recent academic study of Lehi (the ``Stern
gang''), published on its 50th anniversary. Negbi's article is
entitled ``The Law to Prevent Meetings with the Head of State.''
As he explains, the Law for the Prevention of Terror was
instituted on the initiative of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion
six days after the assassination of UN Ambassador Folke
Bernadotte.  Ben-Gurion's goal was to break up Lehi, known at
once to be responsible for the assassination. One of the three
commanders of Lehi was Yitzhak Shamir. The law not only barred
any contact with Shamir, but was also applied against Menahem
Begin's terrorist Irgun Zvai Leumi (Etsel), impelling Begin to
dismantle his Jerusalem organization. It was also used to jail
religious extremists, including Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu,
currently chief Rabbi. It was bitterly denounced as a ``Nazi law,
dictatorial, immoral'' and hence illegal, by Menahem Begin and
other civil libertarians. Despite efforts to have it modified
under Labor governments, it remained in force, formally directed
against Shamir and his Lehi associates, until 1977, when Begin
was elected Prime Minister. Today the ``Nazi law'' still remains
in force, but only to bar contacts with the PLO and to justify
the US-Israeli refusal to permit Palestinians to select their own
representatives for negotiations. {note: Negbi, _Hadashot_, Sept.
13, 1991.}

Those who think that Shamir might have renounced his past
enthusiasm for terrorism---which reached quite interesting
levels---might usefully turn to his comments on the occasion of
the anniversary of Lehi on September 4, 1991: ``We believed in
what we said, discussed and wrote,'' he said: ``Therefore, it was
correct.'' ``From the moral point of view, there is no difference
between personal terror and collective terror. Here and there
blood is spilled, here and there people are killed. One must look
and judge it from the point of view of the utility of that means,
the use of personal terror, in leading to the goal.'' {note:
Reuters, _Toronto Globe and Mail_, Sept. 5, 1991.  On Shamir's
thoughts and actions in the 1940s, see my article in Alexander
George, _Western State Terrorism_ (Polity press, London, 1991).}


A US Policy Shift?

Let us now turn to the standard assumption that Bush-Baker
diplomacy represents a considerable departure from traditional US
policies. One argument offered to explain this alleged fact is
that the end of the Cold War reduces Israel's role as a
``strategic asset.'' Anthony Lewis and other doves also argue
that ``the gulf war showed that U.S. armed forces could act in
the Middle East without Israel.'' The upbeat analyses of the
doves are also much influenced by the conflicts that have arisen
between the Bush and Shamir governments, which are taken to show
that ``a more detached relationship is developing in which
America will more freely weigh its own values and interests,''
not just follow the Israeli lead (Lewis). {note: Lewis, _op.
cit._} None of these arguments is very persuasive.

The first rests on the general assumption that US policies
towards the Third World have been motivated by concern over the
Soviet threat. This is official doctrine for obvious propaganda
reasons, but it is hardly sustainable, often the reverse of the
truth, for reasons extensively documented elsewhere.. With regard
to the Middle East, even before the Soviet pretext was lost
serious analysts recognized that ``radical nationalism'' was the
prime target of US intervention capacity (e.g., Robert Komer, the
architect of President Carter's Rapid Deployment Force, in
congressional testimony). By now it is conceded that the
``threats to our interests'' in that region ``could not be laid
at the Kremlin's door'' (White House National Security Strategy
report to Congress, March 1990). {note: See my _Deterring
Democracy_ (Verso, 1991), 29.} As for the lessons of the Gulf,
surely no one ever doubted that the US could act without Israel,
and in some circumstances would choose to do so. This has little
bearing on Israel's perceived role as a strategic asset,
particularly since the 1960s, when it was regarded by the US as a
major barrier to Arab nationalist pressures against Saudi Arabia,
led by Egypt's President Nasser.

The third point is based on a correct observation: there are
conflicts between Bush and Shamir. But as noted, there is no
reason to believe that these are any different from the ones that
have arisen for many years, reflecting different approaches to a
rejectionist settlement. Failure to sort out these matters
properly has led to much confusion about what is happening.

Let us begin with the situation within Israel. There are two
major political groupings, Likud and Labor, each a coalition.
The position of Likud, now governing, has always been that Israel
should extend its sovereignty over the occupied territories. Its
central component, Prime Minister Shamir's Herut party, has never
abandoned its claim to Jordan, regularly reiterated in its
electoral programs. That was also the traditional position of a
central component of the Labor coalition, based on the largest
kibbutz movement, TAKAM (Ahdut Avodah, historically extremely
expansionist), a position never officially abandoned, to my
knowledge.

The logic of the Likud position has recently been outlined by
Defense Minister Moshe Arens, by no means an extremist. ``In the
final analysis,'' he said in a recent interview, ``the existence
of the State rests on the principle that we have a right to be
here.  We are not here by kindness in a land that is foreign to
us. . . . Any agreement, even conditional, that this right is
limited--- touches on the essence of our existence here.''
Therefore, ``the very existence of Israel depends on the
settlements'' in the occupied territories, and Israel's right to
establish them at will. {note: Ron Ben-Yishai, interview with
Arens, _Yediot Ahronot_, Sept. 17, 1991.} Scarcely concealed is
the premise that the US taxpayer has the duty to pay the costs
for Israel's ``rights.''

In conformity with this reasoning, ``Since Mr. Baker launched his
postwar peace mission in early March [1991], Israel has
confiscated more than 18,000 acres of Arab-owned land as part of
its continuing effort to develop the territories for Jews,'' the
_Wall Street Journal_ reports, and now has taken title to about
68% of West Bank land by various forms of legalistic chicanery.
{note: Peter Waldman, _WSJ_, May 10, 1991.} The _Journal_ draws
no conclusions about what this might imply concerning the nature
and intent of ``Mr. Baker's peace mission.''  The operative
assumption of objective journalism is that the US stands by, a
helpless victim, pouring in funds for activities that it is
unable to influence.

