Intifadanby Ze’ev Schiffand Ehud Ya’arinNew York:nSimon and Schuster;n337 pp., $22.45nThe American public has fallennvictim in recent years to a propagandanassault, launched and coordinatednby the Israeli Likud party and theirnAmerican partners, whose theme isnclear and simple: the long-term securitynof the Jewish state lies in its ability tonmaintain control over the West Banknand the Gaza Strip with its mainly Arabnpopulation. A corollary of this axiom isnthat Washington should help Israelncling to those territories it occupied innthe 1967 war.nNow two highly-respected Israelinjournalists, Ze’ev Schiffand EhudnYa’ari, have for all practical purposesndemolished these frequently contendednarguments. Their study, entitled Intifada,nfocuses on the over two-year-oldnLeon T. Hadar, a Washington-basednjournalist and lecturer, is teachingnpolitical science at AmericannUniversity and is writing a book onnAmerican policy in the Middle Eastnfor the Cato Institute.n34/CHRONICLESnThe Israeli Prescriptionnby Leon T. Hadarn”Moderation lasts.”n— SenecanPalestinian uprising, and it is destinednto become the Israeli version of DavidnHalberstam’s The Best and the Brightest—nor, even worse, Jerusalem’s PentagonnPapers.nIntifada, which has been publishednboth in English and Hebrew, chargesnthat the Israeli political elite, through anmixture of ideological blindness, politicalnstupidity, and military incompetence,nis directly responsible for thenpolicies that ignited and perpetuatednthe violence in the occupied territories.nMoreover, without beating around thenbush, the authors suggest that Israel’snnational interest dictates that its leadershipnfind a way politically to decouplentheir state from the Palestinian populationnin the West Bank and Gaza, andnthat the American administrationnshould help Israel move in that direction.nMuch to the chagrin of AmericannLikud partisans who try to portraynanyone who challenges the GreaternIsrael dogma as a left-leaning “Mc-nGovernite,” a naive do-gooder, or ann”anti-Israeli,” both Schiff and Ya’arinare closely linked to Israel’s nationalnsecurity establishment. Ya’ari, the militaryncorrespondent of Israel’s state-runntelevision and a military intelligencenofficer (res.), and Schiff, a Lippmann-nnnesque columnist for the daily Ha’aretzn(the country’s New York Times),nare supporters of a strong Israeli nationalndefense and have very few illusionsnabout the peace-loving tendenciesnand pacifist attitudes of the Arabnside. However, like the American OldnRight isolationists and the more traditionalnrealist foreign policy thinkersnsuch as George Kennan, the two havenreached the conclusion that nationalninterest and healthy patriotism are notnnecessarily equated with the buildingnof empires, and that military and diplomaticnoverreaching involve major costsnto the hegemonic power.nIndeed, in a journalistic odyssey thatnstarted with their much-publicized criticalnaccount of the 1982 Israeli invasionnof Lebanon, Ya’ari and Schiff havenpointed to Israel’s need to redefine itsnnational interest in a way that would fitnwith its limited resources and politicalntradihon. More specifically, they arguenthat neither in 1982 in Lebanon norntoday in the West Bank can four millionnIsraelis impose their political willnon large alien Arab populations withoutngiving rise to the most radicalnforces on the other side, and withoutnpaying a political, economic, and militarynprice.nIn Lebanon the Israeli invasionn