The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians
Good Fit
- Readers who want a critical, document-based perspective on the role of US foreign policy in the Middle East
- Readers who want to learn the historical roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a lens different from official narratives
- Readers curious about Noam Chomsky's method of political critique — analyzing official documents and comparing them against press coverage
Not a Fit
- Readers looking for a balanced source that weighs both sides' arguments equally — the book is openly written from a critical, one-sided position
- Readers who prefer flowing narrative over an academic-journalistic style dense with citations and long quotations
Chomsky opens the 2015 preface with the 1982 Lebanon War, the backdrop to the book's original edition — documenting, in the words of Israeli strategist Avner Yaniv, that the operation Israel called 'Peace for Galilee' was in fact designed to cripple the PLO's political power.
He calls the 1978-79 Camp David Accords a 'diplomatic disaster,' contrasting them with a more favorable peace proposal Egyptian President Sadat had offered in 1971 — one Israel rejected with Henry Kissinger's crucial backing — framing Camp David as a historical step backward rather than forward.
The bulk of the preface is devoted to Gaza: Chomsky traces the recurring cycle since Israel's 2005 'withdrawal' (ceasefire — Israeli violation — Hamas response — new military operation) and quotes Dov Weisglass, an aide to Prime Minister Sharon, admitting that 'the significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process.'
In his own foreword, Edward Said praises Chomsky's method — his ability to surface facts that existed in the public record but that no one had assembled so systematically, placing him above even Voltaire, Benda, or Russell — and endorses Chomsky's view that liberal intellectuals (Irving Howe, Arthur Goldberg, Alan Dershowitz, and others) were often more complicit than conservatives.
- A tight argumentative method built not on personal observation but on official documents and direct quotations — including from Israeli officials themselves
- A 2015 preface that directly links the book's 1983 analysis to present-day Gaza and Oslo developments, turning what could read as a historical document into a text that still reads as current
- Edward Said's foreword, a literary introduction with standalone value, lending the book academic and intellectual authority
- Every claim backed by a specific source citation (the notes section runs to page 693) — documented critique rather than mere polemic
The foreword author's own landmark work — a similar methodological critique of how the West constructs its view of the East
Also on the site — another political-theoretical work written from a similarly anti-colonial critical perspective
Also on the site — another contemporary political analysis critical of US-centered Western policy
After the prefaces, the book is organized around ten chapters: beginning with 'Adding Fuel to the Fire,' it works through the origins of the US-Israel 'special relationship,' the dynamics of 'rejectionism and accommodation' in US political discourse, the historical background of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the 1982 Lebanon War ('Peace for Galilee'), its aftermath, the Palestinian intifada, the 'limited war' in Lebanon, and Washington's 'peace process,' in that order.
In each chapter, Chomsky sets official US and Israeli statements against press reports, UN documents, and internal debates within the Israeli press itself, trying to expose the gap between the official narrative offered to the public and the documented record — the book's core thesis is that this gap is not accidental but the product of systematic media and academic self-censorship.
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