The Labor coalition, which governed until 1977 and intermittently
since, has preferred a different version of rejectionism. Its
position, which has varied in details over the years, is based on
the ``Allon plan'' adopted in 1968. It calls for Israel to take
what it wants in the occupied territories: the resources,
particularly West Bank water, on which Israel heavily relies; the
usable land, including the area around a vastly expanded
Jerusalem, now favored residential areas for the urban centers of
Tel Aviv and Jerusalem; the Jordan valley; etc. Similarly, Israel
must control the Golan Heights, in particular, its valuable water
resources, now estimated to supply 25% of Israel's needs {note:
Peter Waldman, _Wall St. Journal_, Oct. ??, 1991.}; with regard
to the Golan Heights, Labor is more hawkish than Likud. Earlier
versions also called for Israeli control over Eastern and
Northeastern Sinai. But Israel should not take responsibility for
the Arab population concentrations, which are to remain stateless
or administered by Jordan under effective Israeli control. The
reason is ``the demographic problem,'' the burden of dealing with
too many Arabs in what is, by law, ``the sovereign State of the
Jewish people'' in Israel and the diaspora, not the State of its
citizens. A commitment to deprive too many citizens of rights
carries costs that Labor considers too high.  The prevailing
assumption has been that if only a minority, less than 20%, are
second-class citizens by law, the costs will be tolerable, and
Western commentators will be able to marvel over Israeli
democracy. But problems increase if the numbers rise high enough
to evoke images of South Africa.

The US has tended to support the more rational Labor party form
of rejectionism, a fact that brings it into occasional conflict
with the government of Israel, as in the past few months. From
the point of view of the Palestinians, there is little to choose
between these two positions. Many Palestinians and Israeli doves
regard the Likud version as potentially more hopeful; and in
fact, Likud occupation policies have often been less harsh than
those of the Labor party, contrary to the standard depiction of
Labor doves versus Likud hawks.

The US has also objected to the defiant and brazen settlement
programs of Likud, preferring Labor's technique of quietly
``building facts'' that will determine the shape of the final
outcome. In this connection, the disagreements are more about
method than goal, as we see when we take a closer look at the
actual policies and the thinking that lies behind them.

The traditional Labor party doctrine was expressed by Prime
Minister Golda Meir in addressing new Soviet immigrants in a
meeting on the Golan Heights in September 1971: ``the borders are
determined by where Jews live, not where there is a line on a
map.'' The guiding views were elaborated by her Minister of
Defense, the influential planner Moshe Dayan, often considered
something of a dove. He repeatedly emphasized that the
settlements are ``permanent,'' the basis for ``permanent rule''
by Israel over the territories: ``the settlements are forever,
and the future borders will include these settlements as part of
Israel.''

The leading figure of the Labor party, David Ben-Gurion, held
essentially the same view during the period of his political
influence. Israeli journalist Amnon Kapeliouk observed 20 years
ago that ``every child in Israel knows one of the most famous
expressions of the founder of the Jewish state, David Ben-Gurion:
It is not important what the Gentiles say, what matters is what
the Jews do'.'' Ben-Gurion's conception, clearly articulated in
internal documents and sometimes in public, was that ``a Jewish
state . . . will serve as an important and decisive stage in the
realization of Zionism,'' but only a _stage_: the borders of the
state ``will not be fixed for eternity,'' but will expand either
by agreement with the Arabs ``or by some other way,'' once ``we
have force at our disposal'' in a Jewish State. His long-term
vision included Jordan and beyond, sometimes even ``the Land of
Israel'' from the Nile to the Euphrates.

During the 1948 war, Ben-Gurion's view was that ``To the Arabs of
the Land of Israel only one function remains---to run away.'' The
words reflected traditional Zionist attitudes. Chaim Weizmann,
the first President of Israel and the most revered Zionist
figure, observed casually that the British had informed him that
in Palestine ``there are a few hundred thousand Negroes, but that
is a matter of no significance.'' Weizmann had in turn informed
Lord Balfour after World War I that ``the issue known as the Arab
problem in Palestine will be of merely local character and, in
effect, anyone cognizant of the situation does not consider it a
highly significant factor.'' Hence displacement of the Arabs and
expansion of the Jewish settlement can be pursued with no moral
qualms, merely tactical concerns. {note: Kapeliouk, _Israel: la
fin des mythes_ (Albin Michel, 1975), 21, 29, 220. This important
study, a translation from the original Hebrew, could find no
American publisher. Shabtai Teveth, _Ben-Gurion and the
Palestinian Arabs_ (Oxford, 1985), 187f., and Benny Morris,
review of Teveth, _Jerusalem Post_, Oct. 11, 1985; Teveth is the
highly sympathetic biographer of Ben-Gurion. See also my _Fateful
Triangle_ (South End, 1983), 161f. Weizmann, Yosef Heller,
_Bama'avak Lamdina_ (_The Struggle for the State: Zionist
Diplomacy of the years 1936--48_, Jerusalem 1985), Jewish Agency
protocols; Yosef Gorny, _Zionism and the Arabs_ (Oxford, 1985),
110.}

The preferred image among cultivated US commentators is that
Ben-Gurion was ``a decisive man, steeped in classical culture,
straightforward,'' ``a man strong enough to compromise for the
good of his people,'' in dramatic contrast to Yasser Arafat, who
is ``wily, certainly persistent and stubborn, gleefully adept at
evasion'' (much-respected _New York Times_ columnist Flora
Lewis). {note: Flora Lewis, _NYT_, Nov. 2, 1991.} The reality,
fully clear in the documentary record, is that Lewis's
description of Arafat applies no less to Ben-Gurion. And of
course, Lewis need not be concerned about Arafat's support for
the 1976 UN resolution, his repeated calls for negotiations with
Israel leading to mutual recognition through the 1980s, etc., all
successfully effaced from history.

