Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has repeatedly asked the Palestinians to call Israel home of the Jewish people. He says that in the same way the Palestinians want Israel to call Palestine home of the Palestinian people, the Palestinians have the obligation to reciprocate in like manner if only to be consistent. Of course, this is a dishonest presentation of the situation because all what the Palestinians have asked for is that the Israelis vacate the territory they have occupied for too long already. This done, the Israelis can call the territory any name they want. They can call it Judea, Sumeria, the West Bank, Palestine or Arafatland if this will stroke their fancy. As for the Palestinians, they know what they will call their country; they will call it Palestine -- pure and simple. But when it comes to signing a document that will compel them to assign to Israel a specific moniker, this is something the Palestinians must never do because such act will carry with it a set of rights that no reasonable country will want to acquire, and will carry obligations that no sensible country will want to shoulder, let alone a country that is forming and still taking tentative steps into nationhood.
When two countries sign a document whose content is a collection of agreements they pledge to honor, they create between them a legally binding contract that should be enforceable and it usually is. To oversee the process of enforcement, they either set up a bilateral tribunal specific to their cases to adjudicate disputes that may arise between them, or they depend on the existing international courts and tribunals to adjudicate the disputes for them according to international law. As members of the world community, they will themselves play a role both as advocates and judges in those tribunals, and they will fully participate in the procedures whether the tribunals are bilateral or they are international. Thus, if the Palestinians agree to include in the contract the designation that Israel is the home of the Jewish people, they will have the obligation to sit in judgment as to who is a Jew and who is not. And this may well happen one day because it is realistic to think of circumstances under which people who want to live in Israel could be denied the status of immigrant on the ground that they did not prove they were Jewish enough. These people will then be given the right to have their cases heard by a tribunal that will most likely be presided over by a Palestinian judge or presided over jointly by a Palestinian and an Israeli. Is this what Netanyahu wants? I think not.
But let us assume for a moment that even though he does not want to see something like this happen, Netanyahu will, for the sake of expediency, not raise any objection to it. The idea should still be seen as wrongheaded at least from the practical point of view; and here is the reason why. No one would dispute the notion that two solidly established countries conducting a run-of-the-mill negotiation will want to keep things simple by avoiding as much possible the unnecessary tackling of a complicated subject if they can avoid it. Thus, it makes no sense for Palestine and Israel to tackle such a subject given that they are nowhere near being solidly established, and that the negotiation they are conducting now is anything but run-of-the-mill. In fact, when measured by any yardstick you may use, the situation will always seem unique and will feel abnormal in more ways than one. And given that the problem staring the Palestinians and the Israelis in the face is notoriously intractable and has been for a long time, it would be foolish for two novices like them to try and sail the uncharted waters that even the old and seasoned nations would recoil at the thought of having to sail.
Okay, but with all this being as clear as crystal and this easy to see, why does Netanyahu insist on including such a provision in the contract? The answer is that there can only be one reason; it is that he could not think of something else at the last moment. The trick was not to come up with this idea or that idea; the trick was to come up with a last minute idea, period. This is how the Israelis and the Jewish organizations have always conducted negotiation because it is the way by which they manage to control the agenda. It is the way that gives them the chance to blow the whole thing off the table the moment they determine they will not, at the end of the day, obtain something for nothing – which is the reason why they participate in any negotiation in the first place. Consequently, if someone out there is enjoying the reputation of being sane, they should not come out and say they believe in a concept so far fetched as to expect these people to conduct a negotiation in good faith because if they do, they will exhibit a degree of naïveté that may earn them a one-way ticket to another planet, and a stay away from Earth till the end of time or at least the end of this solar system. And that's a very long time.
Let me now tell you a story that should illustrate the sort of problem that may arise if the Palestinians agree to call Israel home of the Jewish people and allow this to be included in the contract. There was a time when I was young and was dating. I met a girl of stunning beauty but there was more to her than great looks. She was adopted, a fact she became aware of because she did not look like her parents, and the kids at school teased her about it. She looked very much like a Northern European while her parents looked like Middle Easterners. In fact, they were Jewish. Eventually, the girl developed an urgent need to know more about her biological parents, but the only information she could gather was that they were non-Jewish college students that did not have the time or the financial means to raise her so they gave her away for adoption. She also wanted to know how and why her adoptive parents came to adopt her, and this proved to be more difficult than gathering information about her biological parents. Like a setup that is operating in slow motion, she asked a question that begot an answer that led to other questions that led to more answers, and so on till the complete story was slowly and painfully painted before her eyes. And when all was said and done, the story turned out to be a gut wrenching narrative as much as it was intriguing.
