On the Right

New York, Sept. 28—Mind you, the Palestinian refugees are going to have to be represented somehow at the peace conference, even if in order todosowe have to construct a trapezoidal table. Still, the obduracy of the Begin government on the point—they take the position that never, under any circumstances, will they permit the PLO to be present at the bargaining table— is not difficult to sympathize with. One reason is that the PLO is forthrightly devoted to the ideal of the destruction of Israel. But a second reason is the historic behavior of the United States in equivalent situations.

In November 1968, the Thieu government of South Vietnam, scheduled to begin an endless (and fruitless) series of conferences in Paris, refused to permit the presence there of the Vietcong. Thieu’s position was straightforward: the Vietcong were agents of the North Vietnamese, not indigenous revolutionaries. To have given them an extra seat at the table would be to replicate the foolishness of the United Nations, where we gave one seat to Russia and others to such of its provinces as the Ukraine and Byelorussia.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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New York, Sept. 28—Mind you, the Palestinian refugees are going to have to be represented somehow at the peace conference, even if in order todosowe have to construct a trapezoidal table. Still, the obduracy of the Begin government on the point—they take the position that never, under any circumstances, will they permit the PLO to be present at the bargaining table— is not difficult to sympathize with. One reason is that the PLO is forthrightly devoted to the ideal of the destruction of Israel. But a second reason is the historic behavior of the United States in equivalent situations.

In November 1968, the Thieu government of South Vietnam, scheduled to begin an endless (and fruitless) series of conferences in Paris, refused to permit the presence there of the Vietcong. Thieu’s position was straightforward: the Vietcong were agents of the North Vietnamese, not indigenous revolutionaries. To have given them an extra seat at the table would be to replicate the foolishness of the United Nations, where we gave one seat to Russia and others to such of its provinces as the Ukraine and Byelorussia.