The prevailing attitudes of the founders informed the internal
policy planning of the 1967--77 Labor government. The matter is
well worth understanding, because it is the Labor programs that
the US government and more dovish elements in respectable US
circles have tended to support. There is a revealing and
well-documented review of cabinet discussions and decisions by
Yossi Beilin, a high-level Labor party functionary close to
Shimon Peres, now the official dove in US propaganda. {note:
Beilin, _Mehiro shel Ihud_, Revivim, 1985.} Israel's first policy
decision was on June 19, 1967, when a divided (11--10) cabinet
proposed a settlement on the Green Line with Syria and Egypt
(with Israel keeping Gaza), but no mention of Jordan and the West
Bank. This proposal is described by Israeli diplomat Abba Eban in
his retrospective account as ``the most dramatic initiative that
the government of Israel ever took before or since.'' Given the
strong opposition to the proposal, it was kept secret, though it
was secretly transmitted to Washington, to be passed on to Arab
states.

As noted, Moshe Dayan was a leading Labor party planner, and West
Bank Arabs look back with some nostalgia to the days of his rule,
because of his recognition of the justice of the Palestinian
cause (which, however, must disappear into the ashcan of history,
he held) and his belief that the authorities should keep out of
the personal affairs of their Palestinian subjects. Dayan's first
proposals, described by Beilin as ``moderate,'' were presented to
the cabinet on June 13, 1967. He proposed that Israel should
annex the Gaza strip and ``undertake negotiations with the
Americans---but only them---about the transfer of Arabs [from the
Gaza strip] to the West Bank'' so that Israel would not have to
absorb a million Arabs into the State. If Hussein agrees to
accept ``autonomy'' for the West Bank, then Israel should allow
him formally to take it over while Israel ``rules to the Jordan
river'' in matters of security and foreign affairs, arrangements
that would enable Israel to ``build facts'' quietly in the
traditional fashion. As noted, the cabinet did not accept his
views, keeping the West Bank and Jordan out of their secret
proposal entirely.

Along with Shimon Peres, Dayan was part of Rafi, the most hawkish
sector of the Labor coalition apart from Ahdut Avodah (the main
kibbutz movement). At a Rafi meeting of September 1967, there was
a dispute between Peres and Dayan after Dayan explained more
fully his position with regard to the Palestinian refugees in the
occupied territories: ``Let us approach them and say that we have
no solution, that you shall continue to live like dogs, and
whoever wants to can leave---and we will see where this process
leads.'' After they have lived ``like dogs'' under Israeli
military occupation, Dayan continued, ``It is possible that in
five years we will have 200,000 less people---and that is a
matter of enormous importance.'' Peres objected to Dayan's advice
that Israel become ``like Rhodesia,'' arguing that these measures
would harm Israel's international image and prospects for
immigration.  For these tactical reasons, he argued, it is
necessary to preserve Israel's ``moral stand.'' Dayan's response
was: ``Ben-Gurion said that anyone who approaches the Zionist
problem from a moral aspect, he is not a Zionist.'' He continued
to advocate the Rhodesian solution.

In the same September 1967 meeting, Rafi established its
settlement policy, then implemented. It was written by Peres.  He
observed that ``Israel's new map will be determined by its
policies of settlement and new land-taking,'' and therefore
called for ``urgent efforts'' to establish settlements not only
in East Jerusalem, but also ``to the north, south and east,''
including Hebron, Gush-Etzion, etc.; the Jordan valley; ``the
central region of the mountains of Shechem [Nablus]''; the Golan
Heights, the El-Arish region in the Sinai and the Red Sea access.
The Labor coalition policies were even more extreme, notably the
Galili protocols of 1973 and the policies implementing them,
including the expulsion of thousands of Beduins into the desert,
their homes, mosques and graveyards destroyed to clear the lands
for the all-Jewish city of Yamit in northern Sinai, steps that
led directly to the 1973 war.

Much is made in US propaganda about Israel's eagerness to make
peace after the 1967 war, if the Arabs could only bring
themselves to make a simple telephone call. In a BBC interview on
June 13, 1967, Dayan indeed said that Israel awaits a telephone
call from the Arabs: ``For our part, we will do nothing,'' he
added. ``We are quite happy with the current situation. If
anything troubles the Arabs, they know where to find us.'' {note:
Kapeliouk, _op. cit._, 282, retranslated from French.} Hardly a
passionate plea for peace, particularly when seen in context.

A month before the Rafi meeting, in August 1967, Yigal Allon had
advanced his ``Allon plan,'' which became official policy a year
later. Israel's position after cancellation of the secret 1967
proposal was presented to the UN by Abba Eban on September 8,
1968. Since then, the Labor coalition has adopted one or another
version of the Allon plan. Its precise terms have never been
clearly established, at least in the public record. But the basic
content, sketched above, has been made reasonably clear along
with occasional variations as circumstances change.

No other Israeli initiatives are known. The general policy for
which there is any documentation, to my knowledge, follows the
guidelines expressed by President Haim Herzog in 1972: ``I do not
deny the Palestinians any place or stand or opinion on every
matter. But certainly I am not prepared to consider them as
partners in any respect in a land that has been consecrated in
the hands of our nation for thousands of years. For the Jews of
this land there cannot be any partner.'' Note that Herzog's
attitudes are well within the mainstream of liberal Zionism,
including Chaim Weizmann and others.

