Orthodox Los Angeles Rabbi: Israel Must Help Palestinians Screw Israel In Negotiations Because It's The Right Thing To Do (Plus: The Anti-Semitic Fantasy Of Jewish Purity That Guarantees Unending War)
The Los Angeles Jewish Journal has decided to print an article by Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky advocating handing over Jerusalem to the Palestinians. Other people will probably handle the rank impracticality and immorality of this proposal: "don't worry about the historical Arab desecration of Jewish cemetaries in Jerusalem or how the Wakf's ongoing destruction of Jewish artifacts on the Temple Mount is openly linked to denying Jews access to Jerusalem by unblinkingly stating that Jews never had a temple in Jerusalem - the Palestinians won't cheat on their obligations because United Nations peace keepers will protect Israeli interests!" Super.
What we're concerned with is the blistering stupidity of this Kanefsky's understanding of Middle East negotiations, and what it says about how he's bought into an anti-Semitic myth that becomes an anti-Israel talking point that becomes the basis for peace talks that end with hundreds of murdered Israelis. The article itself is a confused hodgepodge of largely unrelated leftist whines about how the Israelis have been mean (Jerusalem, settlers, human rights, etc), until it reaches this elegant crescendo of naivety:
And the difference that honest storytelling makes is enormous. When we tell our story honestly, our position at the negotiating table is one that is informed not only by our own needs and desires, but also by our obligations and responsibilities.... Honesty in our telling of the story reveals the stark and candid reality that we also need to speak the language of compromise and conciliation. Not only the language of entitlement and demands. To be sure, I would be horrified and sick if the worst-case division-of-Jerusalem scenario were to materialize. The possibility that the Kotel, the Jewish Quarter or the Temple Mount would return to their former states of Arab sovereignty is unfathomable to me... At the same time though, to insist that the government not talk about Jerusalem at all (including the possibility, for example, of Palestinian sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods) is to insist that Israel come to the negotiating table telling a dishonest storyWithout a doubt, the Palestinians aren't telling an honest story either... And there will not be peace (and perhaps there should be no peace conference) until they tell an honest story as well. But for us to take the approach that in order to defend and protect ourselves from their dishonest story, we must continue telling our own dishonest story, is to travel a road of unending and unendable conflict.
The words that are required to explain the mind boggling, naive idiocy of this passage are inappropriate when discussing a rabbi (and besides, every time we curse we get two or three emails of finger wagging from readers and we simply don't have the patience any more). It sounds insufferably pedantic on our part to have to point this out, but: honesty has no place in negotiations. Annapolis isn't a New Age group therapy session. Nobody's there to discuss their feelings. It will be about land and resources and buildings and what it's going to take to get the Palestinians to stop murdering Jewish civilians like they promised to do a decade and a half ago.
You don't walk into a negotiation with the position you expect to end up with and you don't walk in explaining what you owe to the other side. You walk in with a position more extreme than what you're willing to live with, so you have something to give up when the other side comes in with a position more extreme than what they're willing to live with. Coming to the negotiating table "telling an honest story" is the best way to lose negotiations. You don't walk into a car shop saying "I'll tell you that I'm only willing to spend $10,000, but actually I'll go up to $20,000" and you don't say "besides, it would be totally unfair to you if I stuck to my original offer". Nobody negotiates that way. But for some reason Israel is always expected to.
After the jump, the anti-Semitic roots and pragmatic consequences of imposing upon Israel unreasonable - even impossible - expectations.
Is Kanefsky himself anti-Semitic? Don't be stupid. Has he been fooled into believing an anti-Semitic fantasy that gets funneled into peace talks, guaranteeing hundreds of murdered Israeli civilians? Undeniably.
There are two fundamental but problems in Israeli-Arab peacemaking that end in disaster for the Jewish state: (1) Israel is expected to give up tangible land in exchange for intangible Arab guarantees that are supposed to come somewhere down the line and (2) Israel makes agreements that are supposed to be "final" but that everyone knows will be violated or reinterpreted. The combination is lethal: Israel ends up having to give away more tangibles just to get renewed promises for the same intangibles. Holding Israel up to an unreasonable standard is the excuse that its enemies use never to fulfill the reasonable obligations that they acceded to - it's the on-the-ground trick that sets the cycle in motion.
