Yale Daily News

The Issue: Alan Dershowitz LAW ’62 made “The Case for Israel” at Yale on Wednesday. He made controversial arguments that some agreed with but others dismissed as merely offensive

Truth: While I might not agree with the way Alan Dershowitz LAW ’62 spoke Wednesday night, in the end, I agree with nearly everything he said. The man does not bend over backwards to appease his audience. He steps on toes; he interrupts controversial questions in the middle to poke fun at them and ends up patronizing the askers.

We cannot, however, let ourselves fall into the emotional trap of letting personal offense get in the way of analysis of an issue. I might not want to have dinner with the guy, but I better listen to what he has to say.

Dershowitz began his speech by holding up the piece of paper that protestors handed out before the speech and saying that he agreed with nearly everything written on it. The paper mostly consisted of problematic statements made by prominent Israelis and descriptions of the acts of settlers. Clearly the protesters had never read anything by Dershowitz, the Obama-supporting liberal who is both critical of Israel and against settlements. They didn’t approach this situation with any sort of nuance. Their pamphlet simply diagrammed many of the problems in Israeli society — problems many supporters of Israel don’t deny — and frame it as a rebuttal to “The Case for Israel.” Are these social and political problems a case against the existence of a state? Anyone could have made a comparable list for every other country in existence (and most would have been much worse), yet Israel is the only country whose very existence we question whenever a problem is exposed.

This is but one example of the double standard that the world seems to apply to Israel, an issue central to much of Dershowitz’s published work. Not only does he agree with what was written on the pamphlets, but he is also actively devoted to making those same critiques against Israel. He supports a major shift in Israeli policy regarding settlements and other areas where Israel, like plenty of other countries, needs work.

As a liberal, I support a state that upholds liberal values like freedom of the press and gay rights. Why do these supposed liberals make no distinction between Israel, which allows all forms of nonviolent dissent and the anti-Semitic totalitarian extremism of Hamas?

Every day I read critiques of Israel published in Israeli newspapers. Where are those liberal voices among the Palestinian population? Why don’t these organizations that publish their “Case Against Israel” pamphlets promote vocal critiques of Hamas on Yale’s campus? Where is the outright rejection of the genocidal aspirations of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who has publicly called for the violent destruction of Israel) among these rejecters of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state? Why is it only Yale Friends of Israel that publishes articles rejecting Palestinian violence?

For myself and for Alan Dershowitz, it is clear. To be a liberal means to reject all violence against civilians, whether it is used as a tactic against you or not. That does not mean that I reject Israel’s right to defend itself, for that right is a fundamental right of a state. It does mean that I believe that Israel must do everything in its power to avoid civilian casualties, which it does as well or better than any other country on the planet, and which Hamas, with its penchant for targeting civilians, could never understand.

Dershowitz recognizes these facts, and in his speech Wednesday night he spoke of neither a perfect Israel nor a demonic Israel, but a flawed Israel. He spoke of a country trying to preserve its identity and its democratic values while grappling with a population that has been displaced and has yet to fulfill its dream of self-determination. He spoke of the Palestinians not as a band of terrorists, nor as a group of innocent victims, but as a people hijacked by a violent, oppressive entity that does not represent them, a people that has the same hope for peace as Israelis. I hope these pamphleteers can recognize the nuance

I do not seek to frame this article in black and white terms. The situation is not black and white. And while people may remember how Dershowitz laughed at the people who asked him questions, I want them to remember that he supports the creation of a Palestinian state. He supports the dismantling of settlements. He does not want to play the blame game, but instead extends a hand to moderate Palestinians who truly want peace. Like Jordanians and Egyptians before them, the Palestinians can make peace with Israel; they can and will have a state, but only when they are willing to stand up and critique their own rejectionist, often hateful demonization of the Israeli other. So you don’t like the style with which Dershowitz delivered his message? OK. But do not let your ego allow you and miss it.

Shai Kamin is a sophomore in Pierson College. He is the Hillel Israel Chair and the Vice President of Media and Public Relations of Yale Friends of Israel.