Given the prevailing assumptions, it is not at all surprising
that Dayan agreed with the policy of blocking all political
activities on the West Bank, including pro-Jordanian activities.
True, he was not as extreme as Prime Minister Golda Meir. Thus in
1972, Dayan at first was willing to permit a pro-Jordanian
political conference in the West Bank, but he raised no objection
when Meir ordered Minister of Police Shlomo Hillel to prevent it.
Labor party policies are described by former Chief of Israeli
intelligence Shlomo Gazit, a senior official of the military
administration from 1967 to 1973. The basic principle, he
observes, was ``that it is necessary to prevent the inhabitants
of the territories from participating in shaping the political
future of the territory and they must not be seen as a partner
for dealings with Israel''; hence ``the absolute prohibition of
any political organization, for it was clearly understood by
everyone that if political activism and organization were
permitted, its leaders would become potential participants in
political affairs.'' The same considerations require ``the
destruction of all initiative and every effort on the part of the
inhabitants of the territories to serve as a pipeline for
negotiations, to be a channel to the Palestinian Arab leadership
of the territories.''  Israel's policy is a ``success story,''
Gazit wrote in 1985, because these goals had been achieved, with
continued US support and to much applause from left-liberal
opinion in the United States. {note: Gazit, _Hamakel Vehagezer_
(Tel Aviv, 1985), quoted in _Al Hamishmar_, Nov. 7, 1985.}

The Labor coalition began to speak of ``territorial compromise
only after the Yom Kippur war'' of 1973, Beilin records, and
expressed its willingness to consider ``territorial compromise''
in the West Bank ``only at the end of February 1977,'' after ``a
severe dispute'' internally. The terms ``territorial compromise''
and ``land for peace'' are used to refer to one or another
version of the Allon plan, always rejecting entirely the
Palestinian right to self-determination. The term ``interim
agreement'' has a broader propaganda usage, incorporating either
the Labor or the Likud form of rejectionism. These terms are
blandly adopted by US commentators, either deceived by the
rhetoric or engaged in deception themselves.

As noted, the US has favored the Labor variety of rejectionism,
more rational, and better attuned to the norms of Western
hypocrisy. These more devious methods are easier to conceal than
Likud expansionism, though the eventual outcome may not be
greatly different. These are the primary issues that have
separated the US and Israel from virtually the entire world. It
is for that reason that the US has been compelled to block the
peace process in the manner briefly reviewed.


Bush-Baker Diplomacy

Until 1988, the US and Israel were more or less satisfied with
the status quo, and were content merely to rebuff Arab and other
efforts towards a peaceful diplomatic settlement while Israel
extended its control over the territories. Problems arose,
however, with the outbreak of the Intifada and the severe Israeli
repression, which created negative images and other unwanted
costs. Furthermore, PLO insistence on a political settlement,
though not fundamentally different from earlier years, was
becoming more difficult to suppress. The problem of diverting
diplomacy was becoming serious by late 1988, when the US refused
to permit Yasser Arafat to address the United Nations in New
York, causing the UN to move its meeting to Geneva. By then,
Secretary of State George Schultz and domestic commentators were
becoming an international laughing stock with their increasingly
desperate pretense that Arafat had failed to say the ``magic
words'' dictated to him by Washington. The wise decision was made
to resort to a familiar diplomatic trick, the ``Trollope ploy'':
to pretend that Arafat had accepted US demands, welcome his
invented capitulation, then impose upon him the US terms that
Washington attributed to him. It was assumed correctly that the
media and intellectual opinion would adopt Washington's claims
without inspection, ignoring the fact---transparent to any
literate person---that Arafat's positions remained as far from
Washington's as before, and that no Palestinian spokesperson
could possibly accept the US terms. The farce was played
perfectly, and now has entered history, the facts being consigned
to the memory hole in the usual manner of a well-run modern
society.

The PLO's reward for its invented capitulation was a low-level
``dialogue'' to divert world attention while Israel turned to
harsher measures of repression to suppress the Intifada.
Predictably, the PLO leadership played along, contributing to the
success of the repression. The US-Israeli agreement was explained
by Labor's Defense Secretary, Yitzhak Rabin, who informed Peace
Now leaders in February 1989 that he welcomed the meaningless
``dialogue,'' which would offer Israel a year or more to employ
``harsh military and economic pressure.'' ``In the end,'' Rabin
explained, ``they will be broken,'' and will accept Israel's
terms. These plans were implemented, with much success. {note:
For an ongoing account and references, see my articles in _Z
magazine_, March 1989, Jan. 1990, and _Necessary Illusions_.}

Meanwhile, Israel and the US initiated their own unilateral
diplomatic track, to deflect the danger of an authentic peace
process. A Likud-Labor coalition government proposed the
so-called ``Shamir Plan'' in May 1989, more accurately the
Shamir-Peres Plan. {note: Israeli Government Election Plan,
Jerusalem, 14 May 1989, official text distributed by the Embassy
of Israel in Washington.} The plan's ``Basic Premises'' are: (1)
there can be no ``additional Palestinian state in the Gaza
district and in the area between Israel and Jordan''; (2)
``Israel will not conduct negotiations with the PLO''; (3)
``There will be no change in the status of Judea, Samaria and
Gaza other than in accordance with the basic guidelines of the
Government'' of Israel, which reject Palestinian
self-determination in any meaningful form. The phrase
``additional Palestinian state'' reflects the consensus view that
there already is a Palestinian state, namely, Jordan, so that the
issue of self-determination for the Palestinians does not arise,
contrary to what Jordanians, Palestinians, and the rest of the
world mistakenly believe. The ``Basic Premises'' incorporate the
``Four No's'' of the official Labor party program: No return to
the 1967 borders, No removal of settlements, No negotiations with
the PLO, No Palestinian state.  The coalition plan then calls for
a peace treaty with Jordan and ``free and democratic elections''
under Israeli military occupation with the PLO excluded and much
of the Palestinian leadership interned without charges in Israeli
prison camps.

The US quickly endorsed this forthcoming proposal. James Baker
explained that ``Our goal all along has been to try to assist in
the implementation of the Shamir initiative. There is no other
proposal or initiative that we are working with.'' On December 6,
1989, the Department of State released the Baker Plan, which
spelled out five points for the ``peace process,'' referring to
an Egypt-Israel-Palestinian ``dialogue'' in Cairo. The Baker Plan
stipulated that Israel would attend ``only after a satisfactory
list of Palestinians has been worked out,'' and that any
Palestinians allowed by the US and Israel to attend would be
restricted to discussion of implementation of the Shamir Plan.

