Alan Dershowitz is one of the most famous names in the American legal profession, his counsel highly sought after. Now he will be offering his counsel to our readers, as the Forward’s next Bintel Brief guest advice columnist.
In addition to his stellar legal career, the famed Harvard Law professor has distinguished himself as one of America’s leading Jewish activists and most prolific pundits. With such books as “The Vanishing American Jew,” “The Case for Israel” and “The Case for Peace,” he has shaped the Jewish communal conversation.
Are you facing a Jewish dilemma, an ethical conundrum or family difficulties? Could you use some advice related to advocacy or activism? Send your questions for the Bintel Brief to bintelblog@forward.com.
Check the Forward’s Web site Mondays in July for new installments of the Bintel Brief, featuring Dershowitz dispensing some wise counsel. (He will not, however, be giving legal advice.)
I don't have a question, but I wanted to express my delight as well as surprise at Dershowitz' presence here. I hope his liberal daring and fighting spirit will rub off on the Forward writers and readerers.
Dr. Dershowitz: The Forward set up link to an article by Eric Alterman called "Marty Peretz Problem." The piece is an assault on a great editor. Don't you think this great Yiddish paper in translation should offer a chance for its readers to talk back to Mr Alterman? Alterman is obsessed not just By Martin Peretz but by The New York Sun and other non leftist liberal publications. The readers of the Forward should have a chance to respond here to his tendentious article.
Finkelstein is of course also a polemicist, but at least most of his cited references check out. What's troubling is that Dershowitz, who has relied in his writings on thoroughly discredited works like Joan Peters' From Time Immemorial, feels free to attack Finkelstein's tenure application based on arguments he has made. It's correct that Dershowitz in his role as lawyer quite properly represents people without certifying to their character or innocence, and in the course of representation can make arguments he might not accept if he were the judge in the case. But in court he could not be as sloppy as he sometimes is with his facts and arguments, nor could he attack the character of his opponent with impunity. Unfortunately, there is no presiding judge in public debates to rule him out of order, so it's up to other participants to call him on such things.
Raul Hilberg, the father of Holocaust Studies, is one of the many scholars who have supported Dr. Finkelstein against Dershowitz's charges. As time goes on, Alan Dershowitz becomes more and more an opponent of academic freedom. Due to limitations of space, I will not recount his sad record in this area. To watch a video of Dershowitz in the act of fabricating silly excuses for torture and worse, see the link at Harvard's Institute of Politics or read the transcript of "Israel and Palestine After Disengagement" at http://www.iop.harvard.edu/pdfs/transcripts/chomsky_dershowitz_11.29.05.pdf
Professor Dershowitz: You argue that attacks on civilians can never be justified (you define this as "terrorism"). But what exactly is the difference between deliberately attacking civilians to achieve a political goal and attacking a military target for the same reason, if one is 100% certain that civilians will still be killed in the process? Even if the civilian deaths were unintended, if they were certain to happen they aren't "accidental" in the normal sense of the term. Suppose a truck driver is traveling at an acceptable speed and is totally concentrated on the road. A child dashes in front of the truck and is killed. This is a real accident. The preordained deaths of civilians in a military attack, however "unintentional," are not. Furthermore, it should be pointed out that under the laws of many U.S. states, a killing does not always have to be deliberate to be considered murder. There's the concept of "depraved indifference," where someone can be convicted of murder if they knew that their actions had a strong possibility of causing the death, and clearly did not care. This indifference takes the place of intent. Additionally, your reasoning concerning "intent" leads to some bizarre conclusions. Under your arguments, it would be immoral for the IRA to try to win the Northern Ireland conflict by placing a series of bombs in British pubs that killed 500 people. But it would be moral to seek the same goal by bombing military targets in British cities and killing 50,000 civilians in the process, just as long as there were no "deliberate" attacks on the civilians. I'm sorry, but this just doesn't make sense to me.
It is disgraceful that the Forward would give this Carpetbagging elitist a forum! Dershowitz was a major force in Norm Finkelstein being denied the tenure he deserved at DePaul. "Kosher" Stalinists like Dershowitz should be isolated from the Jewish community, not given more opportunities to stomp on the free expression of ideas!
Do you dream of Norman Finkelstein when you sleep? Do you wake up in a sweat? Hmmm...?
Why can't we put terrorist-funding and terrorist funded organizations (including the Palestinian Authority, Hamas AND Fatah) doing business in the US out of business through a deluge of class action lawsuits?
I am encouraged and proud to see the principled, sane opposition to Dershowitz that appears in this Comments section. Many blessings, especially, to Reb Ploni.
Dershowitz was an early adopter in the mainstreaming of torture. He should be shunned and reviled. "Are you facing an ethical conundrum?" I guess you are, and you blew it. Shame on you.
