Open Letter to Ehud Olmert

By: Paula R. Stern
November, 2007

Open Letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: Know When to Walk Out

The first time, decades ago, I entered the Arab shuk in Jerusalem, I found a lovely, wooden chess set and decided to buy it. I asked the price in my heavily accented Hebrew and, in all likelihood, had “sucker” written all over my forehead. The price seemed reasonable, a fraction of what I would have paid elsewhere. I was 16 years old, madly in love with Israel, and, in short, I was naïve.

I was ready to pay the named price, when my friend grabbed my arm and almost physically pulled me out of the store.

“You can’t pay him what he asks!” she said in a horrified voice.

“Well, what am I supposed to do? That’s the price,” I told her, wondering if she’d had too much sun, not enough water, or something that had clearly effected her. And that’s when she began to teach me the art of negotiation.

The price I should pay, she told me, is usually around half of what the storekeeper asks – if not lower. They start with the unreasonable, knowing we will bargain it down. We offer an equally absurd price, perhaps a quarter of what they name, and the game is on. I thought she was crazy and wanted to go back in to purchase the cute little chess set. But she persisted and I finally told her that if she was so keen on making sure I paid so little, she should bargain for me.

“Ok,” she said, “but if I start to walk out, you walk out with me. And don’t show him you like it. And don’t agree that it’s pretty or made well. And don’t…don’t…don’t say anything.”

“Maybe I should wait outside?” I asked hopefully.

With another pull of the arms, I was back in another store, listening to my friend bargain for an identical chess set, this one already starting at a lower price than the last.

“It’s got a defect,” my friend pointed out correctly, if perhaps a little rudely. “And the latch doesn’t seem very strong.”

She walked out of the first store, and the second. I followed her out of the third store wondering if I’d go back to America with not a single present to show for my summer vacation. By the time we’d finished, she had agreed that I purchase a nicer, bigger set, for about 40% the original store requested. For what I would have paid for the first set, I was able to buy several more presents. But more importantly, I had learned one valuable lesson in negotiating.

As our leaders fly off to Annapolis, I’m wondering if I couldn’t introduce them to my friend for a quick lesson. The Arabs coming to Annapolis would make their Arab brothers in the marketplace proud. They have put out their opening bid, higher and more obnoxious than we could even imagine.

Go back to the 1947 armistice lines, one has suggested. Don’t call Israel a Jewish state, others have demanded. Release prisoners, hundreds…thousands…all of them. Agree to discuss issues that weren’t even discussed during the summit’s planning. Throw in the Golan Heights, the Syrians suggest. Make concessions before the summit. Tell us what you are willing to surrender now. Oh, they are so smart…and we…we are so dumb.

Know when to walk, Olmert. Know when to laugh at the outrageous price they ask and just walk out. Because just as the Arabs did in the shuk decades ago, they’ll lower their price, make their demands more reasonable. All that we have built in 60 years is at stake so you better know when to walk out. If the day after the summit, we are as we are today, we’ll survive. It is your weakness that makes them strong, your endless willingness to surrender that makes them bold. The worst that would have happened decades ago was that I’d go home without a chess set. The worst that could happen now is that you’d bargain away our homes, our lives, our identity.

"The country's character must be determined in the Knesset and in its internal institutions and is not a matter for negotiations with other countries," Knesset Member Ahmed Tibi told Palestinian negotiator Abu Ala when instructing him not to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Agree, Olmert, because the man is clearly smarter than you. Our Jewish identity is not up for negotiations. Israel is a Jewish State. It’s all a game. They believe that what they don’t get today, they’ll get tomorrow. The price, the dent, the bad latch on the chess set and the power play on Israel’s identity. Know when to walk. Walk out if they dare to suggest we are anything but what we are, anything but what Israel’s founders worked so hard to establish.

The borders of 1947 and 1967 are non-starting points, Olmert. We didn’t go to war in 1947, they did. We did not reject the UN Partition Plan, they did. We did not launch wars of terrorism and murder on their cities, as they did on ours. The war that resulted from their attack in 1948 secured our land and the war they would have waged (if we hadn’t anticipated it first) in 1967 solidified it. These are non-starters. Walk if they suggest Israel must return to these impossible borders.

As Israel was created, hundreds of thousands of Jews left Arab lands for Israel, just as hundreds of thousands of Arabs left Israel to go live in the neighboring Arab countries. It was a transfer of populations and what one population is entitled to receive, so too is the other. If we must compensate the Arabs who left, they must compensate the Jews who were forced from their homes.

If the Arabs chose to keep their brothers as refugees, that is their fault and their problem. We accepted our incoming refugees. We integrated them and gave them homes. We accepted them as part of us until there is no difference today. If the Arabs dare to suggest that we clean up the mess they made, the damage they have instigated and compounded over the years, walk, Olmert. Walk if they suggest Israel must grant any so-called right of return or any compensation for only one of the groups displaced by the war they started against us.

The Arab shopkeeper knew that what he did not sell today, he would likely sell tomorrow. It was a game to him, an enjoyable way to make a living. When Jews started being attacked and stabbed in the shuk, I stopped shopping there. I haven’t bought even a bottle of water in the shuk in more than 20 years. I knew when to walk because I didn’t care what the Arab thought of me. Olmert, what is important is what your people think of you, not the Arabs and not the Americans. If the place isn’t “safe” for your people, leave.

Don’t be naïve. The Arabs in the shuk knew how to spot a sucker and the Arabs at Annapolis will too. If you don’t know how to negotiate, you should not be representing the people of Israel.

Paula R. Stern
Citizen of the Jewish State of Israel