Recall that all of this was long before the Gulf War, and while
the US-PLO ``dialogue'' was spinning along in its intentionally
pointless way. Standard doctrine on the exclusion of the PLO is
utterly without merit, as mere inspection of dates and documents
clearly demonstrates---for example, the claim that Arafat lost
his place at the table ``as a result of his support for Iraq in
the gulf war'' (Thomas Friedman), and that ``the principal causes
of the PLO's weakness'' today are PLO support for Saddam Hussein
and failure to expel the perpetrators of a thwarted terrorist
action in May 1990, which led the US to suspend the dialogue, no
longer of any tactical utility (editorial, _Boston Globe_).  Even
if we adopt the version of what happened put forth by the
propaganda system, it merely offers new pretexts for old
policies, always supported by the same organs prior to the
alleged crimes. The performance may be dismissed as childish, but
given the guaranteed unanimity of voices, it is effective. {note:
Baker, Thomas Friedman, _NYT_, Oct. 19, 1989; Baker Plan, U.S.
Department of State press release, Dec 6, 1989.  Friedman, _NYT_,
Nov. 4; _BG_, Oct. 6, 1991.}

The Gulf conflict did, however, accelerate the US pursuit of its
rejectionist diplomacy, for reasons already discussed. That
brings us to Madrid. Here too some historical background is
useful to interpret what is happening, and to decode its
portrayal.


The Evolution of US Policy

The Madrid conference and its aftermath are concerned with the
situation that arose in the wake of the June 1967 war, which left
Israel in control of Egypt's Sinai peninsula, the Syrian Golan
Heights, the Gaza Strip (administered by Egypt), and the West
Bank (administered by Jordan, its status unrecognized
internationally). Other issues are not under consideration. To
mention only the most obvious, while the status of the West Bank
is a topic of debate, Israel's incorporation of the other half of
the Palestinian state proposed in the original UN partition
resolution of 1947 is a settled issue. Jordan's illegitimate
occupation of the West Bank figures prominently in US-Israeli
propaganda; the fact that the Palestinian state was, in effect,
partitioned between Jordan and Israel, with no small amount of
collusion, and that Egypt fought in the 1948 war in part to
counter the ambitions of Britain's Jordanian client, is left to
scholarly monographs. {note: See particularly Avi Shlaim,
_Collusion over Jordan_ (Columbia, 1988). Also Rabinovitch, _The
Road Not Taken_ (Oxford, 1991), 171.}

Another settled issue is that the conference is based on UN
resolution 242, adopted by the Security Council in November 1967.
This resolution keeps to inter-state relations, avoiding the
Palestinian issue, and is therefore acceptable to the US and
Israel, as distinct from many other UN resolutions dating back to
December 1948 that endorse Palestinian rights of varying sorts
that the US does not acknowledge (though in some cases, the US
voted for the resolutions). UN 242 is also acceptable because of
its ambiguity. Crucially _not_ settled is what the resolution
means; it was left intentionally vague to assure at least formal
acceptance by the states of the region.

The resolution opens by ``emphasizing the inadmissibility of the
acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just
and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in
security.'' It calls for ``withdrawal of Israeli armed forces
from territories occupied in the recent conflict,'' ``termination
of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and
acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and
political independence of every State in the area and their right
to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries. . . .''

With regard to the meaning of these provisions, two crucial
questions arise. First, what is the meaning of the phrase ``from
territories occupied''? Second, what is to be the status of the
indigenous population of the former Palestine, the Palestinians,
who are not a ``State'' and therefore do not fall under the
resolution?

Both questions reached the Security Council in January 1976, in
the resolution discussed earlier, incorporating the basic wording
of UN 242 but extending it to a Palestinian state in the West
Bank and Gaza. The resolution answered the first question by
calling for a settlement on the Green Line. It answered the
second by calling for a Palestinian state in the territories from
which Israel would withdraw. As noted, it was vetoed by the
United States, effectively terminating any UN role in the peace
process, apart from gestures. Given US opposition, all such
proposals, however vague, are off the agenda, out of the
historical record, not part of public discussion. The two basic
questions concerning UN 242 therefore remain unresolved. To be
more precise, they will be settled by force, that is, by the
United States, in international isolation.  A different approach
to the two questions left unsettled in UN 242 had been formulated
by UN mediator Gunnar Jarring, who proposed a plan calling for a
full peace treaty on the Green Line. This proposal was accepted
by President Sadat of Egypt in February 1971. Israel recognized
it as a genuine peace offer, but rejected it; the Labor party was
committed to broader territorial gains from the 1967 war. Note
that the Jarring-Sadat proposal offered nothing to the
Palestinians. The basic problem is not Palestinian rights per se,
but rather the fact that recognizing them would bar Israeli
control over the occupied territories.

At the insistence of National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger,
the US backed Israel's rejection of the Sadat offer, adopting
Kissinger's policy of ``stalemate.'' As usual, the US decision to
back Israel's rejection of the Jarring-Sadat peace proposal
removed the events from history and public discussion, at least
in the United States. In Israel, in contrast, even conservative
Middle East specialists recognize that Israel may have ``missed a
historic opportunity'' in 1971 (Itamar Rabinovitch, asking
whether Israel also missed such an opportunity when a Syrian
proposal was rejected in 1949). {note: Rabinovitch, _op. cit._,
108.}