Rude: On Wednesday, Alan Dershowitz LAW ’62 made the case for Israel to Yale. There is not sufficient space here to raise all our concerns about his presentation; we would simply like to present several key statements and some thoughts.

During the talk, Dershowitz screened a film “The Case for Israel.” According to the film’s Web site, Director and Producer Michael Yohay “managed the Film and News Production Branch in the Spokespersons’ Division of the Israel Defense Forces between 1993-2005,” during which time he directed “features, public relations, documentary, publicity and educational films,” and produced “news footage of IDF activities.”

Yohay’s abilities as a propagandist (an inevitable term for producers of official films on behalf of a military) shine through the film’s ostensibly intellectual discourse. Its depictions of Muslim extremists, juxtaposed with images of the Holocaust creates an illogical rhetorical wash that conflates the two. While Dershowitz presents himself as a moderate in favor of peace, the film neither shows positive images of Arabs nor gives them airtime. Why could The Case for Israel not be made with an open presentation of opinions?

Dershowitz repeatedly slammed Harvard colleague Richard Goldstone, calling his report on human rights abuses during the 2009 Gaza War “a pack of lies.” Goldstone, who according to his daughter “is a Zionist and loves Israel,” was the chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, as well as a former South African Constitutional Court Judge. Yet Dershowitz summarily dismissed Goldstone as a “pompous windbag,” adding that “he was only taken [by Harvard] because he was a Jew,” and “uses his own Jewishness as a sword against Israel.” These slanderous, offensive, ad hominem attacks are not befitting of the conduct of academia.

In defending any perceived wrongdoing by of the state of Israel, Dershowitz condemned organizations such as the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the International Court of Justice. He conveyed his message convincingly by paralleling Israeli human rights abuses with other horrific violations of human life and dignity throughout the world.

But no audience would ever argue with the fact that death camps were terrible places. Would any right-minded person disagree with the statement that the genocide in Sudan is a terrible trespass on the sanctity of life, or the unjustified interment of thousands of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War? In invoking these examples, Dershowitz established a dangerous relativism that prevents stopping today’s crimes by defending them with yesterday’s or those taking place across the road.

The value of human life and rights is nonnegotiable. Muslims killing Muslims is not, as the film remarked, “the Weather Channel;” Christians killing Muslims is not “a crusade,” however much the audience may have laughed. Killing, death, inhumane treatment and marginalization within society should be marked as terrible moments for the world, not rationalized and therefore diminished relative to other crimes.

Dershowitz frequently called for “hard, critical questions” but reacted to student criticism with aggression, mockery and minimization. When a Palestinian citizen of Israel raised her family history of land confiscation and systematic discrimination, questioning the democratic nature of a state legally discriminating against its non-Jewish citizens, he leaned in from the stage and cut her off, demanding she “get over it.”

Putting aside the fact that a people cannot develop, rebuild or “get over it” when still legally treated as second-class citizens, Dershowitz undermined his own call for open debate and callously dismissed a student’s history of suffering. The crowd gasped when the student asked if this logic suggests Jews get over the Holocaust, but applauded when Dershowitz stated they have. Perhaps Dershowitz would also suggest that Palestinians receive reparations from Israel, as Jews did from Germany.

Dershowitz then denied that there is a humanitarian situation in Gaza. One student challenged him, citing examples of limitations on fruits and vegetables as one of many examples of such a crisis. Dershowitz dismissed this as superfluous, brazenly stating that the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto would have been glad to have such a range of choice, and adding that this range was probably greater than in Martha’s Vineyard. The coarseness of his joke combined with the chuckles and applause in response led one student to leave the room in tears. There is no greater way to profane the memory of those at Warsaw than to use their suffering as a way — as a rhetorical weapon — to justify living conditions in Gaza as somehow better than the former.

Yasmin Zaher, Jordan Laris Cohen, Aminah Zaghab and Alexandra Dennett are sophomores in Saybrook, Jonathan Edwards, Ezra Stiles, and Pierson Colleges, respectively.