Yesterday the story leaked that Alan Dershowitz was calling members of Hampshire Students for Justice in Palestine and threatening to organize an international boycott of the school following its decision to divest from the Israeli occupation. Dershowitz has clarified his intention in Inside Higher Ed:
Dershowitz, a Harvard University law professor and well known supporter of Israel, threatened to unleash a campaign against the college, and issue a call for donors to withhold contributions, unless Hampshire resolves any ambiguities and clearly states that it rejects student efforts to divest from the Jewish state. “What they have to do is make it impossible for the students to plausibly be able to declare victory,” said Dershowitz, whose son went to Hampshire.
“They want me on their side, they want the anti-Israel students on their side, they want everybody on their side. But unfortunately the divestment campaign is a zero-sum game. Both sides can’t win, and Hampshire let the anti-Israel students win and they will pay a heavy price for that. Unless they withdraw it, they withdraw it and they make it clear they have rejected these efforts to divest from Israel.”
Zero-sum game? Dershowitz is the one who is demanding that the College support Israel in lockstep with no questions asked. In fact, the Hampshire divestment campaign has been exemplary in not taking a zero-sum approach. Read the students own explanation of their divestment effort from their website:
Due to numerous questions over the nature of divestment in the above call for divestment, SJP has added the following addendum to clarify what is meant by divestment.
Investments should not be made in any company that provides products or services, including financial services, to Israeli governmental or military bodies that are used to facilitate or undertake violent acts against civilians or violations of international law, or to Israeli or Palestinian organizations or groups that are used to facilitate or undertake violent acts against civilians or violations of international law.
For the purposes of this investment screen this would include companies that:
1. Provide products or services that contribute to the maintenance of the Israeli military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem;
2. Provide products or services that contribute to the maintenance and expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories;
3. Establish facilities or operations in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories;
4. Provide products or services that contribute to the maintenance and construction of the Separation Wall;
5. Provide products or services that contribute to violent acts that target either Israeli or Palestinian civilians.
The call is to divest from "products or services that contribute to violent acts that target either Israeli or Palestinian civilians." To make sure that Hampshire is not invested in any company benefiting from violence towards either Palestinians or Israelis. This is a balanced and ethical approach. The exact opposite of Dershowitz's demand the Hampshire blindly support Israeli militarism and expansionism.
It also forces the question of where is the US invested in this conflict? Are US institutions funding suicide bombers? Of course not. Are US institutions funding the carnage in Gaza. Yes. This is the double standard this divestment effort seeks to address. Although the language passed is balanced, the situation is not and so the college's divestment action will be focused on Israel. Hampshire student Matan Cohen made this point yesterday in the Jerusalem Post:
Asked if the SJP would encourage the college to divest from companies providing similar "dual-use" products in Gaza that assist Hamas's fighting efforts, Cohen replied, "the bottom line is that we as an institution have money invested in the Israeli occupation. We do not have money in Hamas. So it's a non-issue."
Dershowitz wants this reality to be ignored. The fact that the Hampshire divestment effort has already raised this issue means that it's too late to prevent the students from declaring victory. (Adam Horowitz)
from jewsagainstzionism.com
Jacob Klatzkin
Zionist Ideologist
In 1921, Germans in Germany were told that:
“We Jews are aliens… a foreign people in your midst and we… wish to stay that way. A Jew can never be a loyal German; whoever calls the foreign land his Fatherland is a traitor to the Jewish people“.
Dershowitz makes clear that Israel and its Illegal Occupation of Palestine are synonymous: he conflates divestment from Occupation and theft with being "anti-Israel."
Let's contribute to Hampshire and send letters of support.
First Dershowitz is there involving himself in DePaul's business with Finklestein, then we got Peretz sneering at Manchester U., and now we got Dershowitz glowering at yet another University.
One wonders just how all the other educational institutions in the world take to having Harvard's name associated with attempts to interfere with them, disparage them or threaten them. Indeed you wonder just how Harvard's administration and faculty might react if these other institutions and Harvard's own alumni told them they didn't exactly appreciate having Harvard's name associated with such things. Not very … collegial after all.