The Jarring-Sadat proposal was virtually identical to official US
policy, formulated in the State Department plan of December 1969
(the Rogers Plan). It also conformed to the general
interpretation of UN 242 outside of Israel. The Rogers plan
suggests that this was also the US interpretation at the time, a
conclusion supported by other evidence. In an important article
in a British Middle East journal, Donald Neff, a well-known US
journalist and historian specializing on Middle East affairs,
reviews a State Department study based on records of the 1967
negotiations. {note: Noring and Smith, _The Withdrawal Clause in
UN Security Council Resolution 242 of 1967_, Feb. 1978; Neff,
_Middle East International_, 13 Sept. 1991.} This study, leaked
to Neff, has been kept secret ``so as not to embarrass Israel,''
Neff concludes. The study quotes the chief American negotiator,
Arthur Goldberg, who was strongly pro-Israel. Goldberg informed
King Hussein of Jordan that the US ``could not guarantee that
everything would be returned to Jordan; some territorial
adjustments would be required,'' but there must be ``a mutuality
in adjustments.'' Secretary of State Dean Rusk confirmed to
Hussein that the US ``would use its influence to obtain
compensation to Jordan for any territory it was required to give
up,'' citing examples. Goldberg informed officials of other Arab
states ``that the United States did not conceive of any
substantial redrawing of the map.'' Israel's withdrawal would be
``total except for minor adjustments,'' Goldberg assured the
Arabs, with compensation to Jordan for any such adjustments. His
assurances led them to agree to UN 242. In a private
communication to Neff, Dean Rusk recently affirmed that ``We
never contemplated any significant grant of territory to Israel
as a result of the June 1967 war.''  The US interpretation of UN
242 contemplated ``minor adjustments in the western frontier of
the West Bank,'' ``demilitarization measures in the Sinai and
Golan Heights,'' and ``a fresh look'' at the status of Jerusalem.
``Resolution 242 never contemplated the movement of any
significant territories to Israel,'' Rusk concluded.

Advocates of Israeli policies in the United States commonly claim
that this interpretation of UN 242 is contrary to the stand taken
by Arthur Goldberg and the US government generally. Thus the news
columns of the _New York Times_ inform us that the Israeli
version of UN 242, which permits Israel to incorporate
unspecified parts of the conquered territories, is ``supported by
Arthur J. Goldberg,'' citing later comments of his in which he
did indeed support the Israeli version. {note: Sabra Chatrand,
``The The' that Brought Mideast Rivals to Table,'' _NYT_, Oct.
29, 1991.}

One of the more extreme apologists, Yale Law professor and former
government official Eugene Rostow, claims that he ``helped
produce'' UN 242, and has repeatedly argued that it authorizes
continued Israeli control over the territories. In response to
his claims, David Korn, former State Department office director
for Israel and Arab-Israeli affairs, wrote in November 1991 that
helped produce' Resolution 242, but in fact he had little if
anything to do with it.'' He was an ``onlooker,'' like ``many
others who have claimed a hand in it.'' ``It was U.S. policy at
the time and for several years afterward,'' Korn continues,
``that [any border] changes would be no more than minor.'' Korn
confirms that ``Both Mr. Goldberg and Secretary of State Dean
Rusk told King Hussein that the United States would use its
influence to obtain territorial compensation from Israel for any
West Bank lands ceded by Jordan to Israel,'' and that Jordan's
acquiescence was based on these promises. Rostow's pathetic and
evasive response contests none of these statements. {note:
Rostow, Korn, _New Republic_, Oct. 21, Nov.  18, , Nov. 25,
1991.}

The available evidence leads us to conclude that the US kept to
the international consensus until February 1971, when it rejected
the Jarring-Sadat initiative. US isolation increased in the
mid-1970s as the international consensus shifted to recognition
of a Palestinian right of self-determination. Since February
1971, the US has been essentially alone in blocking the ``peace
process.'' The standard version here is quite different, of
course.

Kissinger's support for Israeli intransigence led directly to the
1973 war. Sadat's repeated warnings that he would go to war if
the US and Israel continued to block any diplomatic initiatives
were dismissed during this period of extreme US-Israeli
triumphalism, on the assumption that Israel's power was
overwhelming and ``war is not the Arab's game,'' as explained by
Israeli Arabist and director of military intelligence General
Yehoshaphat Harkabi (now a dove), in a statement less extreme
than many. General Ariel Sharon's ravings were particularly
noteworthy. {note: Kapeliouk, _op. cit._, 281. See my _Peace in
the Middle East?_ (Pantheon, 1974), chap. 4.} On the same
assumptions, the US rebuffed Sadat's offers to drop Soviet
patronage and transform Egypt to a US client state.

The 1973 war shattered these illusions. It turned out to be a
near thing, and Henry Kissinger, no great genius but able to
recognize the mailed fist, realized that policy must shift. The
US then turned to the natural fall-back position. Since Egypt
could not simply be dismissed as a basket case, the obvious
strategy was to accept it as a US client state and remove it from
the conflict. This was the goal of Kissinger's ``step-by-step''
diplomacy, a process accelerated by Sadat's 1977 trip to
Jerusalem and finally consummated at Camp David, over the strong
objections of leading elements of the (by then, opposition) Labor
party, because the treaty required that Israel abandon the
northeastern Sinai settlements that Labor had established.

The import of the Camp David settlement was obvious at once.
With the major Arab deterrent removed from the conflict and a
huge increase in US aid, Israel would be free to accelerate its
takeover of the occupied territories and to invade Lebanon, which
it had subjected to devastating bombardment and occasional
terrorist attack for years, as part of its interaction with the
PLO in southern Lebanon. In 1978, Israel invaded Lebanon, killing
several thousand people, driving out hundreds of thousands more,
and placing the southern zone under the rule of a murderous
client force. Israel still remains in defiance of UN Security
Council resolution 425 (March 1978) ordering it to withdraw from
Lebanon unconditionally and immediately. In 1982 Israel invaded
again after a year of Israeli terror attacks intended (in vain)
to elicit some PLO response that would serve as a pretext for its
plan to destroy the PLO as a political force, thus ensuring
Israeli control over the occupied territories while placing
Lebanon under Israeli suzerainty. The 1982 invasion was far more
devastating, with over 20,000 killed, mostly civilians.
Integration of the occupied territories meanwhile continued
apace.

