THE QL ESTION Ot PALESTINE 25 made more elegant and attractive the picture of a handful o f European Jews hewing a civilization o f sweetness and light out o f the black Islamic sea (at a reasonable distance from Europe). The Zionists occupied a place that made it possible to interpret Palestine and its realities to the W est in terms that the W est could understand and easily accept, specifically and generally. Conversely, the refusal to accept the Zionist argu­ ment left anyone in the West with the poorest of alternatives: being simply negative, anti-Sem itic, or an apologist for Islam and the Arabs. In any o f these cases, the alternative to Zionism is, as I said earlier, too genera! or too outrageous; by way o f contrast, Zionism offered the neatness o f a specific solution (or answer) to a specific problem . A fte r all, who could say what the Arabs or Islam wanted, were about, were fo r? Even the putting of such a question made it possible then (and now, alas), to argue that “ the A ra b s" were a whole mass of generally unpleasant things, which when they were presented at all made for a chilling and frightening reception. The fact is that “ A ra b s" were always being represented, never able to speak for them selves; this plus, paradoxically, their more and more evident political visibility, is why they have been so overwhelm ingly refused a deccnt place in actuality— even when they sit on the land. T od ay, for exam ple, the Palestine Liberation Organization (P L O ) is recognized by over too nations, and o f course by at! Palestinians, as the sole legitimate representative o f the Palestinian people, and yet neither the United States nor Israel concedes that the P LO represents Palestinians. O n the contrary, Cam p D avid specifically arro­ gated the right o f Palestinian representation to the United States, Israel, and Egypt. In making Zionism attractive— that is, making it attract genuine support in the deepest sense— its leaders not only ignored the A rab; when it was necessary to deal with him, they made him intelligible, they represented him to the West as something that could be understood and managed in specific ways. Between Zionism and the West there was and still is a community o f language and o f ideology; so Far as the A rab was concerned, he was not part o f this com m unity. T o a very great