I am a very good negotiator -- for other people. I'm a bad negotiator for myself (though I'm getting better).
The reason I'm a bad negotiator for myself is that I want to be liked. When you want people to like you, you can't negotiate properly. You're vulnerable to all kinds of manipulation. You end up losing every time.
When I negotiate for other people, I don't care if the people I'm dealing with on the other side of the bargain like me or not. I just want to get the best deal for the person I'm representing. And I'm damned good at it, if I do say so myself.
This brings me to the Middle East.
The Biden administration has provided a textbook example of bad negotiation in the ceasefire/hostage deal. It is committing a rookie mistake, "bidding against yourself." This is when you offer a price, get rejected, and then -- instead of doing something different -- offer a new price. The other side has made money without giving anything up or even doing anything other than being rude. It will keep doing that until it bleeds you dry.
In the Israel-Hamas situation, Biden ended up saying that he agreed Israel had to destroy Hamas. Then he said there had to be a "ceasefire" -- which was a word Israel refused to use. Israel preferred "pause." Biden offered "ceasefire." So Israel, being dependent on American ammunition, moved to "ceasefire."
Then Biden said any ceasefire had to be tied to a release of hostages. Israel was fine with that, and it worked for a November deal in which Hamas released most of the women and children it held (which made sense, in PR terms, for Hamas.) Hamas then broke the ceasefire and everyone went back to war.
Biden was desperate -- more so than Israel or Hamas -- to end the war, so eventually he dropped the idea that a ceasefire had to depend on the release of hostages. That was a major step toward the Hamas position -- which the White House denied, but reality is what it is: Biden was bidding against himself.
Israel, by now, was pissed. Israelis know how to negotiate in the Middle East bazaar; Americans do not. You see -- Americans, particularly liberals, want to be liked. And Americans of a particular social class believe that if they just come up with the best solution, everyone can be persuaded to adopt it.
I met lots of people like that in law school. In fact, when I am negotiating for myself, I am kind of one of those people. But when I'm negotiating for a third party -- and I don't care about being liked, or being smart, just winning -- I eat the polite problem-solvers -- for lunch. Or I did in law school, anyway.
Fast-forward to May 31, when Biden announced what he claimed was the "Israeli" proposal -- a three-part Rube Goldberg machine that failed to 1) guarantee the release of all the hostages 2) disarm Hamas 3) ensure Hamas did not come to power again and attack Israelis (and oppress Palestinians).
The Biden Administration admitted its proposal was "nearly identical" to Hamas's own proposals -- in other words, Biden was bidding against himself. The geniuses at the State Department seem to have thought their generous offer should have been gratefully accepted by the bloodthirsty terrorists.
Guess what? Bidding against yourself always produces the same result. Hamas pocketed the concessions in the Biden proposal -- full withdrawal from Gaza, no territorial changes, etc. -- and raised the offer: not only did it want Israel to end the war completely (its demand from the start), but it also wanted control of the Egypt-Gaza border -- a strip known as the Philadelphi Corridor.
This was rather clever: that idea is a "poison pill," a demand Israel cannot possibly accept, because it means allowing Hamas to smuggle arms in again.
So Hamas cast itself as the more reasonable party, ensuring that Israel would either have to cast itself as the villain by rejecting a ceasefire that Biden had (falsely) described as the Israeli proposal, or else accept a terrible deal.
And all because Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, among others, don't know the first thing about negotiation, and want to be liked more than they want to win.
In the end, they'll get neither: nobody likes a loser.
This week’s portion launches the great story of Abraham, who is told to leave everything of his life behind — except his immediate family — and to leave for “the Land that I shall show you.”
There’s something interesting in the fact that Abraham is told to leave his father’s house, as if breaking away from his father’s life — but his father, in fact, began the journey, moving from Ur to Haran (in last week’s portion). His father set a positive example — why should Abraham leave him?
Some obvious answers suggest themselves — adulthood, needing to make one’s own choices, his father not going far enough, etc.
But I think there is another answer. Abraham (known for the moment as Abram) needs to establish his own household. This is not just about making one’s own choice, but really about choosing one’s own starting point. It’s starting over.
Sometimes we start over in fundamental ways even if much that surrounds us remains the same. Sometimes the journey we have to ...
The story of Noah is familiar; the details, less so.
Noah is often seen as an ambivalent figure. He was righteous -- but only for his generation. What was his deficiency?
One answer suggests itself: knowing that the world was about to be flooded, he built an Ark for the animals and for his own family -- but did not try to save anyone else or to convince them to repent and change their ways (the prophet Jonah, later, would share that reluctance).
Abraham, later, would set himself apart by arguing with God -- with the Lord Himself! -- against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that they should be saved if there were enough righteous people to be found (there were not).
Still, Noah was good enough -- and sometimes, that really is sufficient to save the world. We don't need heroes every time -- just ordinary decency.
Hi all -- as I noted last month, I'm going to be closing down my Locals page, at least for tips and subscriptions -- I may keep the page up and the posts as well, but I'm no longer going to be accepting any kind of payment.
Look for cancelation in the very near future. Thank you for your support!