The obvious import of Camp David is by now sometimes
acknowledged, in Israel, quite frankly. Israeli strategic analyst
Avner Yaniv writes that the effect of the Camp David agreement,
removing Egypt from the conflict, was that ``Israel would be free
to sustain military operations against the PLO in Lebanon as well
as settlement activity on the West Bank.''  Expressing a
widely-held consensus among Israeli experts and political
figures, he adds that the 1982 invasion of Lebanon was intended
to ``undermine the position of the moderates within [the peace
offensive' '' and ``to halt [the PLO's] rise to political
respectability.'' It should be called ``the war to safeguard the
occupation of the West Bank,'' General Harkabi observes, having
been motivated by Begin's ``fear of the momentum of the peace
process.'' The US backed the Israeli invasion, presumably for the
same reasons, well-known at the time, unless we are willing to
attribute to US intelligence and planners an extraordinary level
of ignorance and stupidity. {note: For these and references, see
_Necessary Illusions_, 174f., 276. For discussion at the time and
immediately after, see _Fateful Triangle_ and my _Pirates and
Emperors_ (Claremont, 1986; Amana, 1988).}

The Camp David accords offered the Palestinians limited
``autonomy'' under Israeli rule for an interim period. Israel and
Egypt agreed on specifics by 1980, according to US mediator Sol
Linowitz, who regards the Palestinian rejection of this offer as
a tragic error on their part, noting accurately that the 1980
proposal is the most they can expect from the US and Israel
today. Palestinians rejected it at the time, Linowitz notes, on
the grounds that it would preclude authentic self-government in
an independent state, and they also objected to the exclusion of
their political representatives, the PLO, a stand that Linowitz
regards as completely unreasonable---for Palestinians, not Jews.
Reporting Linowitz's views, _New York Times_ correspondent Sabra
Chatrand adds that Likud Prime Minister Menahem Begin favored the
autonomy proposal ``because the idea seemed to resolve the
Palestinian issue while leaving Israel in fundamental control of
West Bank and Gaza''---precisely the point at the time, and still
today.

Neither Chatrand nor Linowitz see any merit in the Palestinian
unwillingness to ``leave Israel in fundamental control of West
Bank and Gaza.'' On the rejectionist assumptions that are an
entry ticket to polite society in the United States, Palestinian
unhappiness with such an outcome merely reveals that Palestinians
never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, in a standard
formula. The racist undertones also provide more than a little
insight into the prevailing intellectual culture here.
Particularly noteworthy is the praise lavished upon Palestinian
negotiators who don't simply hang from trees and brandish
submachine guns but speak ``poetically'' (as Thomas Friedman puts
it) and ``pragmatically,'' adapting to US terms while deferring
their ``unrealistic'' demands for the rights granted as a matter
of course to the Jewish immigrants who displaced them---not that
they have much of a choice, given the monopoly of violence in the
hands of the United States and its Israeli client, and the
monolithic system for transforming the real world into images
suitable for the needs of domestic power.

Chatrand observes further that ``after years of conflict with
Israel, uncounted deaths, and even more hardship, Palestinians
have abandoned their earlier conditions''---not the first
demonstration of what John Quincy Adams called the ``salutary
efficacy'' of terror. Observing the conventions, Chatrand also
reports that the United States, a helpless victim as always,
``tried and failed to get Israel to stop building Jewish
settlements in the occupied territories,'' while vastly
increasing US aid for their construction. {note: Chartrand,
_NYT_, Nov. 5, 1991.} It could be argued that the Palestinians
should have accepted the proposal that left Israel ``in
fundamental control'' of the occupied territories, but it is
unlikely that the outcome would have been any different. Those
with the guns and the money determine the meaning of the words,
and there is little reason to suppose that the US would have
chosen not to lend its decisive and active support to Israel's
expansion into the territories and attacks on Lebanon had
Palestinians agreed to accept Israeli-run ``autonomy.''

Sadat's 1977 peace initiative was less acceptable from the
US-Israeli perspective than his 1971 proposal, because it called
for Palestinian self-determination, in accord with the changing
international consensus. Nevertheless, Sadat is hailed as one of
the grand figures of the modern age for his 1977 efforts, while
the 1971 proposal has been removed from history. The reasons are
those just reviewed. In 1971, the US backed Israel's rejection of
his peace proposal, though it offered nothing to the Palestinians
and scarcely deviated from official US policy. Such facts are
politically incorrect, therefore banned from history by the
guardians of Truth. By 1977, US policy had shifted for the
reasons noted, and the US had accepted Egypt as a client state
within its regional system. Though of course the US dismissed at
once the terms that Sadat proposed in Jerusalem, it could proceed
with its own rejectionist project, with Sadat playing his
assigned role, therefore achieving heroic stature. As always,
history is established by the powerful.

The Camp David agreement is regarded in the US as a great triumph
of US diplomacy, and the model for what should come next. That
too is understandable, given the actual record.


The Prospects

Let us return finally to the three original questions: What is
the reason for the timing of the Bush-Baker initiative? Does it
signify a departure from the traditional US stand? What is the
meaning of the conflicts between the US and Israel?

The most plausible answers seem to be that the initiative is
badly needed for domestic and regional political reasons, but
otherwise simply extends traditional US goals. The conflicts with
Israel remain focussed on the issues that have always been in
dispute: the modalities of rejectionism.

The underlying US government thinking has been discussed before
in these pages. To review briefly, US diplomacy is guided by a
strategic conception that has changed very little over the years.
The primary concern is the energy resources of the region, which
are to be managed by the ``Arab Facade,'' under the effective
control of the US and its British ally. The family dictatorships
must be protected from indigenous nationalism by regional
enforcers: Turkey, Israel, Iran (under the Shah), Pakistan, etc.,
the ``periphery pact'' of Ben-Gurion's hopes and strategy.
U.S.-British force lies in reserve. Regional actors are granted
rights insofar as they contribute to ``stability,'' a term of art
referring to the establishment and enforcement of this system.
The Gulf tyrannies naturally have rights, as did Saddam Hussein
before he committed the crime of disobedience, the only one that
matters, on August 2, 1990. Israel has been regarded as a major
component of this system from the 1960s. It has also served US
interests worldwide, carrying out tasks that the US had to
delegate to others because of domestic opposition or for other
reasons, and cooperating in intelligence matters and weapons
production and testing. The Palestinians, in contrast, offer
neither wealth nor power. Accordingly, they have no rights, by
the most elementary principles of statecraft.