She learned that she was part of a deliberate plan designed by Jews to shed their Semitic look as a people and take on the European look. This was not something new to Jews as I had read enough history to make a similar observation myself. I knew that the ancient Hebrews used to infiltrate the neighboring tribes and ethnic groups by disguising themselves when they had to, and by cross-breeding with them when they had the opportunity to do so. In modern times, according to the girl, the Jews felt it necessary to do the same thing because the Nazis thought of them as an inferior race and have tried to exterminate them. Thus, the Jews that survived the Holocaust took the measures they thought were necessary to remedy a situation they thought was the cause of their misery. To that end, they began to implement a massive project to make themselves look less Semitic and more European, something they continue to do to this day by reforming and rejigging their genetic pool. To reach their goal the quickest way possible, they devised several tricks of which two have become their most favored ones.
First, they are adopting children, especially girls that look like the one I dated. Second, they are giving lavish bar mitzvah parties at which they invite European looking non-Jewish boys and girls to mix with Semitic looking Jewish boys and girls so as to initiate relationships they hope will end up in racially mixed marriages where the non-Jews are expected to convert to Judaism thus create a Jewish population that looks European. In effect then, they are snatching all the European looking chromosomes they can get their hands on, having a preference for the XX chromosome while not entirely rejecting the XY chromosome which they still accept especially if they determine there is something exceptional about a specific specimen. In essence therefore, the bar mitzvah ritual that was a rite of passage has transformed into an occasion to celebrate the metamorphosis of the Jewish people yet again. Move over Josef Mengele of the Third Reich; here come the cross-breeders of the Third Temple. But wait a minute; the center of economic gravity is shifting to Asia, does this mean the Jews will now look down at the white chromosomes and begin a program to snatch the yellow ones?
Because of those reasons and because of other reasons that may yet come to light, the question as to who is a Jew and who is not has not been settled in Israel or anywhere else in the world. The struggle for ownership of the designation is still ongoing between those who consider themselves to be the authentic Semitic Hebrews to whom God gave the land of Israel, and those who view themselves as reformed, re-fabricated or recycled wannabe Jews that have labored hard and paid much money to give birth to modern Israel. The first group says they remained close to the land and has protected it throughout the centuries; the second say they were the financial muscle behind Israel's continued existence which they claim they still are and will continue to be whatever they look like and whichever method was used to make Jews out of them. But of course, what can change all this would be the consideration that they are Jews no more in which case, they warn, there will be Israel no more either.
I now ask you to imagine this scene, dear reader. A Palestinian judge presiding over an immigration tribunal still remembers that as a toddler he was kicked out of Palestine together with his siblings and parents having lived on the land for countless generations. They were kicked out to make room for someone that has now come before him because the would-be immigrant has been denied the right to live in Israel as immigrant on the ground that he or she did not prove they were Jewish enough. How do you think the judge will feel about someone whose lineage was concocted by an artificially designed social encounter and a diabolic experiment in cross-breeding? And what criterion should the judge use to determine whether this applicant does or does not have the right to inherit the home from which he was kicked out together with his parents and his siblings?
And who do you think might be this would-be immigrant? Might they be the offspring of someone carrying the XX chromosome such as Bianna Golodryga, Campbell Brown, Carole Macneil, Caroline Kennedy, Chelsea Clinton, Christiane Amanpour, Jan Crawford, Maria Bartiromo, Paula Zahn, Samantha Power? Or might they be the offspring of someone carrying the XY chromosome such as the exceptional specimen that is John King? Or if we move away from the politico-journalistic world to examine the countless conversions that happen in places like Hollywood and the boardroom of corporations where unions of convenience are forged and broken everyday -- might they be the offspring of a tycoon who is loaded with enough cash to command the attention of the Washington Beltway? And given that this beltway is the place where honor is bought and sold with a handful of dollars, will a torrent of binding and non-binding resolutions be passed by the low life and the shameless who will work to make life unbearable for the newly formed Palestinian state on the excuse that the Palestinian people are not making the Jews feel Jewish enough despite the Netanyahu inspired agreement that they signed? What a horrible mess results when something ends up in that sordid place they call the US Congress!
No, it would not be a good idea for the Palestinians to call Israel home of the Jewish people and make the appellation a part of a legal document. Let Netanyahu and his friends call Israel what they want in the same way that the Palestinians will call their country what they want, and refrain from asking the Israelis to assign to Palestine a moniker that will unleash nefarious consequences. Things are difficult as they are already, and let us not make them more difficult for no reason except to give Netanyahu the option to blow the whole thing off the table in case he determines he will not get something for nothing at the end of the day – the reason why he pretends to be negotiating in the first place.