There are more than enough polemicists involved as advocates on Arab- Israeli issues. It doesn't help to have another one raising the heat and the decibel level with ad hominem attacks and bare-knuckle rhetoric -- e.g., the name-calling that Prof Dershowitz engaged in to challenge Professors Walt and Mearsheimer. Some of their arguments were vulnerable because they were badly sourced and over-broad. But by calling these prominent scholars anti-Semites and identifying them with David Duke and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Dershowitz (not for the first time)demonstrated more choler than talent. As he well knows, this kind of advocacy in a court of law would not be persuasive, but it would be sanctionable.
You can't be serious.
Dershowitz's integrity is highly questionable.
my mother has been forced to hire and pay for a black moslem aide who she abhors[mutually], by a hispanic judge and a converted jew lawyer under a guardian of her property ruling [not guardian of the person]. The judge with the appted guardian limit her contact with her children. Besides going to an appeal procedure what can be done? and why do judges decide they can dictate a persons lifestyle?
I used to like Dershowitz until he defended O.J. Simpson and declared that he was innocent. It is one thing to say that the State didn't prove his case, but it is disenguous to say that he was innocent. Dershowitz now has the blood of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson on his hands.
I think it would be fair to call you a staunch advocate of Israel -- of which there are many in America, on all sides of the political spectrum. There is also no shortage of impassioned Israel critics. I wonder, though, why there are not more people like myself who have no favorite in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, who find Israeli treatment of Arabs, particularly in the Occupied Territories, to be utterly unacceptable and yet can't condone the way Israel is always singled out for condemnation when it is by far the most liberal, enlightened nation in the Middle East. How is the average American to form anything like a realistic view of this critically important situation when it is presented almost exclusively through the filter of strident partisan voices?
Thanks to Prof.Dershowitz for the intervention in the case of Norman Finkelstein. I don't know if he called Prof. Walt and Maersheimer anti-Semites, but if he did, he was absolutely right. He defended O.J.Simpson because that's was defense lawyers usualy do, even if Prof.Dershowitz knows as well as Jerry Zusel, who the murderer was. There are many famous Jewish academics in America's campuses, but few are ready to defend Jewish causes and Israel as successfully as Prof. Dershowitz. Thank you, Professor !
Your recent reputation concerning the ad hominem assaults on the serious scholarship of Norman Finkelstein, frankly, tarnishes the good name of this publication.
Tyereh Professor: I am a recent immigrant to this country who escaped the Cossacks and the Czar's army to arrive here in the Goldene Medinah, land of the free. Tell me, when you justify torture how are you any different than the tyrants I fled in Russia? Reb Ploni
I too am encouraged and proud to see my fellow Jews challenge the extremism and one-sided arguments of Alan Dershowitz. I'm encouraged and proud that so many of my fellow Jews want to treat the Palestinians the same way we would like others to treat us.
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Mr.Dershowitz's expertise is needed to aid an excellent mother in Alaska who is in "change of circumstance" scrutiny(new modification heAring) in a contentious eight year old divorce case.A fourteen year old minor and several hundred thousand dollars worth of property ,rental,and mental anguish are being re-weighted.The best interests model(moved by maternal parent) has been advanced and scope,abuse of process, and improper weighting of mandated statutorily pertinent matters has been forwarded.This writer,Gail Brena is disgusted at the "open acess" files which has been advanced along with consolidation of decade old facts and figures.Hippaa violations,good cause and huge insult has been the vein of attack ,and the accountability and blame minimized beyond reason.The ex is an attorney who has mocked and disgraced the efficacy of the system he represents. The channels of relief for litigants have been manipulated in brutal fashion.Comply or die scenario was the offering of the Judge who literally refused to put Yom Kippur on the calendar -despite this writers outreach to the Lubavich Rabbi and her Jewish Congregation.The gender bias and abuse of process revolved solely on the husbands hearsay and profession. The statutorily pertinent factors are clearly better suited to the mother who was placed in a fraudelent settlement with then Judge Andrewsin 2003- the very same Judge had been disqualified.Hopes of shared custody and undisclosed factors of Judges desire to close the case as opposed to use due process and legitimate investigation of the mothers actions and court reviews of negligence . At the core of the issue are Joint passed psych evals,mishandled inheritance porperty of the Jewish mothers Deceased mother (Andrewes wrongfully had it absorbed as marital)and finally a current review of the custodial who has remarried ,bought a house in Cananda,where the second wife lives; a house in Hawaii where he intends to disrupt stability and extend vacations, when not in Washington DC to continue his law practice and uphold businness in Alaska.In short he is gone three fourths of the time and has sub-par hired help literally disturbing the peace and robbing the minor of a natural parents love and support.Although there are the questions of bringing in hired outside attorneys -there is the hope that I could engage Mr.Dershowitz as "on-call" counsel and perhaps alleviate the avalanche of failings in the Alaska court 's role in protecting and providing for this family in a fair and just manner.The court has wrongfully refused to cash out four hundred thousand dolaars which placed the ex in a realtor and controlling mode over this writers life.Should there be the possibility of hire this writer is willing to negotiate with the new compilation of values in the matters -the estate being worth well over one million dollars.If you could ,there will be a trial in July.I will forward airfare and sign any compromising support.Thank you so much.Looking for a reversal of fortune-Gail Nash Brena
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