Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians by Noam Chomsky, Edward W. Said (Foreword by)
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(Paperback - REV)
- Pub. Date: April 1999
- 600pp
- Sales Rank: 165,982
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: April 1999
- Publisher: South End Press
- Format: Paperback, 600pp
- Sales Rank: 165,982
- Series: South End Press Classics Series
- ISBN-13: 9780896086012
- ISBN: 0896086011
- Edition Number: 2
- Edition Description: REV
Synopsis
Contents
Foreword by Edward W. Said
Preface to the Updated Edition
1. Fanning the Flames
2. The Origins of the "Special Relationship"
3. Rejectionism and Accommodation
4. Isreal and Palestine: Historical Backgrounds
5. Peace for Galilee
6. Aftermath
7. The Road to Armageddon
8. The Palestinian Uprising
9. "Limited War" in Lebanon
10. Washington's "Peace Process"
Index
An Excerpt from Fateful Triangle, Updated Edition
For some time, I've been compelled to arrange speaking engagements long in advance. Sometimes a title is requested for a talk scheduled several years ahead. There is, I've found, one title that always works: "The current crisis in the Middle East." One can't predict exactly what the crisis will be far down the road, but that there will be one is a fairly safe prediction.
That will continue to be the case as long as basic problems of the region are not addressed.
Furthermore, the crises will be serious in what President Eisenhower called "the most strategically important area in the world." In the early post-War years, the United States in effect extended the Monroe Doctrine to the Middle East, barring any interference apart from Britain, assumed to be a loyal dependency and quickly punished when it occasionally got out of hand (as in 1956). The strategic importance of the region lies primarily in its immense petroleum reserves and the global power accorded by control over them; and, crucially, from the huge profits that flow to the Anglo-American rulers, which have been of critical importance for their economies. It has been necessary to ensure that this enormous wealth flowsprimarily to the West, not to the people of the region. That is one fundamental problem that will continue to cause unrest and disorder. Another is the Israel-Arab conflict with its many ramifications, which have been closely related to the major U.S. strategic goal of dominating the region's resources and wealth.
For many years, it was claimed the core problem was Soviet subversion and expansionism, the reflexive justification for virtually all policies since the Bolshevik takeover in Russia in 1917.
ColorLines, Spring 2001 - Lamis Adoni
This is an incisive and in depth analysis by one of the most important thinkers of our time on U.S. policy in the Middle East. Chomsky traces the roots of the U.S. alliance with israel and methodically dissects the myth about America's self-declared role as an honest broker of peace in the region. He links U.S. policies to its economic interests, particulary securing the flow of cheap crude oil and sustaining U.S. military prescence and Israeli prowess in the region. A must read to understand what motivates U.S. policies and their repercussions on the people of the Middle East.
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Dreadfulby Anonymous
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May 31, 2003: This book attempts to indict Israel, without basis in fact, history or reality. Beginning with myriad false premises--for example, that the U.S. is now and has always engaged in a nefarious plot to dominate the Middle East via a 'client state'--the book quickly grows misshapen. Chomsky's first strike: His 'client state' thesis ignores the fact that, but for Harry Truman's insistence, the U.S. would have opposed the 1948 United Nations partition plan -- and Israel's founding. Through the Six Day War, the U.S. remained neutral and often hostile to Israel, providing no help whatever. His second: The 'Israel as aggressor' thesis ignores the existence and history of Jerusalem Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who in 1948 promised a 'war of annihilation' against Israel, that for all intents and purposes has continued ever since. In that war alone, Israel catastrophically lost nearly 1% of her population, including 600 Israeli civilians captured and mutilated beyond recognition. In total, Israel has lost some 24,000 Jewish and Arab citizens to Arab wars and terrorism, proportionately comparable (today) to over 1 million U.S. citizens. To this war, as Werner Cohn notes in Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers (available free online), Chomsky devotes only parts of two pages, taking events entirely out-of-context. Chomsky similarly avoids full treatment of the pivotal 1929 Arab riots. To this, as Cohn reports, 'Chomsky devotes two paragraphs.' His main text admits that in August 1929, 133 Jews were massacred, including a 'most ghastly incident' in Hebron, where 60 Jews were killed. Chomksy quotes Christopher Sykes' Cross Roads to Israel. For the record, Sykes leaves no doubt that in 1929 Haj Amin el-Husseini was likewise a major instigator. A Jewish boy was murdered after innocently kicking a ball into a neighboring Arab garden. The Mufti's henchmen walked about Jerusalem carrying clubs. Unconcerned with 'sacred frontiers of the fatherland,' the Mufti was 'interested in religion.... The enemy was the Jewish people.' Chomsky neglects to mention 'the goading policy of the Supreme Moslem Council' or its purposeful 'driving Jews to exasperation,' (Sykes, 1967 Nel Mentor ed.). No, Chomsky relies largely on a single eyewitness (contradicted by many others, whom he ignores), thus falsely blaming the 1929 riots, as Cohn notes, entirely on the Jews. All that--and the 1973 Yom Kippur War--negate Chomsky's theses, so the vast bulk of his action begins in 1982, with the false notion that Israel consistently rejected 'any political settlement' with Arabs. This not coincidentally also avoids such mitigating factors as Israel's return to Egypt of Sinai (including Israeli-developed oil wells and resorts), within 12 years of Nasser's (renewed) 1967 vow to erase Israel from the map. Instead, Chomsky speciously cites a 'flood' of letters to the U.S. media in 'strikingly similar format,' falsely inferring U.S. media and government support for 'establishment of a Greater Israel.' Good grief. As to 1982, Chomsky avoids noting that Israel was only then responding to decades of cross-border terrorist raids and bombardments suffered by Israeli towns that took innumerable Israeli lives--all of them from staging areas in southern Lebanon. Rather, he focuses on ostensibly pro-Israel media, including profiles of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden, whose 'state worshipping' he terms worthy of the 'annals of Stalinism.' This book, in fact,...
Truth be spokenby Anonymous
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February 18, 2003: It's amazing how this book has so much information. Noam Chomsky gives a precise analysis on what has occured in that the general public need be addressed. I've only read but a few chapters but already I see now the issues that lead up to current events. Mr. Chomsky's work here can not be refuted or denied with all the harsh criticism people usually associate with him. He speaks the truth justly and firmly with the most credible sources.
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