When does precision of language matter? To find out, we explore with a couple of examples:
Example number one: A man sues his insurance company for
a car accident that damaged the car and injured him. The insurance company
refuses to pay because all indications are to the effect that when the accident
occurred, the man was not yet insured.
He says he was insured because the accident happened right
after midnight. The insurance company says that the coverage did not come into
effect until one minute after midnight.
It can be seen in a case like this that accuracy was
important because knowing the exact time when the accident occurred, had a
direct bearing on the outcome of the case.
Example number two: A driver waiting for the red light to
turn green, gets rear-ended by another car. He gets his car repaired and sends
the 1,200-dollar bill to the insurance company of the driver that rear-ended
him. The latter tells his insurer not to pay because there is confusion as to
what happened. The company agrees and so, they go to court.
One driver says: there is no denial that he rear-ended
me. Here is the repair bill, and I am not asking for anything more that the
1,200 dollars it took to repair my car. True, says the other driver, but it is
alleged in the police report that he said he had two dozen eggs in the trunk of
the car. However, a grocery list found in the trunk indicates that he bought
only a dozen and a half eggs; and this voids his claim. No, says the other
driver, I am not claiming the price of the eggs, just the cost of repairing the
car.
It can be seen in a case like this that accuracy was not
important because the exact number of eggs that were smashed in the trunk of
the car when the collision occurred, was irrelevant given that no claim was
made for the loss of eggs.
This brings us to the article that came under the title:
“Amnesty International Joins the Anti-Israel Jackals,” and the subtitle:
“Amnesty International’s 278-page report on Israel is a Farrago of bias, double
standards, and assaults on the very existence of the Jewish state.” It was
written by Elliott Abrams, and published on February 3, 2022 on the website of
the Council on Foreign Relations.
What Elliott Abrams did, is show how Jewish haggling is
used to confuse a situation to such an extent that the need for accuracy or
lack of it in a discussion, becomes immaterial. What haggling does is take over
the discussion, and kills the need to know what the substance of the talk is
about. In short, the give-and-take becomes idle haggling for the sake of idle
haggling.
This is demonstrated in an interview that an Israeli
newspaper conducted with officials of Amnesty International. Elliott Abrams printed
the transcript of the interview to show the thinking of that organization, but
what he also did was to show how Jewish haggling about the accuracy of a number—that’s no more relevant to the purpose of the interview than the
number of eggs in the above analogy—took over the give-and-take, and
turned it into a “food fight” reminiscent of high schoolers. Here is the
interview between the Jewish Journalist and Amnesty’s Philip Luther, as Elliott
Abrams ran it:
You include a very specific number in the report –
exactly 225,178 Jewish Israeli settlers living illegally in East Jerusalem.
Where is the line on the ground between a Jewish Israeli living legitimately in
Jerusalem, and illegitimately?
Luther: Well, what we’re talking about are
settlements that are illegal under international law, and that are on occupied
Palestinian territory.
So where is that? What is the dividing line?
Luther: The [pre-1967] green line.
So a Jew living in the Jewish Quarter of the Old
City is counted here [in your report] and is living in an illegal settlement?
Luther: The specific figures I’d have to go
to… they’re all footnoted…
On principle, a Jew living in the Jewish Quarter of
the Old City of Jerusalem…
Luther: No, in Jewish settlements. Illegal
settlements in the sense that they have been moved in there, those
constructions have been built in order to facilitate settlers on occupied
Palestinian land.
Does that include the Jewish Quarter?
Luther: The Jewish Quarter, as you know, there are
many Jews who have been there for generations.
Also in Hebron. The Jewish Quarter is over the
Green Line, and I’m trying to understand if this figure, this very specific
figure that you put in the report, includes the Jewish Quarter of East
Jerusalem.
Luther: I need to get back to you on exactly
what it includes because I don’t know that level of detail in terms of what
that footnote referred to. But what we are referring to in terms of what we are
considering problematic is the establishment of Israeli settlements on
Palestinian land, and that is referred to as East Jerusalem and the West Bank. I
don’t want to get drawn in terms of what exactly that figure is because I don’t
know off the top of my head.
But you gave a very specific figure.
Luther: No, I know we have a specific figure.
But it’s in the report in terms of why.
But it’s conceivable that Jews living in the Jewish
Quarter are considered by the report [to be] illegally living there?
Luther: The reality in terms of what is
considered occupied Palestinian territory is that, yes, the Old City is in East
Jerusalem….
If I go anywhere over the Green Line and I buy a
house, am I now a settler living illegally in East Jerusalem?
Luther: Yes.
Who transferred me?
Luther: The state has facilitated you doing
it.
How?
Luther: By constructing housing there.
I’m buying a house that is 300 years old.
Luther: Now we’re getting into really fine
detail.
And so, my dear reader, what you see here is how Jewish
haggling turned a serious subject into a food-fight featuring an omelet made with
eggs whose number remains unknown and irrelevant.