sor and his wife, the Minkeis, is propagandisticnbecause they are wholly implausiblentargets for an Arab terrorist.nKhalil decides to eliminate Minkel becausenhe fears the professor’s moderationnand willingness to acknowledgenPalestinian rights will weaken Arab resolvenby making it appear that the Israelisnare ready to make concessions theirnleaders will not in fact make. But thenreal-life counterparts of Professor Minkel,nlike Matityahu Peled, Arie Eliav, UrinAvneri, and Amnon Kapeliuk are in nondanger of assassination by the PLO—nwhich is delighted with the embarrassmentnthey cause the Israeli government.nThose in danger of death (indeed, thosenwho have regularly met death at thenhands of PLO factional leaders) arenthose within the PLO’s own ranks whongive any hint of willingness to accommodatenIsrael’s existence in any borders.nThe PLO’s Issam Sartawi, gunned downnat the meeting of the Socialist Internationalnin April 1983 by the Abu Nidal faction,nis the most recent victim.nLe Carre employs meretricious techniquesnto make Israel appear guilty ofnthe vicious practices that the PLO hasnmade famous. Thus when Charlie goesnfor training in PLO camps in Lebanon, anvillage headman tells her that:nthe Zionists also dropped booby trapsndisguised as children’s toys. He gavenan order and a boy disappeared andnreturned with a battered racing car.nHe Med oflf the casing and revealednwiring and explosives inside.nRepeatedly Le Carre implies that Israelisnmake children a deliberate target. Charlienparticipates in a march in which childrenndemonstrate on a playing field innthe camp. She notices aircraft and thenbombs fall. No one is hurt this time, butnCharlie knows why. “You bastards, shenthought. You rotten, killing Zionist bastards.nIf I hadn’t been here, you’d havenbombed them to Kingdom Come.” Evennthe Israeli spymaster Kurtz is horrifiednby tiis government. Kurtz is obviouslynmodeled on his mysterious namesake innHeart of Darkness, for Le Carre drawsnS6inChronicles of Culturenattention to the parallel: “Others madenlaborious comparison with Joseph Conrad’snhero.” Like Conrad’s figure, Kurtz isnshown as a man of talent, intelligence,nimagination, high principles—and utternruthlessness. Throughout this book Kurtznis engaged in a race against time, tryingnto eliminate Khalil so as to prevent “thosenclowns in the Knesset and Defense” fromnlaunching all-out war. When Israelinforces move into Lebanon, Kurtz isncrushed: “His body seemed to shrink tonhalf its size, his Slav eyes lost all theirnsparkle, he looked his age, whatever thatnwas, at last.” Joseph is also “unable toncome to terms with what was beingndone in the name of Zion.” He askednhimself what Israel was to become: “AnJewish homeland, or an ugly little Spartannstate?”nWhile in his introduction Le Carrenthanks Israeli friends for saving him Iromnseveral grave solecisms, they did notnrescue him from all of them. He cites anvillage close to Hebron as being attackednby the Israelis in 1948: “They made barrelnbombs filled with petrol and explosives,nand rolled them down the hill, settingnfire to our women and children.”nQuite apart from the feet that such behaviornwas wholly foreign to the Israelinarmy, no villages near Hebron were attackednby Israeli forces in 1948. WithinnHebron itself the entire Jewish communitynwas massacred in 1929. The onlynJewish settlements in the region werenthose of the Kfar Ezion bloc and thesenwere destroyed by the Arabs in 1947.nThe only army that vUlagers in the Hebronnarea saw until 1967 was that of thenJordanian Arab Legion which enterednwith British permission before the terminationnof the Mandate.nIn The Little Drummer Girl Le Carrenhas transcended the fashion that sees nondifference of consequence between Eastnand West; he has joined the still morenfeshionable ranks of those ranged againstnWestern values and civilization. He hasnaligned himself with those who see virtuenand vigor in the terror of “the weak”n(usually backed in practice by the armsnnnof the Soviet Union, whether in the MiddlenEast, Central America, or elsewhere).nThat their targets may be representativendemocracy, the rule of law, and civilnliberties is a matter of indifference. It isninteresting in this light that, althoughnpart of the novel is set in Lebanon, therenis no indication of what the PLO did tondestroy the institutions of the one Arabncountry that most closely approximatednIsrael in its respect for Western values.nLe Carre seems to disdain European anarchists,nalthough he portrays them accuratelynenough as iategral to Palestiniannterrorist networks. To underscore hisnpoint, Le Carre has his highly sympatheticnterrorist training chief Tayeh dismissnthem as “scum.” Presumably, for LenCarre, middle class and affluent, they lacknthe experience of suffering that makesnidentical activities by Palestinian terroristsnjustifiable.nPreviously averse to press publicity,nLe Carre has courted it for this novel,nusing the opportunity to serve as an advocatenfor the PLO. An interviewer fornthe New York Times (March 13,1983)nnoted that Le Carre describes Arafat as an”witty, tragic hero” and is “enchantednwith the PLO leader—his gaiety andnmoderation.” In a June 1982 essay LenCarre speaks of Arafet with a schoolboy’snadulation: “But all this was trivia besidenthe mobility and extreme swiftness ofnhis perception; the brown eyes thatnstayed on you, reading you as he talked.”nLe Carre’s view of the Palestinian worldnis romantic—^and wholly inaccurate. Inna Washington Post article last April LenCarre is quoted: “The huge majority ofnPalestinians are noncombatant victims.nThe curious thing is that the Palestiniannstruggle is in their hands and not La thenhands of the fighters because, as with thenJews in their dispersal, it is up to the civiliansnto indicate how much they canntake.” It is hard to imagine anythingnfiirther off the mark. The PalestiniannArabs are helpless pawns in the hands ofnthose who claim to fight on their behaff;nthe most militant of the factions whonclaim to represent them has veto powernover any possible compromise. Thus,n