The US stance can be traced back to 1948, when the Pentagon,
impressed by Israel's victories, recognized it to be the major
regional power after Turkey and a potential base for US power.
As for the Palestinians, US planners had no reason to question
the assessment of Israeli government specialists that the
Palestinian refugees ``would be crushed'': ``some of them would
die and most of them would turn into human dust and the waste of
society, and join the most impoverished classes in the Arab
countries.'' As noted, this was the traditional position of
liberal Zionism, and the wording is repeated by such Labor party
leaders as Yitzhak Rabin until today. On these assumptions, there
has been no need for any concern over the fate of the indigenous
population of the former Palestine.

The operative principles were well expressed by _New Republic_
editor Martin Peretz, one of the more extreme anti-Arab racists
and apologists for Israeli atrocities, just before Israel's 1982
invasion of Lebanon, when he advised Israel to administer to the
PLO a ``lasting military defeat'' that ``will clarify to the
Palestinians in the West Bank that their struggle for an
independent state has suffered a setback of many years,'' the
essential purpose of the invasion. Then ``the Palestinians will
be turned into just another crushed nation, like the Kurds or the
Afghans,'' and the Palestinian problem---which ``is beginning to
be boring''---will be resolved. {note: Interview in _Ha'aretz_,
June 4, 1982; see _Fateful Triangle_, 199. On the racist
effusions of Peretz and others, see _Necessary Illusions_, 315.}
His timing may have been off, but basic principles are resilient
in states with unchallenged power. Peretz's attitude towards the
Kurds also captures US policy succinctly, as we have recently
seen once again.

Control over Middle East energy resources provides important
leverage in world affairs and guarantees a badly needed flow of
capital to the economies of the United States and Britain. The
system of regional management has changed in detail, but the
operative principles have not. The course of diplomacy is
understandable in these terms.

From the US perspective, a preferred outcome of the current
diplomatic maneuvers would be: First, an ``interim agreement''
between Israel and the Palestinians, which would enable Israel to
extend its control over the territories within the framework of
Labor Party rejectionism; Second, steps toward commercial and
diplomatic relations between Israel and the Gulf rulers, thus
extending and making somewhat more overt the tacit alliance of
the past several decades; Third, arrangements for the Golan
Heights that would ensure Israeli control of the crucial water
resources while satisfying Syrian nationalist goals, at least
symbolically. If the US rejectionist program is not advanced in
these ways, the US will easily win a valuable propaganda victory
by placing the blame on Middle East fanatics who have disrupted
Washington's noble intentions. It is reasonable to expect that
the policies of the past years will then be pursued in other
ways.

If US interests are reassessed and Washington decides to press
Israel beyond what its leadership would accept, Israel does have
certain options, despite its extreme dependency on the United
States. The nature of these options has been the topic of
considerable discussion within Israel. Writing about the matter
almost 10 years ago, I quoted Aryeh (Lova) Eliav, one of Israel's
best-known doves, who deplored the attitude of ``those who
brought Samson complex' here, according to which we shall kill
and bury all the Gentiles around us while we ourselves shall die
with them.'' Others too regarded the greatest danger facing
Israel as the ``collective version'' of Samson's revenge against
the Philistines, recalling Prime Minister Moshe Sharett's diary
entries from the 1950s, in which he recorded the ``preaching'' of
high-level Labor party officials ``in favor of acts of madness''
and ``the diabolical lesson of how to set the Middle East on
fire'' with ``acts of despair and suicide'' that will terrify the
world as ``we go crazy,'' if crossed. Israel's nuclear power,
well-known to US authorities for many years, renders such
thinking more than empty threats. Writing in 1982, three Israeli
strategic analysts observed that Israel's nuclear capacity
included missiles able to reach ``many targets in southern
USSR,'' a threat---real or pretended---that may well be aimed
primarily at the United States, putting US planners on notice
that pressures on Israel to accede to an unwanted political
settlement could lead to an international conflagration. The
reasoning was explained further in the Labor party journal
_Davar_, reporting Israel's reaction to the Saudi peace plan of
August 1981, with the ``signs of open-mindedness and moderation''
that the government of Israel regarded as a serious threat.
Israel's response was to send military jets over the oil fields,
a warning to the West of Israel's capacity to cause immense
destruction to the world's major energy reserves if pressed
towards an unwanted peace, _Davar_ reported. {note: See my
_Fateful Triangle_ (South End, 1983), 464ff.} The world has
changed since, but Israel's ``Samson option,'' as Seymour Hersh
calls it in a recent book, remains alive.

Serious Israeli analysts today express considerable concern over
what may lie ahead. One of Israel's leading military
commentators, Lieutenant-Colonel Ron Ben-Yishai, was interviewed
recently on the Bush-Baker initiatives. ``This might be the last
chance we have to make peace,'' he said. He expected the current
diplomatic efforts to fail. This failure will lead to a war,
which should last ``a minimum of three to four weeks,'' a
``conventional war'' with some surface-to-surface missiles but
mostly a ground war, with uncertain prospects and surely grim
consequences. {note: ``Elazar,'' _Jerusalem Post Magazine_. Oct.
4, 1991.} There has been a rash of similar predictions, referring
to a war with Syria that Israel might initiate with a preemptive
strike. The US will surely do what it can to prevent that, but
even US power reaches only so far. If the US keeps to its
rejectionist stand, Israel will continue to integrate the
territories, the core local conflict will remain unresolved,
turbulence and antagonisms will fester and intermittently
explode, and a stable regional settlement---let alone a just one
---is most unlikely.