Does Harvard really want to have its name co-opted by this kind of partisan movement, in this belligerent a way? Betcha there's any number of Harvard profs who cringe at being associated with either Dershowitz or Peretz. Time for the herd of (self-regarding) independent minds to stand up maybe.
There's a joke that's pertinent here. How can you tell when a lawyer is lying? His lips are moving. When it comes to Dershowitz and Israel, that's almost literally true. Why does anyone pay any attention to what that loudmouthed clod says?
Alan Dershowitz is a creepy middle aged clown – lets call him for what he is.
Actually, Dersh is a trial lawyer. The purpose of a trial lawyer in US law is to advocate for one side or the other. That's their job. It's up to the judge or jury to bring in the verdict. Dersh's whole approach is to advocate for one side. Nobody with the slightest bit of knowledge
about the American system would say otherwise. The problem is dear Dersh has taken that same approach into the arena of more pure politics. If you are looking for truth and morality as a trial lawyer, in either criminal or civil law, you don't last long, especially not on a par with what you
(or your parents) paid in terms of paying for a law school education and in time spent in pursuit thereof. Our journalists and congressional reps are the ones who's job definitions require the exposure of all objective facts on any issue, and constant pursuit of same. So that
the ultimate judge (in theory at least), the USA citizens all, can bring in the verdict, and the government is suppose to act accordingly. We the people, by the people, for the people, etc–the USA's grand experiment with history….
This grand experiment is being snatched away by rodents Lincoln would recognize if he lived today.
If Lincoln were alive, he'd recognize you as a cockroach.
Good point about Dershowitz, Citizen. The problem is that right now, it is not the opinion of average American that he is seeking to influence.
I believe that Dershowitz is preaching to the converted: he is telling people who have influence to mobilize and adress the issue of Hampshire: Who understands the references of "this is a zero-sum game"?
It is the same people who dread the concept of "fairness" with relation to American administration's approach to Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Zero sum game is not giving advantage to Israel, which they believe Israel is entitled to, right or wrong.
Having said that, I truly believe that average Jewish person's inability to see Israel as less than righteous is the same as average German's person's inablitity to see Germany as less than righteous at the time when both countries were/are hurling towards fascism with the speed and inevitabilty of an asteroid.
@Eva Smeghead
A zero sum game is a game in which there are as many losers as winners. Losing means (-1) winning means (+1) and a draw means (+0). Add up all the points for all sides at the end of the game and they add up to zero. Chess and poker are zero sum games (assuming no rake off for the house).
Dershowitz is saying that Hampshire should have the courage of its convictions, whatever they are. That they should either repudiate anti-Semitism (and lose the favor of the anti-Semites) or embrace anti-Semitism (and lose the favor of the Jews, other than Kapos like Phil). They should dump this wishy-washy attempt to be ambiguous.
As for companies that invest in Hamas. Every weapon they make comes from materials made elsewhere. Companies openly do business with Israel and covertly do business with Hamas, through third parties.
Suggesting that it is ok to divest from companies that do business with Israel because you don't have investments in companies that directly do business with Hamas is like saying it is OK to divest from companies that do business with America because you don't have investments in companies that directly do business with al-qaeda.
It's their money, they can invest it however they want to, within the bounds of the law. However, like most decisions, their choice of whether to divest may affect the willingness of other people or businesses to do business with them. Whether increasing the chances or decreasing them, or more likely both.
They have to decide whether whatever stand they want to take is worth losing the good will of people on the side they don't take.
Saying that there is something wrong in Dershowitz or other Jews pointing out that they can lose donors if they back the student pressure group is ridiculous. They are already under pressure from the student group to support the terrorists by harming the defenders, why shouldn't people who support the defenders put counter pressure on them to do the right thing despite the student protest group?
The whole point of Judiasm is that it is a zero sum game. Two opponents: Jews, Goys. Look at the bible for god's sake. And let's not mention the Talmud, where the commentary goes on and on, always assuming your neighbor is your jewish neighbor. The Other is
=to cattle.
This should be said: Hamas is a product of, not a cause, of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Critiquing divestment through an elaborate argument about funding Hamas is skirting the issue entirely.