Kanefsky's position neatly illustrates both of these asymmetries, which have their root in the fundamentally anti-Semitic fantasy of Jews as a fallen race that must be restored to unattainable purity. And then when Jews don't achieve that purity - because it's impossible - they're scapegoated for not meeting others' unreasonable expectations. There's nothing wrong with saying that Israelis have to be more humane than inhuman Palestinian terrorists. That's a standard that everybody should live up to. But Kanefsky - and genuine Israel haters - are again asking Israel to act in a way nobody else would ever consider. If the Israelis promise pure honesty during negotiations, what's going to happen when they have to dissemble because obfuscation is fundamental in negotiations? It will be seen as Israel taking away something they already conceded, and Israel's good intentions will again be the very thing that causes peace negotiations to collapse. But those are the kind of insane things that happen when you expect Israel to behave in a fundamentally irrational way.
Why do Gazans keep firing rockets at Israeli schools and hospitals? Because they know that Israel will always be expected to supply them with fuel and gas even though no other country would literally supply its enemies with resources to kill its own civilians.
Why would Palestinians commit human rights atrocities against Jews unseen since the Holocaust - the intentional liquidation of entire families, thebrainwashing of children to murder Jews, etc - while they know the world is watching? Because they know that Israel will be asked to take "risks for peace" that end with dozens of bombed out busses.
Why would Palestinians turn down historic Israeli peace offer and launch a horrendous and useless war that makes the Israeli public less sympathetic to the Palestinian cause? Because they knew that in the next round people like Kanefsky would structure the negotiations to disadvantage Israel even more.
Why would the Palestinians unblinkingly insist on eye rolling insane historical revisionism and engage in the wanton destruction of Jewish artifacts on the Temple Mount, even though it causes people to take them less seriously? Because they know that people like Kanefsky will insist that Israel willingly side against its own interests in historical disputes, and so the Palestinians move the goalpost so far down the field that even a full Israeli admission of anti-Israel historical theories falls short of full Palestinian demands. But Israel gives up something, the Palestinians "give up something" - compromise! Except the Palestinian position was so extreme to begin with that the Israelis, starting from the "honest" position, would end up having to give up everything. Which is why Kanefsky's proposal is as counterproductive as it is unseemly. Taking his advice will end with full Arab sovereignty over East Jerusalem and guarantee desecration of Judaism's holiest sites.
Even if Kanefsky was right about how Israel should give up Jerusalem - which he's not - this would still be a naive 3rd grader's understanding of negotiations. Israel should do the exact opposite of what he says: they should come into Annapolis saying that Jerusalem is totally and completely off the table, and then maybe - when things get really, really hard - suggest that maybe they'd consider talking about Abu Dis if the Palestinians were willing to give up something huge in return. Since the Palestinians don't have anything to offer Israel except a promise to act like human beings and stop murdering women and children, it's tough to imagine what something like that could be. But it is not a coincidence that Kanefsky is able to trace the double-standard all the way to its traditional real-world consequence of expecting Israel to make tangible concessions before the Palestinians give anything back. The fact that he also has the traditional nudge-wink "oh but of course the Palestinians will also be expected to..." caveat is just a nice flourish, albeit one that negotiators trying to screw Israel always have to add (because anything else would be unfair, right?).
PS - best line of the article: "'Jerusalem: Israel's Eternally Undivided Capital' is a 40-year old slogan that my community treats with biblical reverence." Now we're not theologians, so this is just a stab in the dark - but do you think that has anything to do with how revering the sanctity of Jerusalem is biblically mandated?
References:
* An Orthodox rabbi's plea: consider a divided Jerusalem [Jewish Journal]
* Compare and Contrast [MR]
* OneJerusalem.org Conference Call: Rep. Eric Cantor (R, VA-7) On HR 756, Condemning the Wakf's Destruction Of The Temple-Mount [MR]
* 'Jews never had a temple in Jerusalem' [Israel Today]
* Hamas Fires Five More Rockets At Israeli Schools And Hospitals, Shoots Up Israelis In The West Bank, Then Cries Pathetically About Limited Israeli Retaliation (Plus: Olmert: Of Course We Won't Punish Gaza) [MR]
* Merav Was Two [MR]
* Compare And Contrast - Actors In Israel Kids' Show: "I Love You", Little Girls In Hamas Cartoon: "We Long For Martyrdom... Our Death Is Happiness" [Videos] [MR]
* Oh Look - Another American Intelligence Chief Blames Arafat For the Collapse Of the Peace Process [MR]
Previously:
* Matthew Yglesias: Anti-Semitic Genocidal Maniacs Are Hip, Terrorists Are Fashionable (UPDATED AND BUMPED: Yglesias Article From Today Predictably Anti-Semitish)
* Palestinians Still Desecrating Holy Jewish Objects In Hebron. International Media Still Doesn't Care.
* MR Article In The Jewish Journal
